This is a proposal to replace (or supplement) the tagging system with a classification system for content that would be based on three elements: subject, type, and organization.
For me, one of the problems with current LessWrong is that it has too many interesting distractions in it. Ideally, I would want to follow just a few things, with highly groomed content. For example, I’d like to see a section devoted to summaries of recent behavioral psychology articles by someone who understands them better than I do. I suspect that other people would like to see other things that I’d prefer to filter out. Examples: artificial intelligence research, effective altruism, personal productivity. I’m not knocking these subjects; but when I allocate time, I’d like to be able to allocate 100% to what I want to see and 0% to what I don’t.
That suggests that one area where Less Wrong could be improved is at the top level of organization. I’d suggest that content be organized in subjects, like Behavioral Psychology, Effective Altruism, Personal Productivity, and Artificial Intelligence. Now you might say that the tagging system does this. It kind of does, but it is insufficiently prescriptive. An article on effective altruism could have no tags, or many, or not the ones I think of.
Currently, the content is also classified by type, in Main and Discussion. Frankly, the difference between the two makes little sense to me. But I think there is another classification that would be helpful when combined with prescriptive subjects. I’d classify content type more like this:
Research, used for summarizing a publication elsewhere, with the summary provided by someone who know something about it
Link, used for identifying some information that might be of use to the community
Commentary, used for the normal kind of stuff that shows up in discussion
Sequence, assigned by moderators to the original stuff that made this site what it is, or at least was
Reading, used for reading groups for specific books
Meetups, used only to announce Meetups
Organization, used to announce and promote organized action
Then a third classification of content is by organization. The community needs to remain connected to the organizations it spawned. So the third content classification would be by organization, which could be empty. Possible initial values would be MIRI, CFAR, FLI, etc. I’d hope that those organizations would ensure that at least their own research got into the relevant subject under a Research classification, and that their own blog posts got thrown over into the relevant subject under a Link classification.
This would make it easier for me to justify coming back to read Less Wrong daily, because I wouldn’t expose my self to wonderful distrations in order to find the things I’d like to keep up on.
Shoot I’d love a fiction section just to read a bunch of stories without exposing myself to the twist won’t be ‘sometimes people see spirits but keep it to themselves so they won’t look stupid, even in the cool space future’ so much. And you’d like to have it cordoned off so you don’t see it unless you are looking.
I think the key part of that sentence was “I’d like …”
I can think of several reasons why someone might want to do such a thing.
They want to begin or enhance a reputation for being an authority in the field.
They want the organization that they represent to begin or enhance its reputation in the field and to popularize the particular spin that their organization places on such information.
They are studying the field anyway, so the investment is essentially prettying up their own precis of materials they are reading anyway.
They want to help the LW community and this is the way they choose to contribute. (For example, if there was interest in the field of law in which I specialize, I’d do the same, but I can;t see that fitting in here.)
Then, empirically, I note that people (who know these fields better than I) do actually post this kind of content here. But I don’t see the karma system recognizing them for that contribution as much as being the “editor” of the whatever section would recognize them.
This is a proposal to replace (or supplement) the tagging system with a classification system for content that would be based on three elements: subject, type, and organization.
For me, one of the problems with current LessWrong is that it has too many interesting distractions in it. Ideally, I would want to follow just a few things, with highly groomed content. For example, I’d like to see a section devoted to summaries of recent behavioral psychology articles by someone who understands them better than I do. I suspect that other people would like to see other things that I’d prefer to filter out. Examples: artificial intelligence research, effective altruism, personal productivity. I’m not knocking these subjects; but when I allocate time, I’d like to be able to allocate 100% to what I want to see and 0% to what I don’t.
That suggests that one area where Less Wrong could be improved is at the top level of organization. I’d suggest that content be organized in subjects, like Behavioral Psychology, Effective Altruism, Personal Productivity, and Artificial Intelligence. Now you might say that the tagging system does this. It kind of does, but it is insufficiently prescriptive. An article on effective altruism could have no tags, or many, or not the ones I think of.
Currently, the content is also classified by type, in Main and Discussion. Frankly, the difference between the two makes little sense to me. But I think there is another classification that would be helpful when combined with prescriptive subjects. I’d classify content type more like this:
Research, used for summarizing a publication elsewhere, with the summary provided by someone who know something about it
Link, used for identifying some information that might be of use to the community
Commentary, used for the normal kind of stuff that shows up in discussion
Sequence, assigned by moderators to the original stuff that made this site what it is, or at least was
Reading, used for reading groups for specific books
Meetups, used only to announce Meetups
Organization, used to announce and promote organized action
Then a third classification of content is by organization. The community needs to remain connected to the organizations it spawned. So the third content classification would be by organization, which could be empty. Possible initial values would be MIRI, CFAR, FLI, etc. I’d hope that those organizations would ensure that at least their own research got into the relevant subject under a Research classification, and that their own blog posts got thrown over into the relevant subject under a Link classification.
This would make it easier for me to justify coming back to read Less Wrong daily, because I wouldn’t expose my self to wonderful distrations in order to find the things I’d like to keep up on.
Shoot I’d love a fiction section just to read a bunch of stories without exposing myself to the twist won’t be ‘sometimes people see spirits but keep it to themselves so they won’t look stupid, even in the cool space future’ so much. And you’d like to have it cordoned off so you don’t see it unless you are looking.
Why would such a someone commit to spending a considerable amount of time predigesting papers for your convenience?
Explaining something to someone else is a good way to understand and remember it better.
I think the key part of that sentence was “I’d like …”
I can think of several reasons why someone might want to do such a thing.
They want to begin or enhance a reputation for being an authority in the field.
They want the organization that they represent to begin or enhance its reputation in the field and to popularize the particular spin that their organization places on such information.
They are studying the field anyway, so the investment is essentially prettying up their own precis of materials they are reading anyway.
They want to help the LW community and this is the way they choose to contribute. (For example, if there was interest in the field of law in which I specialize, I’d do the same, but I can;t see that fitting in here.)
Then, empirically, I note that people (who know these fields better than I) do actually post this kind of content here. But I don’t see the karma system recognizing them for that contribution as much as being the “editor” of the whatever section would recognize them.
(Subsequently edited for terrible formatting)
Upon realizing this, the entire profession of journalism disappeared.
It’s disappearing anyway :-P
But journalism is certainly not about “summaries of recent [academic] articles by someone who understands them”.
Journalists are not qualified to read papers, generally. As the state of science reporting should tell you.