I've only recently started posting on EA Forum, so my 2 cents may be useful as feedback from a newbie, but also with the caveat that it's from a newbie!
1. Often times I just want to say "thank you for making the effort, for taking the time, for writing this post and/or for doing the research behind it". This can be separate from judgment about quality or agreement, it's just saying "I see you put a lot of effort into this, and I appreciate that." Even just to say "I read this". My fear when writing a new post is not that people will disagree with it (which sparks useful discussion), but rather that nobody will read it at all, and my time will have been wasted. So I think any kind of feedback that says "thanks for writing this" or "I read this" or just tracks the number of reads, can be important, especially for people who are new to the forum and don't have a ready audience.
2. Related to the above, I'd appreciate clarity on how people feel about short, positive feedbacks, like "great post" or "fully agree". It's interesting that you say people would like more of this, because my natural reaction has always been to do that on every forum I've ever been on when I read a good post, usually with a few words explaining what I particularly liked. But here I don't feel comfortable doing that - literally. It feels out-of-place, as if people don't like that. Almost all the comments I see are about disagreements. (this is a very subjective, non-data-based impression!)
3. Feedback is a wonderful gift, and EA Forum readers are a great resource. If someone spends X minutes reading my post or comment, I would LOVE to know what they think of it. Especially the disagreements or constructive feedback, so I can get better. I've got a few negative karmas where there was no comment to indicate what exactly the disagreement or feedback was. I didn't really know what to do with them. Someone took some of their valuable time to read my post, and thought about it - and I appreciate that. Then they gave some feedback on my post, which is great. Except that the feedback doesn't really tell me what they think I should change! Feedback in the form of words will help me write better next time. I totally know my posts need work, just point me in the right direction :). If people feel bad about writing constructive (negative?) comments publicly, is there an option for "visible only to author" comments or even "anonymous and visible only to author" comments?
It's great that you're looking into this, it can make the Forum even better!
I'd consider adding a single negative reaction -- a generic disagree -- to posts. I'd rather people select that than downvoting karma to express disagreement, which is I think what too often happens.
I think retaining the ability to anonymously express agreement or disagreement in some fashion is critical -- and would prefer that mechanism not be karma-upvote/downvote. My recollection is that some people have expressed concerns about what they say on the Forum in good faith having an adverse professional impact on them. Whether or not those concerns are well-founded in fact, disallowing the option for anonymity may render reported levels of support for a post or comment less accurate.
Thanks, I think this is a good point. We'll try out what a clear negative react at the post level could be to see if we can maintain this option for readers. FWIW, one reason we don't have agree/disagree at the post level is that a post often contains a bunch of different points, which makes it hard to agree/disagree on the whole.
Even if it's true that it can be hard to agree or disagree with a post as a whole, I do get the impression that people sometimes feel like they disagree with posts as a whole, and so simply downvote the post.
Also, I suspect it is possible to disagree with a post as a whole. Many posts are structured like "argument 1, argument 2, argument 3, therefore conclusion". If you disagree with the conclusion, I think it's reasonable to say that that's disagreeing with the post as a whole. If you agree with the arguments and the conclusion, then you agree with the post as a whole. Otherwise, I agree it's more ambiguous, but people then have the option of not agree/disagree-voting.
What's the downside of allowing this post-level agree/disagree voting that the team is worried about? (I'm not saying there isn't one, just that I can't immediately see it.)
I'd personally much rather have agree/disagree on posts than these reactions, if we had to pick. I'm not sure if these reactions add any useful information. But I'm happy to see you're trying to make it simpler than at LessWrong. Curious to hear what the other reasons are for no agree/disagree on posts. I frequently upvote posts I disagree with and would like to express that disagreement without writing a comment. Maybe agree/disagrees can be optionally set by the authors of the post?