Did you have your own take on the review process? Were there particular problems with execution?
Yes:
Give users a reason to improve old content
I prefer old posts stay the same.
An addition like “EDIT: an improved version of this essay was written for the 2019 review of 2010, click here to go to that post.”* isn’t bad. Worst case, this ends up forming a long linked list terminating in the latest version.
*A shorter version would be: “Next version of post here: [link]”
Doubly linked or a sequence might be better, but it’s preservation of old links that is important. Posts that were good were good for a reason. Seeing the same idea presented multiple ways can make it easier to grasp, while rewrites can be less clear/useful in the ways the prior version were.
Changing the original can also decrease the value of discussions of old content, including:
Evaluation.
Figure out how to evaluate blogposts
This is easier when evaluations can be seen in the context of what they were evaluating, because it hasn’t been changed.
Styling:
One thing I found was that in 2017, there were relatively few unique authors that I was excited [about] –
One thing to check, which you may not be aware of: there’s an (somewhat unfinished) feature wherein post-updates can be tagged with a “major revision”. (Currently this feature is admin only. It’s been used for the updated versions of sequence posts, and a couple ad-hoc things. I’m guessing it will be formally shipped to the public by the end of 2020).
Once a post has at least one major revision, the top of the post gets a drop-down menu that lets you select past versions. (Changing version changes the url, which you can then link to)
Old comments, made before a major revision, get a little icon at the top-right that says “this comment was made for an older version of this post” (which you can click on to see that version of the post)
The current implementation is that the default link goes to the newest version, but you can create permalinks to old versions if you want. I can imagine deciding to change that, although I think on average it’ll be a better experience to get the latest version of a post (with clear signposting that you are on a second version). I agree that sometimes someone might go all George-Lucas on their content and make it worse, but I expect most major version updates to be improvements.
I can imagine you still disagreeing with the underlying philosophy but wanted to make sure you were aware of all that before delving into it.
I appreciate your response. After checking one of the posts changed in the review I found that this feature was in place for it.
If this is the norm for reviews and changes otherwise remain rare,* this appears to take care of the major/immediate aspects that were of concern (w.r.t. preserving old links).
If at some future point LW (the site) ceases to exist, then things being formatted in this fashion might make preservation more difficult, but my concerns are currently more short term.
*It makes the following things trivial inconveniences, rather than large or mild:
after following an old link, accessing the original version (?revision=1.0.0)
when making a link to version two, making sure the link is to to the new version (?revision=2.0.0)
Content:
Yes:
I prefer old posts stay the same.
An addition like “EDIT: an improved version of this essay was written for the 2019 review of 2010, click here to go to that post.”* isn’t bad. Worst case, this ends up forming a long linked list terminating in the latest version.
*A shorter version would be: “Next version of post here: [link]”
Doubly linked or a sequence might be better, but it’s preservation of old links that is important. Posts that were good were good for a reason. Seeing the same idea presented multiple ways can make it easier to grasp, while rewrites can be less clear/useful in the ways the prior version were.
Changing the original can also decrease the value of discussions of old content, including:
Evaluation.
This is easier when evaluations can be seen in the context of what they were evaluating, because it hasn’t been changed.
Styling:
One thing to check, which you may not be aware of: there’s an (somewhat unfinished) feature wherein post-updates can be tagged with a “major revision”. (Currently this feature is admin only. It’s been used for the updated versions of sequence posts, and a couple ad-hoc things. I’m guessing it will be formally shipped to the public by the end of 2020).
Once a post has at least one major revision, the top of the post gets a drop-down menu that lets you select past versions. (Changing version changes the url, which you can then link to)
Old comments, made before a major revision, get a little icon at the top-right that says “this comment was made for an older version of this post” (which you can click on to see that version of the post)
You can see this in action for the Being a Robust Agent post.
The current implementation is that the default link goes to the newest version, but you can create permalinks to old versions if you want. I can imagine deciding to change that, although I think on average it’ll be a better experience to get the latest version of a post (with clear signposting that you are on a second version). I agree that sometimes someone might go all George-Lucas on their content and make it worse, but I expect most major version updates to be improvements.
I can imagine you still disagreeing with the underlying philosophy but wanted to make sure you were aware of all that before delving into it.
I appreciate your response. After checking one of the posts changed in the review I found that this feature was in place for it.
If this is the norm for reviews and changes otherwise remain rare,* this appears to take care of the major/immediate aspects that were of concern (w.r.t. preserving old links).
If at some future point LW (the site) ceases to exist, then things being formatted in this fashion might make preservation more difficult, but my concerns are currently more short term.
*It makes the following things trivial inconveniences, rather than large or mild:
after following an old link, accessing the original version (?revision=1.0.0)
when making a link to version two, making sure the link is to to the new version (?revision=2.0.0)