Recent site changes have generated more unhappiness than I expected. This post is a brief note to share resources that will make it easier for concerned site users to track what’s happening and what we intend.
First, know that we’re listening. We’ll make further site changes next week that will likely include some reversions.
The official site issue tracker remains unchanged, but for the next week or so we’ll work from this public Google Doc (just because it’s lighter weight). Nothing on that document is a promise—just evidence of our current thinking. We’ll strike out items on that list as we deliver them to our (private) staging server, and will roll them out onto the live site soon after.
I’ve reached out to a small handful of SIAI and LessWrong heavyweights to track my balance as we make these changes. My feed should make it clear that I’m trying to act with calm rationality, but I’m obviously invested in the work we’ve shared to date and asking for some external help seems prudent.
I’ll track discussion on this post.
Some reflections:
On what we did wrong
We didn’t predict the unhappiness our changes caused.
We didn’t make it clear that we were listening for feedback, and that changes were not final.
On what many of you did right
Calmly and politely voiced your concerns about some of our changes.
Where you liked some of our changes, said so where we could see it. Thank you.
On what many of you could have done differently, that would have increased average happiness (particularly mine)
Calmly and politely voiced your concerns about some of our changes.
Checked the very common assumption that the recent changes were final and would not be discussed. (Please note that I’ve first admitted fault in not making this clearer.)
A bare fact of this episode is that I’m feeling shellshocked, and have not enjoyed the experience of spending significant time and money trying to make LessWrong better. Unless my brain is built differently than others of my species this experience is likely to lead to spending less on projects like this in the future.
Please feel free to add to these lists in the comments, and please feel free to other-optimize me. Tsuyoku Naritai. … but try to be polite.
Recent site changes
Recent site changes have generated more unhappiness than I expected. This post is a brief note to share resources that will make it easier for concerned site users to track what’s happening and what we intend.
First, know that we’re listening. We’ll make further site changes next week that will likely include some reversions.
The official site issue tracker remains unchanged, but for the next week or so we’ll work from this public Google Doc (just because it’s lighter weight). Nothing on that document is a promise—just evidence of our current thinking. We’ll strike out items on that list as we deliver them to our (private) staging server, and will roll them out onto the live site soon after.
I’ve reached out to a small handful of SIAI and LessWrong heavyweights to track my balance as we make these changes. My feed should make it clear that I’m trying to act with calm rationality, but I’m obviously invested in the work we’ve shared to date and asking for some external help seems prudent.
I’ll track discussion on this post.
Some reflections:
On what we did wrong
We didn’t predict the unhappiness our changes caused.
We didn’t make it clear that we were listening for feedback, and that changes were not final.
On what many of you did right
Calmly and politely voiced your concerns about some of our changes.
Where you liked some of our changes, said so where we could see it. Thank you.
On what many of you could have done differently, that would have increased average happiness (particularly mine)
Calmly and politely voiced your concerns about some of our changes.
Checked the very common assumption that the recent changes were final and would not be discussed. (Please note that I’ve first admitted fault in not making this clearer.)
… but try to be polite.