Would you say there’s an implicit norm in LW Discussion of not posting links to private LessWrong diaspora or rationalist-adjacent blogs?
I feel like if I started posting links to every new and/or relevant SSC or Ribbonfarm post as top-level Discussion topics, I would get downvoted pretty bad. But I think using LW Discussion as a sort of LW Diaspora Link Aggregator would be one of the best ways to “save” it.
One of the lessons of the diaspora is that lots of people want to say and discuss sort-of-rationalist-y things or at least discuss mundane or political topics in a sort-of-rationalist-y way. As far as I can tell, in order to actually find what all these rationalist-adjacent people are saying, you would have to read like twenty different blogs.
I personally wouldn’t mind a more Hacker News style for LW Discussion, with a heavy focus on links to outside content. Because frankly, we’re not generating enough content locally anymore.
I’m essentially just floating this idea for now. If it’s positively received, I might take it upon myself to start posting links.
I pretty regularly post links as comments in the Open Thread.
The current norm in LW is to have few but meaty top-level posts. I think if we start to just post links, that would change the character of LW considerably, going in the Reddit/HN direction. I don’t know if that would be a good thing.
It seems to me, despite talk of change, LW is staying essentially the same… and thereby struggling at an accelerating rate to be a place for useful content.
My current modus operandi for LW is to use the LW favorite I have in place to (1) Check SSC and the other “Rationality Blogs” on the side bar, and then (2) peruse discussion (and sometimes comment) if there isn’t a new post at SSC, et al that commands my attention. I wonder if other LWers do the same? I wonder what percentage of LW traffic is “secondary” in a way similar to what I’ve described?
I like your suggestion because it is a radical change that might work. And it’s bad to do nothing if what you are doing seems to be on a trajectory of death.
At some point, during a “how can we make LW better” post on here, I mentioned making LW a de facto “hub” for the rationality blogosphere since it’s increasingly not anything else. I’m now re-saying that and seconding your idea. There could still be original content… but there is nowhere close to enough original content coming in right now to justify LW as a standalone site.
My current modus operandi for LW is to use the LW favorite I have in place to (1) Check SSC and the other “Rationality Blogs” on the side bar, and then (2) peruse discussion (and sometimes comment) if there isn’t a new post at SSC, et al that commands my attention. I wonder if other LWers do the same? I wonder what percentage of LW traffic is “secondary” in a way similar to what I’ve described?
As a a data point, this is exactly how I’ve been using LessWrong for at least the last year. One of the reasons I more frequently comment in open threads is because we can have less idle conversations like this one as well :P
I think that LW as is set up now is not good for links; you need to click on the post, and then click again. I think that LW should have reddit-style linkposts, where there’s a link and then another url for the comments. (The relevant github issue.)
Rob Bensinger published Library of Scott Alexandria, his summary/”Sequences” of the historically best posts from Scott (according to Rob, that is). Scott seems to pursue or write on topics with a common thread between them in cycles of a few months. This can be observed in the “top posts” section of his blog. Sometimes I forget a blog exists for a few months, so I don’t read it, but when I do read diaspora/rationality-adjacent blogs, I consider the reading personally valuable. I’d appreciate LessWrong users sharing pieces from their favourite blogs that they believe would also appeal to many users here. So, to make a top-level post linking to several articles from one author once in a while, sharing their best recent posts which would be relevant to LessWrong’s interests, seems reasonable. I agree making a top-level post for any one or all links from a separate blog would be too much, and that this implicit norm should continue to exist.
I think today the norm is providing a short summary of the link target. (If I must click on the link to find out why you linked it, that’s almost guaranteed downvote.)
But I could imagine having a “subreddit” consisting of links only, where the norm would be different.
And of course, links to lower-quality articles can still be downvoted.
Unless there’s some novel point in the post, or reason to discuss it here rather than there, I’d rather not have a link post. Let people who want to read more outside blogs do so, rather than “aggregating”.
