An optional feature that I think LessWrong should have: shortform posts that get more than some amount of karma get automatically converted into personal blog posts, including all the comments.
It should have a note at the top “originally published in shortform”, with a link to the shortform comment. (All the copied comments should have a similar note).
Whether or not it would happen by default, this would be the single most useful LW feature for me. I’m often really unsure whether a post will get enough attention to be worth making it a longform, and sometimes even post shortforms like “comment if you want this to be a longform”.
Agreed insofar as shortform posts are conceptually shortlived, which is a bummer for high-karma shortform posts with big comments treads.
Disagreed insofar by “automatically converted” you mean “the shortform author has no recourse against this”. I do wish there were both nudges to turn particularly high-value shortform posts (and particularly high-value comments, period!) into full posts, and assistance to make this as easy as possible, but I’m against forcing authors and commenters to do things against their wishes.
(Side note: there are also a few practical issues with converting shortform posts to full posts: the latter have titles, the former do not. The former have agreement votes, the latter do not. Do you straightforwardly port over the karma votes from shortform to full post? Full posts get an automatic strong upvote from their author, whereas comments only get an automatic regular upvote. Etc.)
Still, here are a few ideas for such non-coercive nudges and assistance:
An opt-in or opt-out feature to turn high-karma shortform posts into full posts.
An email reminder or website notification to inform you about high-karma shortform posts or comments you could turn into full posts, ideally with a button you can click which does this for you.
Since it can be a hassle to think up a title, some general tips or specific AI assistance for choosing one. (Though if there was AI assistance, it should not invent titles out of thin air, but rather make suggestions which closely hew to the shortform content. E.g. for your shortform post, it should be closer to “LessWrong shortform posts above some amount of karma should get automatically converted into personal blog posts”, rather than “a revolutionary suggestion to make LessWrong, the greatest of all websites, even better, with this one simple trick”.)
Disagreed insofar by “automatically converted” you mean “the shortform author has no recourse against this’”.
No. That’s why I said the feature should be optional. You can make a general default setting for your shortform, plus there should and there should be a toggle (hidden in the three dots menu?) to turn this on and off on a post by post basis.
Just ask a LLM. The author can always edit it, after all.
My suggestion for how such a feature could be done would be to copy the comment into a draft post, add LLM-suggested title (and tags?), and alert the author for an opt-in, who may delete or post it.
If it is sufficiently well received and people approve a lot of them, then one can explore optout auto-posting mechanisms, like “wait a month and if the author has still neither explicitly posted it nor deleted the draft proposal, then auto-post it”.
Yes, I’d assume a sensible implementation would transfer the metadata as well—the new post would have the same date, karma, and comments as the original comment. Just as if it had always been posted as a post.
This should be at the author’s discretion. Notify them when a shortform qualifies, add the option to the triple-dot menu, and provide a place for the author to add a title.
No AI titles. If the author wrote the content, they can write the title. If they didn’t, they can ask an AI themselves.
An optional feature that I think LessWrong should have: shortform posts that get more than some amount of karma get automatically converted into personal blog posts, including all the comments.
It should have a note at the top “originally published in shortform”, with a link to the shortform comment. (All the copied comments should have a similar note).
I think its reasonable for the conversion to be at the original author’s discretion rather than an automatic process.
Whether or not it would happen by default, this would be the single most useful LW feature for me. I’m often really unsure whether a post will get enough attention to be worth making it a longform, and sometimes even post shortforms like “comment if you want this to be a longform”.
Agreed insofar as shortform posts are conceptually shortlived, which is a bummer for high-karma shortform posts with big comments treads.
Disagreed insofar by “automatically converted” you mean “the shortform author has no recourse against this”. I do wish there were both nudges to turn particularly high-value shortform posts (and particularly high-value comments, period!) into full posts, and assistance to make this as easy as possible, but I’m against forcing authors and commenters to do things against their wishes.
(Side note: there are also a few practical issues with converting shortform posts to full posts: the latter have titles, the former do not. The former have agreement votes, the latter do not. Do you straightforwardly port over the karma votes from shortform to full post? Full posts get an automatic strong upvote from their author, whereas comments only get an automatic regular upvote. Etc.)
Still, here are a few ideas for such non-coercive nudges and assistance:
An opt-in or opt-out feature to turn high-karma shortform posts into full posts.
An email reminder or website notification to inform you about high-karma shortform posts or comments you could turn into full posts, ideally with a button you can click which does this for you.
Since it can be a hassle to think up a title, some general tips or specific AI assistance for choosing one. (Though if there was AI assistance, it should not invent titles out of thin air, but rather make suggestions which closely hew to the shortform content. E.g. for your shortform post, it should be closer to “LessWrong shortform posts above some amount of karma should get automatically converted into personal blog posts”, rather than “a revolutionary suggestion to make LessWrong, the greatest of all websites, even better, with this one simple trick”.)
No. That’s why I said the feature should be optional. You can make a general default setting for your shortform, plus there should and there should be a toggle (hidden in the three dots menu?) to turn this on and off on a post by post basis.
I like it. If you are not sure whether to make something a shortform or an article, do the former, and maybe change it later.
I would prefer the comments to be moved rather than copied, if that is possible without breaking the hyperlinks. Duplicating content feels wrong.
What would the title be?
Just ask a LLM. The author can always edit it, after all.
My suggestion for how such a feature could be done would be to copy the comment into a draft post, add LLM-suggested title (and tags?), and alert the author for an opt-in, who may delete or post it.
If it is sufficiently well received and people approve a lot of them, then one can explore optout auto-posting mechanisms, like “wait a month and if the author has still neither explicitly posted it nor deleted the draft proposal, then auto-post it”.
karma should also transfer automatically
Yes, I’d assume a sensible implementation would transfer the metadata as well—the new post would have the same date, karma, and comments as the original comment. Just as if it had always been posted as a post.
This should be at the author’s discretion. Notify them when a shortform qualifies, add the option to the triple-dot menu, and provide a place for the author to add a title.
No AI titles. If the author wrote the content, they can write the title. If they didn’t, they can ask an AI themselves.