Although I guess there’s also the question of, why don’t we just create an archipelago of subreddits on reddit if that’s the direction we want to go? Just prepend the name of each subreddit with “LessWrong” and link them together somehow and be done with it.
I think we all know the answer, though: LW has certain standards and does a better job of keeping out certain kinds of noise than reddit does, even with active moderation. LW today attracts certain folks, deters others, and its boundaries make it a compelling garden to hang out in, even if not everyone agrees on, say, whether we should allow only flowering plants in our garden or if ferns and moss are okay.
I like the direction of having LW, EA Forum, and Alignment Forum being semi-connected; I would love if EA Forum functions more like the Alignment Forum does in relation to LW, and I think it would be cool to potentially see one or two additional sites branch off if that made sense, but I also don’t feel like there’s enough volume here that I’d enjoy seeing us fracture too much, because there’s a lot of benefit too in keeping things together and exposing folks to things they otherwise might not see because it happens to be loosely connected enough to the things they do want to see that they end up encountering it. I enjoy stumbling on things I had no idea I would learn something from, but others are less open in this way and have different preferences.
Although I guess there’s also the question of, why don’t we just create an archipelago of subreddits on reddit if that’s the direction we want to go? Just prepend the name of each subreddit with “LessWrong” and link them together somehow and be done with it.
I think we all know the answer, though: LW has certain standards and does a better job of keeping out certain kinds of noise than reddit does, even with active moderation. LW today attracts certain folks, deters others, and its boundaries make it a compelling garden to hang out in, even if not everyone agrees on, say, whether we should allow only flowering plants in our garden or if ferns and moss are okay.
I like the direction of having LW, EA Forum, and Alignment Forum being semi-connected; I would love if EA Forum functions more like the Alignment Forum does in relation to LW, and I think it would be cool to potentially see one or two additional sites branch off if that made sense, but I also don’t feel like there’s enough volume here that I’d enjoy seeing us fracture too much, because there’s a lot of benefit too in keeping things together and exposing folks to things they otherwise might not see because it happens to be loosely connected enough to the things they do want to see that they end up encountering it. I enjoy stumbling on things I had no idea I would learn something from, but others are less open in this way and have different preferences.