In my opinion, you guys should try to project a somewhat academic vibe: no personal stories, cite established researchers, qualify outlandish seeming claims with words like could and might, etc. Focus on communicating with the smartest laypeople (young and old) who come across the website in a straightforward, credible, and intelligent way. For a quick example, on this page, I would suggest “proving the safety of artificial minds” over “foundations of Friendly AI theory”.
A link on the homepage or tab in the navigation specifically targeted at academics would be cool. The research tab is a good start, but “Research” doesn’t say “click here if you’re an academic” the same way “For Academics” might. I’m suggesting that as soon as someone has clicked this hypothetical link, you start assuming they are a smart, skeptical CS professor who is trying to shoot you down and hasn’t read any of your stuff yet.
Who are the most important people you are hoping to influence with your website and how are you hoping to influence them?
I agree that you should cut down on the number of fonts.
Providing papers in HTML form in addition to PDF could cut down on friction associated with reading them.
Donate link should probably be on the far right, not the far left. Keep in mind people will probably be reading those links from left to right. So you should start with gentle introductory material, then technical stuff, then stuff related to how you can help.
More whitespace to the sides of main page text would look more professional I suspect. Something feels off about pages like this one (http://singularity.org/strategic-insight/) whose content is mainly text.
E.g. you could have a page called “An Academic Introduction to the Singularity” and start by quoting IJ good to clarify the meaning of “singularity”, then David Chalmers:
One might think that the singularity would be of great interest to academic philosophers, cognitive scientists, and artificial intelligence researchers. In practice, this has not been the case. [I.J. Good] was an eminent academic, but his article was largely unappreciated at the time. The subsequent discussion of the singularity has largely taken place in nonacademic circles, including Internet forums, popular media and books, and workshops organized by the independent Singularity Institute. Perhaps the highly speculative flavor of the singularity idea has been responsible for academic resistance.
I think this resistance is a shame, as the singularity idea is clearly an important one. The argument for a singularity is one that we should take seriously. And the questions surrounding the singularity are of enormous practical and philosophical concern.
In general, IMO you should be quoting more high status people, to quickly demonstrate that the ideas you research are worth paying attention to. E.g. the video interview you used to have with Peter Norvig (and possibly others in that series of video interviews; why were those removed by the way?), Summit speakers, and the high status people Luke references on the Facing the Singularity homepage.
In my opinion, you guys should try to project a somewhat academic vibe: no personal stories, cite established researchers, qualify outlandish seeming claims with words like could and might, etc. Focus on communicating with the smartest laypeople (young and old) who come across the website in a straightforward, credible, and intelligent way. For a quick example, on this page, I would suggest “proving the safety of artificial minds” over “foundations of Friendly AI theory”.
A link on the homepage or tab in the navigation specifically targeted at academics would be cool. The research tab is a good start, but “Research” doesn’t say “click here if you’re an academic” the same way “For Academics” might. I’m suggesting that as soon as someone has clicked this hypothetical link, you start assuming they are a smart, skeptical CS professor who is trying to shoot you down and hasn’t read any of your stuff yet.
Who are the most important people you are hoping to influence with your website and how are you hoping to influence them?
What’s going on with this page? http://singularity.org/get-started/
I agree that you should cut down on the number of fonts.
Providing papers in HTML form in addition to PDF could cut down on friction associated with reading them.
Donate link should probably be on the far right, not the far left. Keep in mind people will probably be reading those links from left to right. So you should start with gentle introductory material, then technical stuff, then stuff related to how you can help.
More whitespace to the sides of main page text would look more professional I suspect. Something feels off about pages like this one (http://singularity.org/strategic-insight/) whose content is mainly text.
E.g. you could have a page called “An Academic Introduction to the Singularity” and start by quoting IJ good to clarify the meaning of “singularity”, then David Chalmers:
In general, IMO you should be quoting more high status people, to quickly demonstrate that the ideas you research are worth paying attention to. E.g. the video interview you used to have with Peter Norvig (and possibly others in that series of video interviews; why were those removed by the way?), Summit speakers, and the high status people Luke references on the Facing the Singularity homepage.
I agree: remove as many trivial inconveniences as possible.