What do you mean? (I ask because I am more used to other kinds of web resources—mail lists of petitions, interactive maps, culinary recipes—about which I would have said that the signal-to-noise ratio is good enough. Maybe you mean discussion forums in particular?)
Why is Google the biggest search engine even though it wasn’t the first? It’s because Google has a better signal-to-noise ratio than most search engines. PageRank cut through all the affiliate cruft when other search engines couldn’t, and they’ve only continued to refine their algorithms.
But still, haven’t you noticed that when Wikipedia comes up in a Google search, you click that first? Even when it’s not the top result? I do. Sometimes it’s not even the article I’m after, but its external links. And then I think to myself, “Why didn’t I just search Wikipedia in the first place?”. Why do we do that? Because we expect to find what we’re looking for there. We’ve learned from experience that Wikipedia has a better signal-to-noise ratio than a Google search.
If LessWrong and Wikipedia came up in the first page of a Google search, I’d click LessWrong first. Wouldn’t you? Not from any sense of community obligation (I’m a lurker), but because I expect a higher probability of good information here. LessWrong has a better signal-to-noise ratio than Wikipedia.
LessWrong doesn’t specialize in recipes or maps. Likewise, there’s a lot you can find through Google that’s not on Wikipedia (and good luck finding it if Google can’t!), but we still choose Wikipedia over Google’s top hit when available. What is on LessWrong is insightful, especially in normally noisy areas of inquiry.
Yes, I usually go to Wikipedia, too. And yes, I expect to have to go elsewhere afterwards. I go to Wiki mostly because the articles there are brief (sometimes just to check if something is really called what I think it is called), but I don’t search Wiki itself because when I see Google results, I automatically note pages which I should visit after I get the minimal information from Wiki. (Sometimes Wiki articles appear to me to ramble about the topic, especially when it is something etnographic.) So I guess I do agree with you that the s-2-n ratio is good enough. However, sometimes when I have time to kill, I prefer other Google results specifically because Wiki (for me) is kind of a curiosity stopper.
If LW also came up in the first page of a search, I’d go there too, simply because that would be such an improbable occurrence considering what I search for:)
Fair, point, but still. Wikipedia’s stated role is an aggregator and summarizer of existing knowledge. It’s standard is verifiability, not truth.
Many of the rationality community’s views are decidedly not mainstream, and better for it. Our standard is higher than theirs.
Despite its flaws, LW has a better signal-to-noise ratio than any other web resource I’ve found.
What do you mean? (I ask because I am more used to other kinds of web resources—mail lists of petitions, interactive maps, culinary recipes—about which I would have said that the signal-to-noise ratio is good enough. Maybe you mean discussion forums in particular?)
Why is Google the biggest search engine even though it wasn’t the first? It’s because Google has a better signal-to-noise ratio than most search engines. PageRank cut through all the affiliate cruft when other search engines couldn’t, and they’ve only continued to refine their algorithms.
But still, haven’t you noticed that when Wikipedia comes up in a Google search, you click that first? Even when it’s not the top result? I do. Sometimes it’s not even the article I’m after, but its external links. And then I think to myself, “Why didn’t I just search Wikipedia in the first place?”. Why do we do that? Because we expect to find what we’re looking for there. We’ve learned from experience that Wikipedia has a better signal-to-noise ratio than a Google search.
If LessWrong and Wikipedia came up in the first page of a Google search, I’d click LessWrong first. Wouldn’t you? Not from any sense of community obligation (I’m a lurker), but because I expect a higher probability of good information here. LessWrong has a better signal-to-noise ratio than Wikipedia.
LessWrong doesn’t specialize in recipes or maps. Likewise, there’s a lot you can find through Google that’s not on Wikipedia (and good luck finding it if Google can’t!), but we still choose Wikipedia over Google’s top hit when available. What is on LessWrong is insightful, especially in normally noisy areas of inquiry.
Yes, I usually go to Wikipedia, too. And yes, I expect to have to go elsewhere afterwards. I go to Wiki mostly because the articles there are brief (sometimes just to check if something is really called what I think it is called), but I don’t search Wiki itself because when I see Google results, I automatically note pages which I should visit after I get the minimal information from Wiki. (Sometimes Wiki articles appear to me to ramble about the topic, especially when it is something etnographic.) So I guess I do agree with you that the s-2-n ratio is good enough. However, sometimes when I have time to kill, I prefer other Google results specifically because Wiki (for me) is kind of a curiosity stopper.
If LW also came up in the first page of a search, I’d go there too, simply because that would be such an improbable occurrence considering what I search for:)