I think it is good to have some difference between “respected members” and “newcomers”. For example on LW website we have karma, but that would not work offline. The difference can motivate the new members to do tasks that are likely to bring them membership in the respected group.
Before LW, my favorite web forum was the developer forum for Battle for Wesnoth. The discussions there were about many things, including politics and other potentially mindkilling stuff. The forum didn’t have karma, but in some sense there were “respected members”: the people who contributed to the game. When a conflict started, the project contributors had an advantage. And they were usually significantly more rational then the other side. Partially it was because they had something to protect: the game. For example, when a new idea was proposed for the game, they were likely to evaluate not just how cool could it be, but also how much work and maintenance would it require and what could possibly go wrong. Partially it was because the type of people who talk a lot, enjoy conflicts, but never do anything useful, were not among them. Some people join a project forum not because they want to help a project, but because they merely want to “express their opinions”; it is good to have a filter that separates them from people who really want to do something meaningful. -- Because the whole system was informal, I cannot say exactly how many “levels” there were, and what exactly were their requirements.
Analogically, in a rationalist community, people should be respected for something else than being a good speaker or being able to create a faction within the community. One obvious level is working for MIRI or CFAR. But that’s too high; we need lower levels, too. The level one should be possible to reach relatively simply, but not automatically by merely coming to meetups. It should be “something useful beyond mere socializing”. Such as: organizing the meetups, translating a part of the Sequences, making a lecture about a rationalist topic, creating and distributing HP:MoR flyers, etc. Because there are things that should be done; so it makes sense to reward them. Also, this helps to select the subset of our kind that can cooperate; it can be useful if they recognize each other explicitly.
Because the whole system was informal, I cannot say exactly how many “levels” there were, and what exactly were their requirements.
but it still seems to have worked. That seems to imply the a precise definition of levels is not needed (and might be associated with phyg). But that doesn’t preclude from using recognizable plain terms to refer to community members.
You mention MIRI and CFAR volunteers and meetup organizers. The survey mentions lurkers and poster of Comments, Discussion and Main. Are there any more in between? Is going to meetups a requirement for ‘advancement’? Not being (able) to go to a meetup (yet) I nonetheless would think that it is required to establish a real social connection.
Maybe you are right. I see some differences, but I am not sure how important they are.
There are people who contribute to the mission, but are not visible. They can work for MIRI or CFAR, but be completely invisible in the forum (or just a little visible, but not using their real name, so almost no one connects their opinions online with the fact that they also contribute their work). On the other hand, nothing prevents a person to get to the list of top contributors by merely writing a lot of sane comments. I would like to have a system which gives the former a higher position than the latter. But maybe it’s not really necessary. If someone from MIRI or CFAR would like to translate their job to karma points, they could achieve it easily by writing a few articles related to their work.
My personal informal ladder is like this: Leaders; MIRI/CFAR Team Members; Other Famous People; Meetup Contributors; Article Authors; Meetup Participants; Commenters; Lurkers. Of course it depends on e.g. how many and how good articles the person wrote, etc. So specifically in my system you would be already higher than people who merely participate in the meetups, but you could gain a higher level by helping to organize one in your area. Or you could skip the meetup levels by becoming sufficiently famous or cooperating on a CFAR project. Now that I think about it more, the system does not need to be linear: the levels I wrote would naturally separate into parallel “online” and “offline” branches.
The important thing: I would like to encourage people to spend more effort in the “offline” branch, if possible. Again, it depends on the scale of contribution: writing HP:MoR is more useful than organizing a local meetup; but writing a thousand moderately smart comments is probably not. (And even within the “online” branch, I would like people to write a high-quality article about a topic they understand instead of thousand moderately smart comments.)
I think it is good to have some difference between “respected members” and “newcomers”. For example on LW website we have karma, but that would not work offline. The difference can motivate the new members to do tasks that are likely to bring them membership in the respected group.
Before LW, my favorite web forum was the developer forum for Battle for Wesnoth. The discussions there were about many things, including politics and other potentially mindkilling stuff. The forum didn’t have karma, but in some sense there were “respected members”: the people who contributed to the game. When a conflict started, the project contributors had an advantage. And they were usually significantly more rational then the other side. Partially it was because they had something to protect: the game. For example, when a new idea was proposed for the game, they were likely to evaluate not just how cool could it be, but also how much work and maintenance would it require and what could possibly go wrong. Partially it was because the type of people who talk a lot, enjoy conflicts, but never do anything useful, were not among them. Some people join a project forum not because they want to help a project, but because they merely want to “express their opinions”; it is good to have a filter that separates them from people who really want to do something meaningful. -- Because the whole system was informal, I cannot say exactly how many “levels” there were, and what exactly were their requirements.
Analogically, in a rationalist community, people should be respected for something else than being a good speaker or being able to create a faction within the community. One obvious level is working for MIRI or CFAR. But that’s too high; we need lower levels, too. The level one should be possible to reach relatively simply, but not automatically by merely coming to meetups. It should be “something useful beyond mere socializing”. Such as: organizing the meetups, translating a part of the Sequences, making a lecture about a rationalist topic, creating and distributing HP:MoR flyers, etc. Because there are things that should be done; so it makes sense to reward them. Also, this helps to select the subset of our kind that can cooperate; it can be useful if they recognize each other explicitly.
You say that
but it still seems to have worked. That seems to imply the a precise definition of levels is not needed (and might be associated with phyg). But that doesn’t preclude from using recognizable plain terms to refer to community members.
You mention MIRI and CFAR volunteers and meetup organizers. The survey mentions lurkers and poster of Comments, Discussion and Main. Are there any more in between? Is going to meetups a requirement for ‘advancement’? Not being (able) to go to a meetup (yet) I nonetheless would think that it is required to establish a real social connection.
Maybe you are right. I see some differences, but I am not sure how important they are.
There are people who contribute to the mission, but are not visible. They can work for MIRI or CFAR, but be completely invisible in the forum (or just a little visible, but not using their real name, so almost no one connects their opinions online with the fact that they also contribute their work). On the other hand, nothing prevents a person to get to the list of top contributors by merely writing a lot of sane comments. I would like to have a system which gives the former a higher position than the latter. But maybe it’s not really necessary. If someone from MIRI or CFAR would like to translate their job to karma points, they could achieve it easily by writing a few articles related to their work.
My personal informal ladder is like this: Leaders; MIRI/CFAR Team Members; Other Famous People; Meetup Contributors; Article Authors; Meetup Participants; Commenters; Lurkers. Of course it depends on e.g. how many and how good articles the person wrote, etc. So specifically in my system you would be already higher than people who merely participate in the meetups, but you could gain a higher level by helping to organize one in your area. Or you could skip the meetup levels by becoming sufficiently famous or cooperating on a CFAR project. Now that I think about it more, the system does not need to be linear: the levels I wrote would naturally separate into parallel “online” and “offline” branches.
The important thing: I would like to encourage people to spend more effort in the “offline” branch, if possible. Again, it depends on the scale of contribution: writing HP:MoR is more useful than organizing a local meetup; but writing a thousand moderately smart comments is probably not. (And even within the “online” branch, I would like people to write a high-quality article about a topic they understand instead of thousand moderately smart comments.)