Once upon a time, someone was curious about the LessWrong community. Following the virtue of curiosity, they asked questions. Now we know more about the kind of people who are interested in Rationality and how they relate to the content on this website.
Scott Alexander started the LessWrong Community Census, but others have picked up the torch in their turn since he set it down. It wouldn’t do for too much focus on LessWrong to go meta, to turn inward on itself and not look at the world around us, but once a year is a fine cadence and it’s a tradition that I enjoy.
The way I see it, the most important function of the census is to have some data with which to learn and argue and practice how to strain truth from the confusing mass of the world. The second function is to know more about the userbase. The third function is often to scratch that itch of curiosity when someone has a question they want to know and they can only find with a nice big survey.
These are the censuses and their analysis posts. Welcome, and enjoy.