B—posting links to articles—is already possible. It’s fallen out of fashion, I’m not sure why. So far as I remember, link posts in Discussion went over well enough so long as there was a substantial excerpt or a summary rather than just the link.
That’s interesting—you’ve got 3 karma points. When I post a link, I usually add an excerpt or summary on utilitarian grounds, since I think it’s less total work for me to give some indication of why other people should be interested than for a number of people to click the link than for me (who’s already read the link and know something about it) to check it out.
I gather the media thread isn’t a good enough place for posting links.
I was, for a period, a major submitter of links to Hacker News. The process for doing that with the bookmarklet they provide is literally two clicks and 10 seconds. How many of each is it for LW today?
But what does it matter if 1% of all links that should end up here, actually do? Hacker news is a proven model, people not clicking without summaries isn’t an issue.
A proven model of what, though? I don’t read Hacker News (or reddit, or 4chan), because every time I’ve looked around those places, I’ve seen nothing worth staying for, just shiny distraction.
If Less Wrong has declined, what has it declined from and what do people want it raised to?
All I’m saying is that we have a supply problem, and you’re raising a demand issue. Also, the issue you’re raising is based on an anecdote that seems sufficiently niche as to not be worth the tradeoff (i.e. not solving the supply issue). If you have evidence of generality of the demand for summaries, I’d like to see it.
Complaint isn’t actually a high enough barrier. If I had a waiter serve me breakfast every morning in bed, and suddenly I had to go to the kitchen for it, you bet I’d complain. The question is, would people not visit links based on the title alone?
In any case, I’ve explained this enough times that I think I’ve done as much as I could have. I’ll just leave it at this.
B—posting links to articles—is already possible. It’s fallen out of fashion, I’m not sure why. So far as I remember, link posts in Discussion went over well enough so long as there was a substantial excerpt or a summary rather than just the link.
That’s the problem. Posting a summary is a trivial (or not so trivial) inconvenience.
That’s interesting—you’ve got 3 karma points. When I post a link, I usually add an excerpt or summary on utilitarian grounds, since I think it’s less total work for me to give some indication of why other people should be interested than for a number of people to click the link than for me (who’s already read the link and know something about it) to check it out.
I gather the media thread isn’t a good enough place for posting links.
I was, for a period, a major submitter of links to Hacker News. The process for doing that with the bookmarklet they provide is literally two clicks and 10 seconds. How many of each is it for LW today?
Not seeing a summary is a sufficient inconvenience that I ignore the link.
But what does it matter if 1% of all links that should end up here, actually do? Hacker news is a proven model, people not clicking without summaries isn’t an issue.
A proven model of what, though? I don’t read Hacker News (or reddit, or 4chan), because every time I’ve looked around those places, I’ve seen nothing worth staying for, just shiny distraction.
If Less Wrong has declined, what has it declined from and what do people want it raised to?
It has declined from high quality intellectual discussion (admittedly, of questionable direct value in every day life) to . . . basically crickets.
All the main content creators/conversation starters have gone off to other projects, or formed local meatspace communities that suck up their time.
Possibly an impressive record for LW.
Maybe we’ve discovered that open threads are the most valuable discussions and the rest of the site isn’t worth it?
One could also say that that is where they prefer to spend their time.
Yes, that seems to be true. I didn’t mean to cast it as a negative thing.
All I’m saying is that we have a supply problem, and you’re raising a demand issue. Also, the issue you’re raising is based on an anecdote that seems sufficiently niche as to not be worth the tradeoff (i.e. not solving the supply issue). If you have evidence of generality of the demand for summaries, I’d like to see it.
It’s a frequent complaint (and not just by me) when people post links without summaries.
Personally, if someone wants me to read something, they’d better tell me what it is first, or I just ignore it.
Complaint isn’t actually a high enough barrier. If I had a waiter serve me breakfast every morning in bed, and suddenly I had to go to the kitchen for it, you bet I’d complain. The question is, would people not visit links based on the title alone?
In any case, I’ve explained this enough times that I think I’ve done as much as I could have. I’ll just leave it at this.