Less Wrong is a partially moderated community blog that allows general authors to contribute posts as well as comments. Users vote posts and comments up and down (with code based on Reddit’s open source). “Promoted” posts (appearing on the front page) are chosen by the editors on the basis of substantive new content, clear argument, good writing, popularity, and importance.
We suggest submitting links with a short description. Recommended books should have longer descriptions. Links will not be promoted unless they are truly excellent—the “promoted” posts are intended as a filtered stream for the casual/busy reader.
As far as I can tell, most people vote along the lines of the promotion criteria.
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.
I missed the part where Less Wrong had a definition of the required worthiness of a top-level post.
The definition is still being established, largely through comments such as JoshuaZ’s
From the About page:
As far as I can tell, most people vote along the lines of the promotion criteria.
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.