Posting near the end of an open thread’s lifetime is (maybe) like cooperating near the end of an iterated prisoners’ dilemma: others benefit (by having interesting discussions available more of the time) but you lose (by having what you post seen by fewer people).
One way one avoids this in IPD tournaments is by making the end uncertain (e.g., each turn after the 100th there’s a 1% chance that the game ends). It would be interesting (though, frankly, probably not worth the effort) to randomize the starting of open threads in a similar way: e.g., once 3 days have elapsed, each hour a new thread gets started with probability 1%.
Posting near the end of an open thread’s lifetime is (maybe) like cooperating near the end of an iterated prisoners’ dilemma: others benefit (by having interesting discussions available more of the time) but you lose (by having what you post seen by fewer people).
One way one avoids this in IPD tournaments is by making the end uncertain (e.g., each turn after the 100th there’s a 1% chance that the game ends). It would be interesting (though, frankly, probably not worth the effort) to randomize the starting of open threads in a similar way: e.g., once 3 days have elapsed, each hour a new thread gets started with probability 1%.