Thanks for the reasoning here. I also don’t want to detract people from purchasing these books, I imagine if people really wanted they could write the dates on them manually.
That said—
To better explain my intuitions here:
In 5 years from now, I care about whether the essays came out in 2018 or in 2017 if I am trying to find a particular one in a book, or recommend one to another person. Ordering is really simple to remember compared to other kinds of naming one could use. When going between different books the date is particularly relevant because names and concepts will change over time. I’d hope that 10 years from now much of the 2018 content will look antiquated and old.
If you’re just aiming for “timeless and good quality posts” (this sounds like the value proposition for the readers you are referring to), then I don’t understand the need to only choose ones from 2018. Many good ones came out before 2018 that I imagine would be interesting to readers. That said, if you plan on releasing them on yearly intervals later I’d imagine some restriction might be necessary. Or, it could be that whenever a few topics seem to have come full circle or be in a good place for a book, you publish a book focused on those topics.
I agree that “LessWrong Review 2018” sounds strange, but there are other phrases that could have with 2018 in them. Many Academic periodicals (including things like Philosophy, which are at least as timeless as LessWrong content) have yearly collections. With those I don’t assume I need to read all of the old ones before reading the current year, that would take quite a while (it becomes more obvious after a few are out). I imagine the name could be something like, “LessWrong Highlighted Content: 2018″ or “The Best of LessWrong: 2018”.
It’s very possible that there’s kind of a “free pass” for the first 1-3 years, if this is a repeating thing, and then you could start adding the year. It’s not that big a deal if there are just 2-3 of these, but I imagine it will get to be annoying if there are 5+ (and by that time it will be more obvious if it’s an issue or not)
That said, if you plan on releasing them on yearly intervals later I’d imagine some restriction might be necessary. Or, it could be that whenever a few topics seem to have come full circle or be in a good place for a book, you publish a book focused on those topics.
Yeah, it’s mostly that I don’t know of a great alternative mechanism for the Review. The Schelling nature of doing a review thing at the end of the year seems pretty strong, and having a year as the natural unit of review also seems really intuitive and nice.
I do think there is a good chance we are going to release some other books that are not part of the review cycle that are more centered around specific topics. But I really don’t know yet how to fit them into all of this, and whether they are part of the same series, or their branding, or whether they are going to happen at all.
It’s very possible that there’s kind of a “free pass” for the first 1-3 years, if this is a repeating thing, and then you could start adding the year. It’s not that big a deal if there are just 2-3 of these, but I imagine it will get to be annoying if there are 5+ (and by that time it will be more obvious if it’s an issue or not)
Yeah, I actually agree with this. Amazon has a field for “Series Title” that I want to fill in, of which this would be Vol. 1. Some obvious candidates for the series title are “Best of LessWrong” and “The LessWrong Review”. I don’t think there is much benefit to emphasizing a series title in the first entry of a series very much, but I think it makes sense to emphasize them more in future years, where they start actually doing anything. I still wouldn’t want to put the year into the title, because if we are usually going to release these 1.5-2 years afterward, people are inevitably going to get really confused about when the books were released.
Thanks for the reasoning here. I also don’t want to detract people from purchasing these books, I imagine if people really wanted they could write the dates on them manually.
That said—
To better explain my intuitions here:
In 5 years from now, I care about whether the essays came out in 2018 or in 2017 if I am trying to find a particular one in a book, or recommend one to another person. Ordering is really simple to remember compared to other kinds of naming one could use. When going between different books the date is particularly relevant because names and concepts will change over time. I’d hope that 10 years from now much of the 2018 content will look antiquated and old.
If you’re just aiming for “timeless and good quality posts” (this sounds like the value proposition for the readers you are referring to), then I don’t understand the need to only choose ones from 2018. Many good ones came out before 2018 that I imagine would be interesting to readers. That said, if you plan on releasing them on yearly intervals later I’d imagine some restriction might be necessary. Or, it could be that whenever a few topics seem to have come full circle or be in a good place for a book, you publish a book focused on those topics.
I agree that “LessWrong Review 2018” sounds strange, but there are other phrases that could have with 2018 in them. Many Academic periodicals (including things like Philosophy, which are at least as timeless as LessWrong content) have yearly collections. With those I don’t assume I need to read all of the old ones before reading the current year, that would take quite a while (it becomes more obvious after a few are out). I imagine the name could be something like, “LessWrong Highlighted Content: 2018″ or “The Best of LessWrong: 2018”.
It’s very possible that there’s kind of a “free pass” for the first 1-3 years, if this is a repeating thing, and then you could start adding the year. It’s not that big a deal if there are just 2-3 of these, but I imagine it will get to be annoying if there are 5+ (and by that time it will be more obvious if it’s an issue or not)
Yeah, it’s mostly that I don’t know of a great alternative mechanism for the Review. The Schelling nature of doing a review thing at the end of the year seems pretty strong, and having a year as the natural unit of review also seems really intuitive and nice.
I do think there is a good chance we are going to release some other books that are not part of the review cycle that are more centered around specific topics. But I really don’t know yet how to fit them into all of this, and whether they are part of the same series, or their branding, or whether they are going to happen at all.
Yeah, I actually agree with this. Amazon has a field for “Series Title” that I want to fill in, of which this would be Vol. 1. Some obvious candidates for the series title are “Best of LessWrong” and “The LessWrong Review”. I don’t think there is much benefit to emphasizing a series title in the first entry of a series very much, but I think it makes sense to emphasize them more in future years, where they start actually doing anything. I still wouldn’t want to put the year into the title, because if we are usually going to release these 1.5-2 years afterward, people are inevitably going to get really confused about when the books were released.