We’re starting to come up with a lot of plans here and I don’t want this to step on anybody’s toes.
I’m not sure whether you’re the sole decision maker for the website, or if other people need to be told. Do changes like these need to be approved or is the website delegated to you?
I’m no decisionmaker. I just created that post because I thought things could be improved.
If you or anyone else has text they want to put on the about page or the home page, send me a personal message and I’ll tell you how. Right now things rely on security by obscurity.
Edit: As matt points out, it’s not security by obscurity so much as Wikipedia-style open collaboration.
This policy doesn’t make very much sense, in my opinion. Based on the log, lots of people have already edited the homepage who weren’t editors, and at least some of the edits they made were valuable.
Asking an editor’s permission to make changes to the homepage is an inconvenience, and it’s also a little demeaning. I suspect that the (extremely small) amount of community effort that’s been put forward towards actually making improvements to these pages will completely dry up if this policy is broadcasted. (I know my enthusiasm has dropped dramatically.)
I could see why this policy might sense if spam or prank edits were a problem, but as it is it seems needlessly controlling. Bleh.
Edit: Eliezer has communicated via email to Louie, Matt and me that he retracts his statement.
The Singularity Institute has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into LessWrong.com. I don’t think it’s too unreasonable that we’d like to have some quality control on a few central pages like the home page and the about page.
Wait if they’ve got so much money to invest into this, why have users been allowed to edit the home page and why is the marketing bad? Might those pages have been done like that intentionally to throttle growth and filter people using an err on the side of caution approach to preserve the culture? Maybe they have plans in mind we don’t even know about, and this entire discussion is irrelevant.
Note that most of the investment was (1) web development donated by TrikeApps and (2) Eliezer’s salary while writing The Sequences. We don’t have much money to invest in further development, but we are currently paying Trike and an oDesk coder to add new features to LW and fix some old bugs. I have plans to revisit the LW design and marketing but… so much to do, so little time/money. If you’d like to help, you can (1) give earmarked donations or (2) find a professional web designer/marketer who is willing to look at this stuff for free.
Volunteer web pro here: I’m a professional web developer. I primarily do CGI programming. I am also capable of front-end web design / graphic design, database work, and other related tasks. Related tasks: ensuring the host’s sysadmins do things correctly, solving random technical issues, and various tasks that make use of cpanel / root server access. I’ve done a lot of work with a search engine optimization expert and a marketing coordinator, and have read quite a bit about web marketing over the last ten years or so. I’m not specifically a marketing professional, but I know a lot more than a non web professional and I’m willing to do the following things:
Review the Google analytics data (requires access to the account), present LessWrong members with ideas, come up with a plan for growth that is popular and takes all significant criticisms into consideration, present the solutions to an authority for approval or changes, implement those solutions (assuming the solutions are not so time-consuming that I can’t fit them into my schedule but so far the ideas are not too large… though I definitely want a good plan for preventing an overwhelming number of new users incompatible with the culture, for sure, before doing things that will increase the risk/speed at which one is invited, and in fact, this protection may need to be added regardless if there is not already a plan to prevent it, so that could easily end up to be the #1 priority were LW to accept this offer), review the situation and data afterward to see what the result is, and either put it back to the way that it was or try an improved plan.
If there are unrelated requests, I may grant them, depending on whether they are within the realm of my capabilities and time constraints. Feel free to ask about them.
I can provide one or two freelance references (I’m F/T so I don’t have a long list of freelance references), a criminal background check, credit check or other reasonable checks to an official LW authority assuming they agree to maintain my privacy. I would like to point out that so far two opportunities have presented themselves that seemed like potential opportunities to hack into the website, and I reported them promptly. You don’t know me, but you’ve already tested me twice in that way.
I assume Eliezer gets so much email that he will ignore anything I attempt to send him. If you or another prominent LW member wants to present this to him, that would work a lot better.
I think this is really important, so I’m just going to say it again, only louder.
DON’T FORGET A/B TESTING.
A/B testing is useless without variations to test. If you want to create a variation, go for it.
Right now there is a lot of commentary in this thread but not much action.
We’re starting to come up with a lot of plans here and I don’t want this to step on anybody’s toes.
I’m not sure whether you’re the sole decision maker for the website, or if other people need to be told. Do changes like these need to be approved or is the website delegated to you?
I’m no decisionmaker. I just created that post because I thought things could be improved.
