I’ve written a bit about this, but I never finished the sequence and don’t really endorse any of it as practical. Some of the comment threads may have useful suggestions in them, though.
Discussion quality is a function of the discussants more than the software.
I think we are better off using something as close to off-the-shelf as possible, modified only via intended configuration hooks. Software development isn’t LW’s comparative advantage. If we are determined to do it anyway, we should do it in such a way that it’s useful to more than just us, so as to potentially get contributions from elsewhere.
What’s the replacement plan? Are we building something from the ground up, re-forking Reddit, or something else? I’ve nosed around contributing a few times and keep getting put off by the current crawling horror. If we’re re-building from something clean, I might reconsider.
Discussion quality is a function of the discussants more than the software.
I agree with this and suspect that a willingness to keep out low-quality users is more important than any technical feature. The decision to remove all downvoting is worrying in this regard.
I think we are better off using something as close to off-the-shelf as possible, modified only via intended configuration hooks.
The thing is, the modern web doesn’t particularly care about high quality discussion.
Most places where people comment expect you to write something short and brainless, or even not write anything at all but just like it and share it. 1000000 likes on Facebook are much more immediately monetizable than 10 thoughtful comments on LW.
And the technology that powers all this stuff is adapted to handling a flood of super low quality comments and likes. If we want something high quality, we may need to innovate a bit on the tech side, for example by controlling downvotes, adding more nuanced reactions, etc etc.
At the same time I agree that we shouldn’t go overboard. But I can totally see a fork of Reddit with a sane DB schema being a start.
Discussion quality is a function of the discussants more than the software.
I think having a focused discussion topic helps as well. Even with high quality discussants you might have low quality discussion if people aren’t interested in what other people want to talk about.
Is the reboot of LW going to have the same focus as the current site? LW sometimes seems like an uncomfortable mix of instrumental rationality, decision theory and ai risks.
I’ve written a bit about this, but I never finished the sequence and don’t really endorse any of it as practical. Some of the comment threads may have useful suggestions in them, though.
Discussion quality is a function of the discussants more than the software.
I think we are better off using something as close to off-the-shelf as possible, modified only via intended configuration hooks. Software development isn’t LW’s comparative advantage. If we are determined to do it anyway, we should do it in such a way that it’s useful to more than just us, so as to potentially get contributions from elsewhere.
What’s the replacement plan? Are we building something from the ground up, re-forking Reddit, or something else? I’ve nosed around contributing a few times and keep getting put off by the current crawling horror. If we’re re-building from something clean, I might reconsider.
I agree with this and suspect that a willingness to keep out low-quality users is more important than any technical feature. The decision to remove all downvoting is worrying in this regard.
The thing is, the modern web doesn’t particularly care about high quality discussion.
Most places where people comment expect you to write something short and brainless, or even not write anything at all but just like it and share it. 1000000 likes on Facebook are much more immediately monetizable than 10 thoughtful comments on LW.
And the technology that powers all this stuff is adapted to handling a flood of super low quality comments and likes. If we want something high quality, we may need to innovate a bit on the tech side, for example by controlling downvotes, adding more nuanced reactions, etc etc.
At the same time I agree that we shouldn’t go overboard. But I can totally see a fork of Reddit with a sane DB schema being a start.
But daydreaming about the cool new social media software we’re totally going to write is so fun!
Yesterday I saw the prototype of the discussion software that the Arbital folks are writing, and it looks really great.
I think having a focused discussion topic helps as well. Even with high quality discussants you might have low quality discussion if people aren’t interested in what other people want to talk about.
Is the reboot of LW going to have the same focus as the current site? LW sometimes seems like an uncomfortable mix of instrumental rationality, decision theory and ai risks.