Other than that, Facebook seems to have the whole “archipelago” thing pretty much solved.
I actually think there’s a deep sense in which Facebook has not accomplished archipelago, and an additional deep sense in which they have not accomplished public archipelago.
Archipelago doesn’t just mean “you’ve filter-bubbled yourself such that people you only hang out with likeminded people.” It means you’ve filtered yourself and then used that filtering to enforce norms that you wouldn’t be able to enforce otherwise, allowing you to experiment with culture building.
On FB, I’ve seen a small number of people do this on purpose. Mostly I see people sort of halfheartedly complaining about norms, but neither setting explicit norms for people to follow nor following through on kicking people out if they don’t. (An issue is that FB is designed to be a melting pot. Your mom, your college friends, and rationalist friends are all bumping into each other, and have different assumptions about what norms even mean)
And then, re Public Archipelago: Facebook very much works against the ability for good ideas to bubble up into a central conversation that everyone can be aware of. You could attempt to solve this by building around Facebook, but Facebook really doesn’t want you to do that and it’s a pain.
I think Reddit has a better claim to “accomplishing Archipelago”. Subreddits are a thing of beauty. They are bigger than a personal blog though, and don’t interact much, so LW2 is really trying something new. I can’t wait to see how it works out.
I think I agree that if you see that as the development of explicit new norms as the primary point then Facebook doesn’t really work and you need something like this. I guess I got excited because I was hoping that you’d solved the “audience is inclined towards nitpicking” and “the people I most want to hear from will have been prefiltered out” problems, and now it looks more like those aren’t going to change.
I guess I got excited because I was hoping that you’d solved the “audience is inclined towards nitpicking” and “the people I most want to hear from will have been prefiltered out” problems, and now it looks more like those aren’t going to change.
My expectation is that the new rules will result in less nitpicking (since authors will have a number of tools to say ‘sorry this comment doesn’t seem to be pulling its weight’), although you may have to learn which authors enforce which sorts of norms to figure it out.
I’m not 100% which things are prefiltering people you care about out, so am not sure whether this will make a difference.
I actually think there’s a deep sense in which Facebook has not accomplished archipelago, and an additional deep sense in which they have not accomplished public archipelago.
Archipelago doesn’t just mean “you’ve filter-bubbled yourself such that people you only hang out with likeminded people.” It means you’ve filtered yourself and then used that filtering to enforce norms that you wouldn’t be able to enforce otherwise, allowing you to experiment with culture building.
On FB, I’ve seen a small number of people do this on purpose. Mostly I see people sort of halfheartedly complaining about norms, but neither setting explicit norms for people to follow nor following through on kicking people out if they don’t. (An issue is that FB is designed to be a melting pot. Your mom, your college friends, and rationalist friends are all bumping into each other, and have different assumptions about what norms even mean)
And then, re Public Archipelago: Facebook very much works against the ability for good ideas to bubble up into a central conversation that everyone can be aware of. You could attempt to solve this by building around Facebook, but Facebook really doesn’t want you to do that and it’s a pain.
I think Reddit has a better claim to “accomplishing Archipelago”. Subreddits are a thing of beauty. They are bigger than a personal blog though, and don’t interact much, so LW2 is really trying something new. I can’t wait to see how it works out.
I think I agree that if you see that as the development of explicit new norms as the primary point then Facebook doesn’t really work and you need something like this. I guess I got excited because I was hoping that you’d solved the “audience is inclined towards nitpicking” and “the people I most want to hear from will have been prefiltered out” problems, and now it looks more like those aren’t going to change.
My expectation is that the new rules will result in less nitpicking (since authors will have a number of tools to say ‘sorry this comment doesn’t seem to be pulling its weight’), although you may have to learn which authors enforce which sorts of norms to figure it out.
I’m not 100% which things are prefiltering people you care about out, so am not sure whether this will make a difference.