I think the problem with Main is the exclusion criteria is too strong for the current state of the site. If Main featured an average of one post a day or every other day, with the best post from that period, then that would keep it useful. One post every 15 days simply isn’t enough content to garner viewership. Discussion has enough content, but it isn’t very well curated. I think the karma system has largely failed other than to prevent trolling. I can think of multiple examples where a correct answer to a factual topic discussion got buried in the comments, and a clearly wrong answer got upvoted above it.
So what’s needed is more content, and better curation of that content.
One possibility is to use moderators to choose which discussion posts get elevated to Main, and have a clear goal to maintain a constant stream of content, and to simply choose the best post that appears during the pre-agreed selection period. A constant stream of content will lower quality in the short term, but increase viewership, which will improve quality in the long-term by giving the moderators more options of what to elevate to main. There will be slim pickings at times, but if you don’t post content this will lower the long-run quality of the site. There should be a clear standard of how many moderators are around, and a clear standard for when a moderator is replaced.
Other possibilities such as a wiki or an open-sourcing community are far removed from the site’s current purpose, and thus are more likely to fail. I’m not sure why the purpose of being a news organization for rationality content as a concept is bad, or why Vaniver believes such a purpose is unworkable when it seems to have worked pretty well for several years even if the current iteration isn’t working. Remember Occam’s Razor.
Edit—I should add that I don’t consider Meetups and Community News to really be content. It’s only relevant to a subset of LessWrong users. I think including those in Main actually detracts from the intention of Main, but that when you remove them there’s not much content there fulfilling the purpose of Main. Community News and major discussion posts are two very different topics, and shouldn’t be included in the same category, which is a sorting issue. Major discussion posts are what I consider to be the main content, and those should be curated, and maintained at a constant level.
I think the problem with Main is the exclusion criteria is too strong for the current state of the site. If Main featured an average of one post a day or every other day, with the best post from that period, then that would keep it useful. One post every 15 days simply isn’t enough content to garner viewership. Discussion has enough content, but it isn’t very well curated. I think the karma system has largely failed other than to prevent trolling. I can think of multiple examples where a correct answer to a factual topic discussion got buried in the comments, and a clearly wrong answer got upvoted above it.
So what’s needed is more content, and better curation of that content.
One possibility is to use moderators to choose which discussion posts get elevated to Main, and have a clear goal to maintain a constant stream of content, and to simply choose the best post that appears during the pre-agreed selection period. A constant stream of content will lower quality in the short term, but increase viewership, which will improve quality in the long-term by giving the moderators more options of what to elevate to main. There will be slim pickings at times, but if you don’t post content this will lower the long-run quality of the site. There should be a clear standard of how many moderators are around, and a clear standard for when a moderator is replaced.
Other possibilities such as a wiki or an open-sourcing community are far removed from the site’s current purpose, and thus are more likely to fail. I’m not sure why the purpose of being a news organization for rationality content as a concept is bad, or why Vaniver believes such a purpose is unworkable when it seems to have worked pretty well for several years even if the current iteration isn’t working. Remember Occam’s Razor.
Edit—I should add that I don’t consider Meetups and Community News to really be content. It’s only relevant to a subset of LessWrong users. I think including those in Main actually detracts from the intention of Main, but that when you remove them there’s not much content there fulfilling the purpose of Main. Community News and major discussion posts are two very different topics, and shouldn’t be included in the same category, which is a sorting issue. Major discussion posts are what I consider to be the main content, and those should be curated, and maintained at a constant level.