I would be more inclined to read outside rationality-adjacent blogs if there were some form of familiar-feeling (as opposed to a new website) aggregation than I would be if there were none, and I had to actively search them out.
Would you say there’s an implicit norm in LW Discussion of not posting links to private LessWrong diaspora or rationalist-adjacent blogs?
I feel like if I started posting links to every new and/or relevant SSC or Ribbonfarm post as top-level Discussion topics, I would get downvoted pretty bad. But I think using LW Discussion as a sort of LW Diaspora Link Aggregator would be one of the best ways to “save” it.
One of the lessons of the diaspora is that lots of people want to say and discuss sort-of-rationalist-y things or at least discuss mundane or political topics in a sort-of-rationalist-y way. As far as I can tell, in order to actually find what all these rationalist-adjacent people are saying, you would have to read like twenty different blogs.
I personally wouldn’t mind a more Hacker News style for LW Discussion, with a heavy focus on links to outside content. Because frankly, we’re not generating enough content locally anymore.
I’m essentially just floating this idea for now. If it’s positively received, I might take it upon myself to start posting links.
I pretty regularly post links as comments in the Open Thread.
The current norm in LW is to have few but meaty top-level posts. I think if we start to just post links, that would change the character of LW considerably, going in the Reddit/HN direction. I don’t know if that would be a good thing.
It seems to me, despite talk of change, LW is staying essentially the same… and thereby struggling at an accelerating rate to be a place for useful content.
My current modus operandi for LW is to use the LW favorite I have in place to (1) Check SSC and the other “Rationality Blogs” on the side bar, and then (2) peruse discussion (and sometimes comment) if there isn’t a new post at SSC, et al that commands my attention. I wonder if other LWers do the same? I wonder what percentage of LW traffic is “secondary” in a way similar to what I’ve described?
I like your suggestion because it is a radical change that might work. And it’s bad to do nothing if what you are doing seems to be on a trajectory of death.
At some point, during a “how can we make LW better” post on here, I mentioned making LW a de facto “hub” for the rationality blogosphere since it’s increasingly not anything else. I’m now re-saying that and seconding your idea. There could still be original content… but there is nowhere close to enough original content coming in right now to justify LW as a standalone site.
As a a data point, this is exactly how I’ve been using LessWrong for at least the last year. One of the reasons I more frequently comment in open threads is because we can have less idle conversations like this one as well :P
I first check the “rationality blogs”, and then the “Discussion”.
I suggest posting links to specific things you think are interesting with some text about what you want to discuss about them.
I think that LW as is set up now is not good for links; you need to click on the post, and then click again. I think that LW should have reddit-style linkposts, where there’s a link and then another url for the comments. (The relevant github issue.)
Rob Bensinger published Library of Scott Alexandria, his summary/”Sequences” of the historically best posts from Scott (according to Rob, that is). Scott seems to pursue or write on topics with a common thread between them in cycles of a few months. This can be observed in the “top posts” section of his blog. Sometimes I forget a blog exists for a few months, so I don’t read it, but when I do read diaspora/rationality-adjacent blogs, I consider the reading personally valuable. I’d appreciate LessWrong users sharing pieces from their favourite blogs that they believe would also appeal to many users here. So, to make a top-level post linking to several articles from one author once in a while, sharing their best recent posts which would be relevant to LessWrong’s interests, seems reasonable. I agree making a top-level post for any one or all links from a separate blog would be too much, and that this implicit norm should continue to exist.
I think today the norm is providing a short summary of the link target. (If I must click on the link to find out why you linked it, that’s almost guaranteed downvote.)
But I could imagine having a “subreddit” consisting of links only, where the norm would be different.
And of course, links to lower-quality articles can still be downvoted.
Unless there’s some novel point in the post, or reason to discuss it here rather than there, I’d rather not have a link post. Let people who want to read more outside blogs do so, rather than “aggregating”.
I would be more inclined to read outside rationality-adjacent blogs if there were some form of familiar-feeling (as opposed to a new website) aggregation than I would be if there were none, and I had to actively search them out.