There’s isn’t a formal definition as of yet, but ideally I’d like to see top-level posts satisfy the following criteria:
1) Too long or involved to be included in an open thread.
2) Of general interest to the LW community.
3) Contribute substantial new and interesting points.
4) Likely to generate wide-ranging discussion.
I have trouble seeing this post as meeting 1 or 4.
People also complained about the “AI in a box boxes you post”, which was a great post nearly identical in structure to this one. Few people read the open thread; good posts should not default to the open thread. Why is your criteria for top-level posts so arbitrarily difficult? We are not facing a problem of an influx of low quality content and the moderation+promotion system works well.
My criteria for top-level posts is not “so arbitrarily difficult.” Frankly, I’m not completely sure that that the AI boxing you post should have been a top-level post either. However, given that that post did not focus on any specific AI solution but a more general set of issues, whereas this one focuses on CEV, there may be a distinction between them. That said, I agree that as of right now, the moderation/promotion system is working well. But I suspect that that is partially due to people implicitly applying criteria like the ones I listed in their moderation decisions.
Incidentally, I’m curious what evidence you have that the open threads are not as read as top-level posts. In particular, I’m not sure this applies to non-promoted top-level posts. I suspect that it is true, and indeed, if it isn’t then my own logic for wanting criterion 2 becomes substantially weaker. Now that you’ve made our shared premise explicit I have to wonder what evidence we have for the claim.
There’s isn’t a formal definition as of yet, but ideally I’d like to see top-level posts satisfy the following criteria:
1) Too long or involved to be included in an open thread. 2) Of general interest to the LW community. 3) Contribute substantial new and interesting points. 4) Likely to generate wide-ranging discussion.
I have trouble seeing this post as meeting 1 or 4.
People also complained about the “AI in a box boxes you post”, which was a great post nearly identical in structure to this one. Few people read the open thread; good posts should not default to the open thread. Why is your criteria for top-level posts so arbitrarily difficult? We are not facing a problem of an influx of low quality content and the moderation+promotion system works well.
My criteria for top-level posts is not “so arbitrarily difficult.” Frankly, I’m not completely sure that that the AI boxing you post should have been a top-level post either. However, given that that post did not focus on any specific AI solution but a more general set of issues, whereas this one focuses on CEV, there may be a distinction between them. That said, I agree that as of right now, the moderation/promotion system is working well. But I suspect that that is partially due to people implicitly applying criteria like the ones I listed in their moderation decisions.
Incidentally, I’m curious what evidence you have that the open threads are not as read as top-level posts. In particular, I’m not sure this applies to non-promoted top-level posts. I suspect that it is true, and indeed, if it isn’t then my own logic for wanting criterion 2 becomes substantially weaker. Now that you’ve made our shared premise explicit I have to wonder what evidence we have for the claim.