I’m only trying to estimate the number of people who are naturally ready to read the sequences if they wanted to—those who have no obvious barriers to entry. I’m not trying to say that 99% of the world is unworthy or unwelcome here… only that most people appear to have a barrier or two and are under-prepared in one way or another. I’m sure their experience reading LW would be even more beneficial and helpful to them than it would be to the most obviously prepared potential readers and our community would be all the better if they are able to overcome those barriers.
Also, I agree that telling people to “read the sequences” is asinine and unproductive. I’m sorry if my article looked like I was promoting that idea. The main reason I’m now using a target of “who’s obviously ready to read the sequences” is because last time I tried this, I mentioned growing the number of Less Wrong participants and accidentally elicited everyone’s theory on how we should manage the growth and maintenance of LW instead of getting feedback on my core audience estimates or ideas on how I could improve them.
Thanks for clarifying, this sounds quite reasonable. I liked and upvoted your comment here and appreciate your effort to disseminate the content of the best of the Less Wrong postings to a broader audience.
I’m only trying to estimate the number of people who are naturally ready to read the sequences if they wanted to—those who have no obvious barriers to entry. I’m not trying to say that 99% of the world is unworthy or unwelcome here… only that most people appear to have a barrier or two and are under-prepared in one way or another. I’m sure their experience reading LW would be even more beneficial and helpful to them than it would be to the most obviously prepared potential readers and our community would be all the better if they are able to overcome those barriers.
Also, I agree that telling people to “read the sequences” is asinine and unproductive. I’m sorry if my article looked like I was promoting that idea. The main reason I’m now using a target of “who’s obviously ready to read the sequences” is because last time I tried this, I mentioned growing the number of Less Wrong participants and accidentally elicited everyone’s theory on how we should manage the growth and maintenance of LW instead of getting feedback on my core audience estimates or ideas on how I could improve them.
Thanks for clarifying, this sounds quite reasonable. I liked and upvoted your comment here and appreciate your effort to disseminate the content of the best of the Less Wrong postings to a broader audience.