In contrast, my model has been that communities congregate around predictable sources of high-quality writing, and people who can produce high-quality content in high volume are very rare. Thus, once Eliezer Yudkowsky stopped being active, and Yvain a.k.a. the immortal Scott Alexander moved to Slate Star Codex (in part so that he could write about politics, which we’ve traditionally avoided), all the “intellectual energy” followed Scott to SSC.
First, I want to state that I agree with this model. However, I also want to note that the SSC comments section tend to have fairly low-quality discussion (in comparison to the OB/LW 1.0 heyday), and I’m not sure why this is; candidate hypotheses include that Scott’s explicit politics attracted people with lower epistemic standards, or that the lack of an explicit karma system allowed low-quality discussion to persist (but I don’t think OB had an explicit karma system either?).
Overall, I’m unsure as to what kind of norms/technology maintains high-quality discussion (as opposed to just the presence of discussion in general), and it’s plausible to me that the two may actually be somewhat mutually exclusive (in the sense that norms/technology designed to promote the volume of high-quality discussion may in fact reduce the volume of discussion in general). It’s not clear to me how this tradeoff should be balanced.
in part so that he could write about politics, which we’ve traditionally avoided
I want to state that I agree with this model.
(I sometimes think that I might be well-positioned to fill the market niche that Scott occupied in 2014, but no longer can due to his being extortable (“As I became more careful in my own writings [...]”) in a way that I have been trained not to be. But I would need to learn to write faster.)
One thing is that I think early OBNYC and LW just actually had a lot of chaff comments too. I think people disproportionately remember the great parts.
First, I want to state that I agree with this model. However, I also want to note that the SSC comments section tend to have fairly low-quality discussion (in comparison to the OB/LW 1.0 heyday), and I’m not sure why this is; candidate hypotheses include that Scott’s explicit politics attracted people with lower epistemic standards, or that the lack of an explicit karma system allowed low-quality discussion to persist (but I don’t think OB had an explicit karma system either?).
Overall, I’m unsure as to what kind of norms/technology maintains high-quality discussion (as opposed to just the presence of discussion in general), and it’s plausible to me that the two may actually be somewhat mutually exclusive (in the sense that norms/technology designed to promote the volume of high-quality discussion may in fact reduce the volume of discussion in general). It’s not clear to me how this tradeoff should be balanced.
(I sometimes think that I might be well-positioned to fill the market niche that Scott occupied in 2014, but no longer can due to his being extortable (“As I became more careful in my own writings [...]”) in a way that I have been trained not to be. But I would need to learn to write faster.)
One thing is that I think early OBNYC and LW just actually had a lot of chaff comments too. I think people disproportionately remember the great parts.