My impression has been that Main is for things that are in the same vein as Eliezer’s sequences, while Discussion is more forum-equivalent, for whatever stuff comes to mind or seems interesting today—if you think of LW as a newspaper, Main means you’re trying to be a columnist, Discussions are more letters to the editor. Another way of thinking of it is that if someone ever posted an attack piece about LW, I would imagine “That was just some guy posting in Discussion” to be a valid defence, while anything posted in Main would be fair game. (Main postings are moderated, correct?)
Main is moderated in the sense that many posts are demoted to discussion, but posting to it does not require explicit permission of the admins. There’s also a third section, “promoted,” which is a subset of main chosen by admins.
My impression has been that Main is for things that are in the same vein as Eliezer’s sequences, while Discussion is more forum-equivalent, for whatever stuff comes to mind or seems interesting today—if you think of LW as a newspaper, Main means you’re trying to be a columnist, Discussions are more letters to the editor. Another way of thinking of it is that if someone ever posted an attack piece about LW, I would imagine “That was just some guy posting in Discussion” to be a valid defence, while anything posted in Main would be fair game. (Main postings are moderated, correct?)
Personally, I don’t even look at Main.
Main is moderated in the sense that many posts are demoted to discussion, but posting to it does not require explicit permission of the admins. There’s also a third section, “promoted,” which is a subset of main chosen by admins.