If you or anyone else has text they want to put on the about page or the home page, send me a personal message and I’ll tell you how. Right now things rely on security by obscurity.
Edit: As matt points out, it’s not security by obscurity so much as Wikipedia-style open collaboration.
Please don’t. All edits to the about page should go through an editor. Random people should not be told how to edit the about page.
Er, want to specify who counts as an “editor”?
Don’t worry, I would have politely turned down anyone who didn’t meet some threshold of credibility...
See Who are the LW editors?
OK.
This policy doesn’t make very much sense, in my opinion. Based on the log, lots of people have already edited the homepage who weren’t editors, and at least some of the edits they made were valuable.
Asking an editor’s permission to make changes to the homepage is an inconvenience, and it’s also a little demeaning. I suspect that the (extremely small) amount of community effort that’s been put forward towards actually making improvements to these pages will completely dry up if this policy is broadcasted. (I know my enthusiasm has dropped dramatically.)
I could see why this policy might sense if spam or prank edits were a problem, but as it is it seems needlessly controlling. Bleh.
Edit: Eliezer has communicated via email to Louie, Matt and me that he retracts his statement.
The Singularity Institute has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into LessWrong.com. I don’t think it’s too unreasonable that we’d like to have some quality control on a few central pages like the home page and the about page.
Wait if they’ve got so much money to invest into this, why have users been allowed to edit the home page and why is the marketing bad? Might those pages have been done like that intentionally to throttle growth and filter people using an err on the side of caution approach to preserve the culture? Maybe they have plans in mind we don’t even know about, and this entire discussion is irrelevant.
Note that most of the investment was (1) web development donated by TrikeApps and (2) Eliezer’s salary while writing The Sequences. We don’t have much money to invest in further development, but we are currently paying Trike and an oDesk coder to add new features to LW and fix some old bugs. I have plans to revisit the LW design and marketing but… so much to do, so little time/money. If you’d like to help, you can (1) give earmarked donations or (2) find a professional web designer/marketer who is willing to look at this stuff for free.
Volunteer web pro here: I’m a professional web developer. I primarily do CGI programming. I am also capable of front-end web design / graphic design, database work, and other related tasks. Related tasks: ensuring the host’s sysadmins do things correctly, solving random technical issues, and various tasks that make use of cpanel / root server access. I’ve done a lot of work with a search engine optimization expert and a marketing coordinator, and have read quite a bit about web marketing over the last ten years or so. I’m not specifically a marketing professional, but I know a lot more than a non web professional and I’m willing to do the following things:
Review the Google analytics data (requires access to the account), present LessWrong members with ideas, come up with a plan for growth that is popular and takes all significant criticisms into consideration, present the solutions to an authority for approval or changes, implement those solutions (assuming the solutions are not so time-consuming that I can’t fit them into my schedule but so far the ideas are not too large… though I definitely want a good plan for preventing an overwhelming number of new users incompatible with the culture, for sure, before doing things that will increase the risk/speed at which one is invited, and in fact, this protection may need to be added regardless if there is not already a plan to prevent it, so that could easily end up to be the #1 priority were LW to accept this offer), review the situation and data afterward to see what the result is, and either put it back to the way that it was or try an improved plan.
If there are unrelated requests, I may grant them, depending on whether they are within the realm of my capabilities and time constraints. Feel free to ask about them.
I can provide one or two freelance references (I’m F/T so I don’t have a long list of freelance references), a criminal background check, credit check or other reasonable checks to an official LW authority assuming they agree to maintain my privacy. I would like to point out that so far two opportunities have presented themselves that seemed like potential opportunities to hack into the website, and I reported them promptly. You don’t know me, but you’ve already tested me twice in that way.
I assume Eliezer gets so much email that he will ignore anything I attempt to send him. If you or another prominent LW member wants to present this to him, that would work a lot better.
Thanks! Would you email me to discuss further?
You’re right that contacting Eliezer directly isn’t going to be the most successful entry point into dialogue with SI.
People able to edit other people’s LW posts. AFAIK, Eliezer and Alicorn (and possibly someone else too).
He has already provided enough information. It is trivial to figure out how.
Erm… that’s security by obscurity in the same way that Wikipedia relies on security by obscurity, right?
Fair enough.
Current design is the control.
Hm. Do you see any advantages to formal A/B testing over just popping something in and seeing how stats like the bounce rate change?
DON’T FORGET A/B TESTING!!!!!