Ah, I see. I don’t really disagree, but I also don’t think LW is unique in this, nor that there is (or can be) a long-lived growing-popularity group that maintains the feel of the early days. This seems like an evolution that’s plagued old-timers of a medium for all time, from SF fandom to pre-internet BBSs and Usenet, to early-internet special-purpose forums, to LW and rationalist-adjecent fora.
I don’t think Duncan’s gesturing at the “eternal September” problem—I think he’s talking about the “toxic low-grade criticism” problem, which is a related but separate issue. A persistent culture of toxic low-grade criticism exacerbates the eternal September problem by allowing impressionable newcomers to become acculturated to the pre-existing toxic dynamic, or to self-select for compatibility with it, making it that much harder to deal with. But you can work on improving the culture while also admitting that the constant influx of newcomers may make it difficult to go as far as you’d like to in terms of creating a specific and consistent set of norms.
I think there are some differences between this and other instances of degradation of quality by growth and entry of less-hardcore newcomers, and a resulting shift in norms that are generally negative in terms of quality. But I think there are a lot more similarities than differences.
Ah, I see. I don’t really disagree, but I also don’t think LW is unique in this, nor that there is (or can be) a long-lived growing-popularity group that maintains the feel of the early days. This seems like an evolution that’s plagued old-timers of a medium for all time, from SF fandom to pre-internet BBSs and Usenet, to early-internet special-purpose forums, to LW and rationalist-adjecent fora.
I don’t think Duncan’s gesturing at the “eternal September” problem—I think he’s talking about the “toxic low-grade criticism” problem, which is a related but separate issue. A persistent culture of toxic low-grade criticism exacerbates the eternal September problem by allowing impressionable newcomers to become acculturated to the pre-existing toxic dynamic, or to self-select for compatibility with it, making it that much harder to deal with. But you can work on improving the culture while also admitting that the constant influx of newcomers may make it difficult to go as far as you’d like to in terms of creating a specific and consistent set of norms.
I think there are some differences between this and other instances of degradation of quality by growth and entry of less-hardcore newcomers, and a resulting shift in norms that are generally negative in terms of quality. But I think there are a lot more similarities than differences.