Where you cite things in text of the post it could be useful, as you help people to read up on a particular claim. But a long list at the end is probably useless, as people would be able to find lots of papers to read themselves in they want to, and they’d accumulate a reading list that is more appropriate for their own questions. A few review/survey articles would be more adequate entries in such a list.
Do people not know how to use footnotes? The footnotes map references to specific claims. I even uploaded a bunch of the papers, and about 1⁄4 of them are survey/review articles...
I see, I didn’t notice (if it’s so) that the references at the end are exactly the papers referenced from the text (in which case the first statement of my comment applies, and the rest is irrelevant).
Footnotes aren’t as good a mechanism online as they are on paper (pun unintended). For example, to follow up on the source for the statement “Savor the good moments throughout each day”, I have to:
Remember the number 38 for that statement, then scroll down to that same number in the references section.
Remember the names (Bryant & Vernoff) and also the year (2007), and look for them in the references section.
If there happens to be a link, I can follow it. If not, I can write down the citation and find it later. However, in many cases if I had known that I would end up with only a citation and not a web link, I wouldn’t have followed this path in the first place!
This is too much work for a page on the Internet! :-) If there’s a webpage with the reference, you should make the statement itself link to that reference (as you did in a few places), or else add a hotlinked marker after the statement if the text is getting too Potholed. If the reference isn’t online, then clicking on the statement should take me somewhere with information on what paper to look for.
I thought it was an excessive number of notes too at first, and balked at the scrolling. And then I came up with a solution that’s almost as good as if the notes were hyperlinked, and now I’m kicking myself a little bit for not thinking of this sooner:
Open the article in a new tab next to this one. Scroll down to the footnotes in the new tab and stay with the main text in the old one.
Hopefully this will save one or two people some time and annoyance when faced with similarly noted text.
I’m not going to spend 5 hours hyperlinking dozens of references all over the place. Not a good use of my time.
Please meet me 1/50th of the way on this one and do some page scrolling while remembering two-digit numbers.
How did the Less Wrong community get like this, that it complains about scrolling down a page? No wonder the community is so non-productive!
You are going to need to take some of your own initiative to look this stuff up or learn the methods or apply the methods. Scrolling is just the beginning.
I’m not going to spend 5 hours hyperlinking dozens of references all over the place. Not a good use of my time.
My sincere apologies, I should have phrased my comment more carefully. I’m not saying the issue is that you didn’t spend enough time polishing the article and adding references, because you clearly did.
My beef is with the post-processing done by the system. The fact that the effort you put it in attaching the references didn’t translate into maximum-convenience hyperlinks is a problem with the tools you were using, not with the amount of effort you put in.
The way I originally phrased it, with “you should” statements, didn’t make this clear. I was thinking in terms of the generic “you”, but the way I wrote it instead communicated that you personally had done something wrong. I’m sorry about that.
I second the recommendation below for the integration of a tool like wp-footnotes.
How is this different than a book?
It’s different than a book because it’s a webpage. :-)
One of the advantages of the web is that it is much more convenient to follow a hyperlink than to look up a citation. Maximizing usability and convenience in following links doesn’t solve every problem (i.e. the issue of retention of information read on Wikipedia), but it’s still a significant net improvement.
To use another example, I found out about Less Wrong because I found a link to it somewhere. I followed it to one sequence, thought it was cool, went on to another, and pretty soon realized I was onto something really neat.
If it had been a book reccomendation or a citation in the back of an intriguing paper, I would’ve been far less likely to get around to following up on it. Most recommendations and references do not yield anything that great. Having a way to check them faster encourages users to check more of them, because they can get more hits for the same amount of effort.
Are you complaining that luke puts in more effort to back his claim than you see as necessary?
I tend to overlook the lengthy reference section so far, but it is super nice to have them there for anyone (including future:me) who wants them. A very convenient way to check back on later.
Keep in mind that this is not some idle blog post, but—like many others—an article that will be around for a while, and can be referenced, read and used for years to come. Putting in the work now can easily lead to a higher usefulness for a decent part of the future.
I think you kind of overdid it with the references here.
I don’t think so. It’s just that I make a ridiculous amount of claims in a short space, and I want to back them up.
Where you cite things in text of the post it could be useful, as you help people to read up on a particular claim. But a long list at the end is probably useless, as people would be able to find lots of papers to read themselves in they want to, and they’d accumulate a reading list that is more appropriate for their own questions. A few review/survey articles would be more adequate entries in such a list.
