60%?! That a regular user will abstain from an addictive site for about twice its current age? A site about a topic he’s obsessed with? I’ll take that bet.
My reasoning was along the lines of ‘well, now he’s publicly committed to it and would be ashamed to make a comment or post’ and that LW can be something of a habit—and once habits are broken, they’re easy to continue to not engage in. (For example, I do not have the habit of smoking, and I suspect I will have ~100% success in continuing to not smoke over the next 5 years.)
Although note I slightly cheat by specifying posts and comments—so he could engage in private messages or voting on comments & posts, and I would not count that as a falsification of the prediction.
My reasoning was along the lines of ‘well, now he’s publicly committed to it and would be ashamed to make a comment or post’ and that LW can be something of a habit—and once habits are broken, they’re easy to continue to not engage in.
My impression is that XiXiDu has been talking about needing to study more and leaving LW / utility considerations for quite some time now. I don’t think he even can make serious commitments right now. He didn’t even delete his livejournal yet.
Although note I slightly cheat by specifying posts and comments—so he could engage in private messages or voting on comments & posts, and I would not count that as a falsification of the prediction.
Neither would I. Coming back under a new name would count, though.
Mm. Well, we shall see. Not deleting LJ isn’t a warning signal for me—having LJ can encourage your studying (‘what do I write up today?’) which LW doesn’t necessarily (‘what do I read on LW today?’).
Neither would I. Coming back under a new name would count, though.
Good point; I’ll clarify that when I say ‘XiXiDu’ in the prediction, I mean the underlying person and not the specific LW account.
60%?! That a regular user will abstain from an addictive site for about twice its current age? A site about a topic he’s obsessed with? I’ll take that bet.
(Made my own 5% prediction.)
My reasoning was along the lines of ‘well, now he’s publicly committed to it and would be ashamed to make a comment or post’ and that LW can be something of a habit—and once habits are broken, they’re easy to continue to not engage in. (For example, I do not have the habit of smoking, and I suspect I will have ~100% success in continuing to not smoke over the next 5 years.)
Although note I slightly cheat by specifying posts and comments—so he could engage in private messages or voting on comments & posts, and I would not count that as a falsification of the prediction.
My impression is that XiXiDu has been talking about needing to study more and leaving LW / utility considerations for quite some time now. I don’t think he even can make serious commitments right now. He didn’t even delete his livejournal yet.
Neither would I. Coming back under a new name would count, though.
Mm. Well, we shall see. Not deleting LJ isn’t a warning signal for me—having LJ can encourage your studying (‘what do I write up today?’) which LW doesn’t necessarily (‘what do I read on LW today?’).
Good point; I’ll clarify that when I say ‘XiXiDu’ in the prediction, I mean the underlying person and not the specific LW account.