Sure: the author of a particular article may just want it to be read and shared as widely as possible. But what’s locally best for them is not necessarily the same as what’s globally best for the LW community.
Put yourself in a different role: you’re reading something of the sort that might be on LW. Would you prefer to read and discuss it here or on Facebook? For me, the answer is “definitely here”. If your answer is generally “Facebook” then it seems to me that you want your writings discussed on Facebook, you want to discuss things on Facebook, and what would suit you best is for Less Wrong to go away and for people to just post things on Facebook. Which is certainly a preference you’re entitled to have, but I don’t think Less Wrong should be optimizing for people who feel that way.
I do prefer to read and discuss on LW over discussing on Facebook. As a reader of a post on LW I don’t think it harms me much when a post gets linked on Facebook.
I don’t think this will result on average in fewer comments on LW.com. If people click on the link to LW within Facebook they can both comment on LW and on Facebook. Many of the people who see the post on Facebook would have never read the post otherwise or engaged with it.
External links also increase page-rank which means that posts show up more prominently on Google and additional people will discover LessWrong.
As far as optimization goes, I would prefer LW to optimize to motivate people to write great posts over organizing it in a way that optimizes the reading experience.
Sure: the author of a particular article may just want it to be read and shared as widely as possible. But what’s locally best for them is not necessarily the same as what’s globally best for the LW community.
Put yourself in a different role: you’re reading something of the sort that might be on LW. Would you prefer to read and discuss it here or on Facebook? For me, the answer is “definitely here”. If your answer is generally “Facebook” then it seems to me that you want your writings discussed on Facebook, you want to discuss things on Facebook, and what would suit you best is for Less Wrong to go away and for people to just post things on Facebook. Which is certainly a preference you’re entitled to have, but I don’t think Less Wrong should be optimizing for people who feel that way.
I do prefer to read and discuss on LW over discussing on Facebook. As a reader of a post on LW I don’t think it harms me much when a post gets linked on Facebook.
I don’t think this will result on average in fewer comments on LW.com. If people click on the link to LW within Facebook they can both comment on LW and on Facebook. Many of the people who see the post on Facebook would have never read the post otherwise or engaged with it.
External links also increase page-rank which means that posts show up more prominently on Google and additional people will discover LessWrong.
As far as optimization goes, I would prefer LW to optimize to motivate people to write great posts over organizing it in a way that optimizes the reading experience.