Perhaps. Do note that it is listed in the Recent On Rationality Blogs sidebar, so its not really that secret at all. Nevertheless, I have redacted the relevant parts, in order to avoid unseemly bickering, as this discussion has little to no relevance to my main thesis.
HatCloak
Karma: 102
As I said to ChristianKl, the wayback machine has only a very incomplete archive of it.
Yes, I know why he locked it. It is a real issue, I agree. I still feel that it shouldn’t impact us from reading those posts, as he did make some quite good points about conceptual superweapons. That’s why I proposed a karma threshold: Established LWers should be able to access it, without the problems that emerge from it being open to the entire internet.
OK, fine. I guess I got carried away in the heat of the moment. I do suppose I got a bit to worked up over this. I will go back and edit it state this a bit more calmly.
No, I think it’s more of an issue of refusing to generalize from a single data point. It is entirely correct to say “This conversation is a starting piece of evidence for your position, but I need to wait to gather more evidence.”
You are a person, but not all people. Not even two people. So I do not wish to act on your say so alone. That said, I will repeat my earlier statement: If people [people in general, that is] really think that it is an issue I will redact the name of his old blog.
[Edit: My points still stand, but this isn’t an issue worth fighting over. I’ve gone back and edited my post.]
Look for the bar at the right side of the page. Look down to the part where it says “Recent on Rationality Blogs”. The current top link there is the same link as what I gave. I therefore disbelieve that he asked that he asked not to link to it from Less Wrong, or that he still supports such a request if he did make it, because Less Wrong itself links to it in the sidebar! If it is true that we shouldn’t link to his new blog, shouldn’t the site itself be abiding by that as well? I trust the administrators of Less Wrong to not go against Yvain on that.
[Edit: My points still stand, but this isn’t an issue worth fighting over. I’ve gone back and edited my post.]
Good point, although I think that by this point that ship has already sailed. That said, if people really think that it is an issue I will redact the name of his old blog. Note, however, that Yvain’s old Less Wrong posts are heavily sprinkled with links to things on his blog, so its not like they are remotely unconnected.
This is my point. This a hundred or a thousand times over. That story, and the story of Emily and Control, and all his posts about conceptual superweapons, and the non-central fallacy, and so on and so on for a hundred or a thousand nuggets of awesomeness. That is why I make my plea.
I actually agree with you: He is under no obligations whatsoever. None. But I still am allowed to plead my case to him, for him to decide as he wills, and to spread the issue and discuss it so that the best possible solution can be reached.
As to programming something like that: I am willing to personally implement something like that if asked, although I was more thinking of the manual method of those who want access PMing Yvain or his designated representative and asking for access. Again, I am willing to have the burden of such a task placed on my own shoulders, should Yvain agree. I honestly am trying to find a solution, and am willing to invest a fair amount of personal effort in this.
About the reposting: Yes, I agree. However, there was a lot of stuff on the old blog. Literally thousands of posts, and it would be impractical to repost them one by one. A possible alternative though is for Yvain to repost them en masse, simply redacting the few that he doesn’t want around. That is actually a workable solution, if Yvain agrees, all we need is for this to come to his attention. (And again, if that takes grunt work and effort, I am willing to invest it.)
Not true. While archive.org is great, it is missing huge chunks of the blog. Sad, but true. It doesn’t succeed at archiving everything. And while having half is great, that says nothing about the other half. See here the listing of all pages on squid314.livejournal.com that were captured by the wayback machine.
Edit: Yvain, the great guy that he is, is handling this amazingly. In my eyes, consider this resolved.
(This is an anonymous nick for the moment, but this issue needs to be raised and I’m not comfortable at this point doing it publicly under my own name.)
tl;dr as provided by Daniel_Burfoot: “Yvain is awesome, it’s a shame he locked up his old stuff, let’s lobby him to open it back up”. I heartily endorse this summery, and it pretty much sums up what I have been saying.
[Due to some remarks, have redacted the links to Yvain’s blogs, old and new. This is absurd, in my opinion. Yvain’s new blog is a Rationality Blog in the Recent on Rationality Blogs part of the sidebar, and his old livejournal blog is linked to in many of his old posts. So I do not think that it is even meaningful to redact them. However, in the interest of not inciting argument, I have redacted them regardless.]
All of us here know of Yvain. He has posted much great stuff both here on Less Wrong, and on his blog. Insightful, brilliant stuff. If you go and look at the list of top rated Main posts, Yvain’s stuff top’s the lot.
A year ago, he switched blogs, from [old blog] to [new blog]. Well and fine. He had good reasons for doing so, including a desire for relative anonymity.
This, I do not object to.
However, as of a couple of weeks age, he locked his old blog, locking away many brilliant essays on a wide variety of topics. I view this as bad, to say the least. So much beautiful and brilliant stuff, of great interest to anyone interested in Less Wrong type stuff, never to see the light of day again.
What solutions are there? There are a few. My favorite so far is for Scott to restrict access by LW karma, which would allow him to maintain his privacy against the web, while still not denying those brilliant, humorous, and insightful posts to those who would truly appreciate them.
Or maybe you have another, better, idea? Please, suggest it. And whether or not you do, please, if you value the amazing contents of [old blog], help petition Scott to consider finding a solution. We have to be able to reach some sort of compromise, right?
There has been discussion in the comments section here [link removed; but it is currently the top post in the “Recent on Rationality Blogs” section] about this. Please, weigh in your support.
Hey, that’s far from a bad idea. This was the kind of idea I was looking for when I asked for people to post additional ideas.
I offer myself as a willing volunteer to do this, if Yvain is interested.