Though I find the signatures you propose to be objectively morally acceptable, they fill me with a faint unreasonable disgust, like when I hear people justifying having a marriage for a purpose other than true love. I know that it’s more practical for many people to do things differently than what I view to be the idealized norm, but I still find the idea aesthetically displeasing. I feel that a revamping of LW’s profile system could reduce the need for this, because if profiles were better organized, and I actually had an interest in seeing the novel you’re writing based solely on the fact that you wrote it, or Flattring you, I would go to your profile. But as it is profiles can only provide a handful of sparse links, so that’s not really an option.
I also would have preferred to see this post in discussion.
This, I think, is the strongest argument against. Commercial links would, in my opinion, lower the status of LW overall. I don’t want that to happen. I could come up with rationalizations why it’s strategically suboptimal, but I know they’re rationalizations, so I won’t.
The complete lack of actual ads on LW does a great deal to raise the status of this website, as you say. There are basically no websites nowadays where this is possible except for government ones and others independently maintained. No matter how classy the advertisements are, there’s still a certain pallor cast over the page when “tained” by commercial intent.
My ideal would be a profile page where these links could be stored, that way it’s “opt-in” if I want to learn more about an author. That said, that would require programming time, and it would take me 3-6 months to finish something basic like that because I don’t know the code base and don’t have a ton of time I want to invest in the project, so I’m not going to push for it. If the choice is between “write this code” and “deal with signatures on comments” then I will happily volunteer and set myself a 3 month deadline. I can live with signatures on posts, though :)
Though I find the signatures you propose to be objectively morally acceptable, they fill me with a faint unreasonable disgust, like when I hear people justifying having a marriage for a purpose other than true love. I know that it’s more practical for many people to do things differently than what I view to be the idealized norm, but I still find the idea aesthetically displeasing. I feel that a revamping of LW’s profile system could reduce the need for this, because if profiles were better organized, and I actually had an interest in seeing the novel you’re writing based solely on the fact that you wrote it, or Flattring you, I would go to your profile. But as it is profiles can only provide a handful of sparse links, so that’s not really an option.
I also would have preferred to see this post in discussion.
This, I think, is the strongest argument against. Commercial links would, in my opinion, lower the status of LW overall. I don’t want that to happen. I could come up with rationalizations why it’s strategically suboptimal, but I know they’re rationalizations, so I won’t.
The complete lack of actual ads on LW does a great deal to raise the status of this website, as you say. There are basically no websites nowadays where this is possible except for government ones and others independently maintained. No matter how classy the advertisements are, there’s still a certain pallor cast over the page when “tained” by commercial intent.
My ideal would be a profile page where these links could be stored, that way it’s “opt-in” if I want to learn more about an author. That said, that would require programming time, and it would take me 3-6 months to finish something basic like that because I don’t know the code base and don’t have a ton of time I want to invest in the project, so I’m not going to push for it. If the choice is between “write this code” and “deal with signatures on comments” then I will happily volunteer and set myself a 3 month deadline. I can live with signatures on posts, though :)