Do people not know how to use footnotes? The footnotes map references to specific claims. I even uploaded a bunch of the papers, and about 1⁄4 of them are survey/review articles...
I see, I didn’t notice (if it’s so) that the references at the end are exactly the papers referenced from the text (in which case the first statement of my comment applies, and the rest is irrelevant).
Right. In all my posts with references, the references are the papers explicitly cited in the post (and footnotes) above.
Footnotes aren’t as good a mechanism online as they are on paper (pun unintended). For example, to follow up on the source for the statement “Savor the good moments throughout each day”, I have to:
Remember the number 38 for that statement, then scroll down to that same number in the references section.
Remember the names (Bryant & Vernoff) and also the year (2007), and look for them in the references section.
If there happens to be a link, I can follow it. If not, I can write down the citation and find it later. However, in many cases if I had known that I would end up with only a citation and not a web link, I wouldn’t have followed this path in the first place!
This is too much work for a page on the Internet! :-) If there’s a webpage with the reference, you should make the statement itself link to that reference (as you did in a few places), or else add a hotlinked marker after the statement if the text is getting too Potholed. If the reference isn’t online, then clicking on the statement should take me somewhere with information on what paper to look for.
I thought it was an excessive number of notes too at first, and balked at the scrolling. And then I came up with a solution that’s almost as good as if the notes were hyperlinked, and now I’m kicking myself a little bit for not thinking of this sooner:
Open the article in a new tab next to this one. Scroll down to the footnotes in the new tab and stay with the main text in the old one.
Hopefully this will save one or two people some time and annoyance when faced with similarly noted text.
How is this different than a book?
I’m not going to spend 5 hours hyperlinking dozens of references all over the place. Not a good use of my time.
Please meet me 1/50th of the way on this one and do some page scrolling while remembering two-digit numbers.
How did the Less Wrong community get like this, that it complains about scrolling down a page? No wonder the community is so non-productive!
You are going to need to take some of your own initiative to look this stuff up or learn the methods or apply the methods. Scrolling is just the beginning.
Hey, don’t let the negative emotional response make you generalize from one example!
Indeed. :)
I retract that paragraph. Not the others, though.
My sincere apologies, I should have phrased my comment more carefully. I’m not saying the issue is that you didn’t spend enough time polishing the article and adding references, because you clearly did.
My beef is with the post-processing done by the system. The fact that the effort you put it in attaching the references didn’t translate into maximum-convenience hyperlinks is a problem with the tools you were using, not with the amount of effort you put in.
The way I originally phrased it, with “you should” statements, didn’t make this clear. I was thinking in terms of the generic “you”, but the way I wrote it instead communicated that you personally had done something wrong. I’m sorry about that.
I second the recommendation below for the integration of a tool like wp-footnotes.
It’s different than a book because it’s a webpage. :-)
One of the advantages of the web is that it is much more convenient to follow a hyperlink than to look up a citation. Maximizing usability and convenience in following links doesn’t solve every problem (i.e. the issue of retention of information read on Wikipedia), but it’s still a significant net improvement.
To use another example, I found out about Less Wrong because I found a link to it somewhere. I followed it to one sequence, thought it was cool, went on to another, and pretty soon realized I was onto something really neat.
If it had been a book reccomendation or a citation in the back of an intriguing paper, I would’ve been far less likely to get around to following up on it. Most recommendations and references do not yield anything that great. Having a way to check them faster encourages users to check more of them, because they can get more hits for the same amount of effort.
His concerns are valid usability concerns. Then again, so are yours.
I don’t think blaming each other is the solution.
Instead, we could blame the shortcomings of the platform we are interacting on. And, if we were technically inclined, fix them.
But at any rate, and with all its flaws, the current platform is still better than nothing. :-)
A feature like wp-footnotes would be a nice addition to LW reddit-software.
It would be; I use a similar JQuery plugin on gwern.net where I use footnotes very heavily, and the feedback so far has been positive.
Disagree. LW could stand to see giant lists of references more often.
Are you complaining that luke puts in more effort to back his claim than you see as necessary? I tend to overlook the lengthy reference section so far, but it is super nice to have them there for anyone (including future:me) who wants them. A very convenient way to check back on later. Keep in mind that this is not some idle blog post, but—like many others—an article that will be around for a while, and can be referenced, read and used for years to come. Putting in the work now can easily lead to a higher usefulness for a decent part of the future.