I have seen people form strong attachments of responsibility to groups while playing World of Warcraft. A friend of mine will frequently beg off social engagements because of scheduled in-game events to which he needs to contribute. Something about the 3-D avatars seems to do the job.
In fact, I’d start even simpler. We need profiles. I’m not saying we turn LessWrong into Facebook, but our brains are wired to track humans, and specifically to respond to faces. I think if we simply had a photo of each LessWrong member appearing next to their submissions (as Emile has also suggested), it would help to excite those faculties. In addition, if each member had a place to write about themselves for a line or two, or link to a personal website, that might help.
Faces and voices are also not needed. I’ve played browser based games such as pardus and felt committed, if only briefly before realising real life is more important.
What I need is to be mentally committed to a project. Someone says we need to do X and asks how do we go about doing X. Discussion ensues. If the discussion ends up we need to raise Z amount of money or Y people to be on at a certain time I am likely to contribute to that or try and be that person.
Contributing to an anonymous pot won’t get people committed as a specific project.
A bit like what pjeby talks about with envisaging actions, push and all that.
The less effort required to participate, the more that will come. Something web based seems the most appropriate idea, and since we are all logged in already so we are almost there!
I have seen people form strong attachments of responsibility to groups while playing World of Warcraft. A friend of mine will frequently beg off social engagements because of scheduled in-game events to which he needs to contribute. Something about the 3-D avatars seems to do the job.
In fact, I’d start even simpler. We need profiles. I’m not saying we turn LessWrong into Facebook, but our brains are wired to track humans, and specifically to respond to faces. I think if we simply had a photo of each LessWrong member appearing next to their submissions (as Emile has also suggested), it would help to excite those faculties. In addition, if each member had a place to write about themselves for a line or two, or link to a personal website, that might help.
Or start a LessWrong group on Facebook.
done—comment here if you’d like to be an admin.
Faces and voices are also not needed. I’ve played browser based games such as pardus and felt committed, if only briefly before realising real life is more important.
What I need is to be mentally committed to a project. Someone says we need to do X and asks how do we go about doing X. Discussion ensues. If the discussion ends up we need to raise Z amount of money or Y people to be on at a certain time I am likely to contribute to that or try and be that person.
Contributing to an anonymous pot won’t get people committed as a specific project.
A bit like what pjeby talks about with envisaging actions, push and all that.
The less effort required to participate, the more that will come. Something web based seems the most appropriate idea, and since we are all logged in already so we are almost there!