Why are you reluctant to write on the EA Forum? (Responses, public)

	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L
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2	Why are you reluctant to write on the EA Forum? What would make it easier?	Is there anything else you would like to share?	Reputational damage	Bar is very high	Too time-consuming	Karma dynamics	excessively critical atmosphere	Over- moderated	Lack of time	Emotional burden	Low quality of discourse

3	It's moderated to death and has an oppressive downvotes system for anything controversial. Just chill out on the moderation and aim for a more wide-ranging exchange of an ideas. LessWrong is much better here!					1		1
4	Having more time, probably.								1
5	I worry about whether I would build a negative reputation for myself, or offend a future employer. Also, I find the bar to contribute a bit high, especially on the more technical posts. That said, I do not contribute in general on any public forums in general, so my experience here is not unusual, and I have intentions to post in the near future. For making it easier, more post like these which are aimed at trying to get more people contributing.	Thanks for this initiative!	1	1
6	EA Forum is heavy on warnings and bans	I'd like to build an online presence somewhere where users aren't overly banned						1
7	I dislike getting downvotes and disagree-votes (especially on comments or posts which are quite friendly or which aren't making any kind of a stance/argument/claim).					1
8	Because the karma system disincentivizes it. If you write a critique on a post with high-karma authors, they can just strong-downvote your comment and delete it from the frontpage, which just leaves you with less karma and voting power in the future (and other people can see your comment-to-karma ratio and judge you). People with more voting power can downvote people they disagree with giving them less voting power (and thereby less voting power they can distribute to other people of similar sentiment etc etc ad infinitum) while conversely upvote things they agree with giving those people more voting power (and thereby more voting power they can distribute to people they agree with etc etc). It's also not in your best interest to point this out because when I did, I (obviously) lost karma even though more people upvoted it, because the people with undemocratic voting power don't want to give it up. This whole system creates groupthink and soft-censorship and makes me loathe the EA-forum. If the amount of upvotes and downvotes you got didn't influence your voting power (and was made less prominent), we would have less groupthink and (pertaining to your question) I would be reading and writing on the EA-forum often and happily, instead of seldom and begrudgingly.	I think this system-change would greatly ameliorate groupthink and soft-censorship, but it obviously won't be liked by the current EA-forum power-users. So please also think about the people who avoid the EA-forum that you're missing out on, that would've told you this if they hadn't left long ago.				1
9	Quality of discourse is too low. Views are very homogenous and extreme.	For an internet forum it's pretty good. But it's still an internet forum. Not many good discussions happen on the internet.									1
10	The atmosphere in the forum often comes across to me as adversarial and aggressive. I feel like many people on the forum happily sacrifice politeness, because they confuse being rude with being honest.						1
11	Status/respect/prestige/perceived competence in EA is very important (for getting jobs, grants, having an impact by influencing others, other opportunities). If you post something on the Forum that people think is bad it can/will lower your status/respect. As such, posting anything at all is risky (while of course it also has the chance to increase your status/respect etc.). It's unclear what would reduce this barrier aside from anonymous posting. However, this is difficult in some cases (e.g. where writing about given topics/experiences would de-anonymise you).		1
12	Because I am concerned about my personal reputation and that, if I say something stupid that people will think less of me, reducing the amount of opportunities for the future. I also think that many of the posts require some in-depth thought to come up with a worthy reply. Also, if there is already a similar response to what I would comment on I am less likely to post.		1
13	Amount of time, energy, and effort required for a good post. I have expertise in a specialist industry that would be very helpful for forum users, but often I just can't justify the time spent on one. I think specific 'calls for posts' would be useful (though there was recently a post like that by forum team, which was good) but also micro-prizes. Perhaps small cash or other incentives given each month for best posts in certain categories, or do competitions, or some such measure? That added boost of incentive and the chance that the hours spent on a post may be reimbursed somehow.	Forum team do a great job :)			1
14	Reasons I'm reluctant to write on the EA Forum: - EA Forum posts & comments are time consuming to write - The average quality of a given comment/post seems extremely high and I'm not willing to put in the time/effort unless it's absolutely worthwhile - I have reservations about "outing" my perceived lack of intellect - this may just be due to imposter syndrome - Most people are lurkers on the Internet. I don't think the EA Forum is unique in this regard - https://www.nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/ What would make it easier: - Discussions that are less tied to specific identities and less time-consuming to process - more Polis like discussions that allow participants to maintain anonymity, while also being able to understand the shape of arguments.		1	1	1
15	It's a small community and I fear people (peers and future employers) might judge me based on what I write. Also harsh criticism		1				1
16	The bar feels very high!			1
17	Takes time and effort. Also not sure if I have anything new to say.								1
18	The expectation of quality. Many posts on EA Forum are very thorough and well-researched. I have interesting ideas I'd like to share and get feedback on, but I feel a pressure to deeply research them before posting. This anticipated effort prevents me from starting. I'm not sure if anything could help, however, except for finding more time to devote to documenting research on my EA-adjacent interests.			1
19	My career's future is very much tied up in EA, which is still in early-ish stages. I currently have no posts on any forum. If I write one post and it is not well recieved, then that will be the total of my searchable presence on the EA forum, and the internet in general. I would feel better about writing something if I already had an average or better track record. I'm (perhaps unreasonably) concerned that if what I wrote was low-quality it would affect my ability to get a job in the future.	In the past I've considered writing under a pseudonym. There are the obvious benefits and costs to this, both for the individual and as a practice within a forum community.	1
20	Mostly a fear of the time/emotional cost of making posts. I have a perception that the personal effort required to make and maintain a post will, more often than not, outweigh the benefits to the community. This includes responding to comments and adding edits, as this longer time commitment beyond the initial post can disrupt other projects.	I think there could be a benefit to having an environment specifically for "half-baked" lower effort posts, but I'm not sure what this would look like.			1					1
21	I’m not sure if I’ll be able to write something “quality” or be seen as a meaningful contribution, since there’s already so much good content out there and my post would become “yet another write up about x”. And because of that, I don’t know where to start.			1
22	Potential for a very harsh criticism. Feel like the posts need to be absolutely perfect. Having a good mix of positive and constructive criticism culture in the comments. However, even commenting positively feels like a tall task in case the article turns out to include mistakes in which case you have endorsed such mistakes inevitably. Thus, you need to have critically analysed the article very thoroughly even before commenting simple things. I'm not sure if comment section can include "i've read x% of the article before this comment"?			1			1
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