Yes, sorry. The concrete mechanism by which I hope to address research debt is not the editing of essays, but the identification of essays that have good ideas and bad presentation, and encouraging other authors to write better new explanations for them, as well as more something like thorough rewrites of existing posts.
I see, that wasn’t clear from the post. In that case I am wondering if the 2018 review caused anyone to write better explanations or rewrite the existing posts. (It seems like the LessWrong 2018 Book just included the original posts without much rewriting, at least based on scanning the table of contents.)
At least 3 people substantially rewrote their posts in the 2018 review, and my hope is that over time it becomes pretty common for there to be substantial rewriting. (albeit, two of those people were LessWrong team members)
But for what it’s worth, here’s the diff between the original version of my own post and the current version I wrote as a result of the review.
One of the pernicious issues with word-dillution is that often when people try to use a word to mean things, they’re… kinda meaning those things “aspirationally.” Where, yes part of my original goal with the Review absolutely included Research Debt. But indeed there’s a decent chance it won’t succeed at that goal. (But, I do intend to put in a fair amount of optimization pressure towards making it succeed)
Yes, sorry. The concrete mechanism by which I hope to address research debt is not the editing of essays, but the identification of essays that have good ideas and bad presentation, and encouraging other authors to write better new explanations for them, as well as more something like thorough rewrites of existing posts.
I see, that wasn’t clear from the post. In that case I am wondering if the 2018 review caused anyone to write better explanations or rewrite the existing posts. (It seems like the LessWrong 2018 Book just included the original posts without much rewriting, at least based on scanning the table of contents.)
At least 3 people substantially rewrote their posts in the 2018 review, and my hope is that over time it becomes pretty common for there to be substantial rewriting. (albeit, two of those people were LessWrong team members)
But for what it’s worth, here’s the diff between the original version of my own post and the current version I wrote as a result of the review.
Thanks! That does make me feel a bit better about the annual reviews.
One of the pernicious issues with word-dillution is that often when people try to use a word to mean things, they’re… kinda meaning those things “aspirationally.” Where, yes part of my original goal with the Review absolutely included Research Debt. But indeed there’s a decent chance it won’t succeed at that goal. (But, I do intend to put in a fair amount of optimization pressure towards making it succeed)