The (Unofficial) Less Wrong Comment Challenge

Thanks for the feedback and the worries! I actually already added caveats to my original challenge, including giving me a bit more time to comment. This is easier for me to implement than a policy about the posts with the least comments or karma, because these things change. And I also like the challenge of reading beyond what I would usually read on LW.

On the effect of my challenge, I somehow doubt that just having me comment more will make everyone post more. That being said, there are indeed more posts these last few days than for many previous days. I leave myself some margin to not comment on everything if there are 30+ frontpage posts per day, but I don't think we're there yet.

Worth noting, you can comment on questions without answering them (the site treats them differently). I've found that most question posts contain enough information that can be meaningful responded to without attempting to answer the question

Logging my failures, which might help in understand what is feasible and unfeasible in this challenge:

• 1st day (11th November): Failed to comment on The Darwin Game - Rounds 1 to 2 [LW · GW], which is cool but I'm not following the game, so I have nothing to say about it.
• 3rd day (13th November): Failed to comment on A framework for thinking about single predictions [LW · GW], because I'm really not into forecasting, and don't know enough to provide any kind of constructive feedback.
• 4th day (14th November): Failed to comment on Specialized Labor and Counterfactual Compensation [LW · GW]because it's a complex subject in which I know almost nothing about and which doesn't interests me.
• 8th day (18th November): Failed to comment on Solomonoff Induction and Sleeping Beauty [LW · GW] because I don't have the background and the post doesn't reexplain the main points necessary for me to get it, and failed to comment on Propinquity Cities So Far [LW · GW] because I could not understand half the things I was reading -- to much economics for my current level.
• 10th day (20th November): Failed to comment on Simpson's paradox and the tyranny of strata [LW · GW] because I didn't know the paradox well enough to judge this post. One day late for commenting on Inner Alignment in Salt-Starved Rats [AF · GW] because I was tired and busy.
• 12th day (22nd November): Failed to comment on It’s not economically inefficient for a UBI to reduce recipient’s employment [LW · GW] because I had nothing relevant to add to the discussion, and it seemed like the kind of post where comments without content are a negative.
• 13th day to 17th day (23rd November to 27th November): Complete failure. I did comment some posts, but there is not a single day in this interval where I commented every post. Oops.
• 20th day (30th November): Half a failure. Missed 3/4 posts.

I interpret the quoted statement as "I am willing to make an effort that I don't usually do, by commenting more, based on your assessment of the importance of giving feedback", assuming good faith.

There's an uncertainty, of course, as whether it will actually turn out important. "I can try" suggests they will try even if they don't know, and we won't know if they will succeed until they try.

Yes, you can interpret the statement in an uncharitable way with respect to their goodwill, but this is not what is, in my opinion, conducive to healthy comment sections in general.

Some authors have stated [LW(p) · GW(p)] their preferences on this (generally such comments are marginally positive but stating one specific thing you liked is a big improvement).

I was indeed wondering about it as I just read your first comment :D

For extra convenience you could even comment again with your alt account (wait, which is the main? Which is the alt? Does it matter?)

I don't think that having feedback, even if only something like "I like this post"/"I disliked this post"/"I had trouble to care", is noise. For me, this is incredibly important, and every person I talked with on this subject agreed.

Whether people agree is beside the point. Is this actually true? To figure it out, it's necessary to be more clear on what the statement means. In what way, specifically, is this kind of feedback important? If someone says "I like your post", it's very hard to learn anything in particular from that. If it's customary to say things like that, some people would just say them out of misplaced general niceness, and there will be even less meaning in the utterance. (Also, there are upvotes/downvotes to indicate precisely that kind of feedback.) Some people like hearing that someone likes their posts, but that's different from feedback being instructive. Noise can be pleasant without being enlightening. Finally, it can be motivating to hear that your work is appreciated.

It seems that it's false that this kind of feedback is important for learning things, but true that it's important for motivation of some authors. These are different claims that shouldn't be mixed up. When you say "every person I talked with on this subject agreed", do you (or they) know what exactly they agree with?

I don't think it will actually push readers away, because they are in total control of their level of commitment.

Unfortunately, norms don't like nuance. This post is very far from igniting a norm, but if hypothetically what it suggests bears fruit, it will be in the form of a norm to comment more, and that norm will end up punishing defectors regardless of whether that was an intended feature of the norm or not.

If a youtube channel would say "I challenege you to comment this video" that woudl be comparble challenge level.

While it can be techically correct there is a trend going on which could be a ask or recommendation, or anything other is stated as a challenge instead.

If I do this ask it is not like I win or that I feel I have achieved something. It is not a big thing but for whoever is concerned about semantics inflation this is how it looks like.