Did you coordinate with anyone else about you being the person who’s responsible for the census? The LessWrong census is something that costs hundreds of hours of opportunity time of smart people and is thus worth of coordination to be unilaterally done by a person with <1000 karma.
Therefore, I would like to make a case to Administration and the Sunshine Regiment that this is worth frontpaging.
To me making such a request only after you post a census, seems like an awful move and I would recommend closing the census and having a discussion about how the census should look first.
Seems worth mentioning that Screwtape is now the ACX/Rationality global meetups coordinator, which I feel gives him a certain degree of moral authority to run this (not to mention the other stuff he mentions about how the LW team was aware of his plans).
Hey, sorry for not saying something sooner. As Screwtape says below, the LessWrong team was aware of this plan to make a survey. Since realistically we weren’t going to run one ourselves, didn’t make sense to get in the way of someone else doing one (and the questions seem reasonable).
I think putting something in title and prominently in the description like “Unofficial” would be good. Edit: I think if this post for the census got like 100 karma, that’d give it enough legitimacy from the community to be official even if the LW mod team wasn’t endorsing it.
I’d say the status is that this not done with the collaboration/support of the LessWrong team, but neither do we wish to block it.
“Unofficial” is now in the post title, post description, and the title of of the Google form. Let me know if there’s other changes you or the rest of the LessWrong team would like.
The extent of support that was particularly useful was having a the visibility front page brings, which it seems this now has. Thank you to whoever did that.
I know that at least one administrator (Ben Pace) was aware of my intent to run the census if there were no objections from the LessWrong team prior to me putting up the Request For Comments. Ben sent me a Google Doc of brainstormed census questions in response. I made a request for comments post. I agree most people probably didn’t see it, but don’t know how to fix that without asking for more visibility, which I did. I didn’t get told not to do it or that there was a decision not to give this more visibility, that part didn’t get addressed. If anyone from the LessWrong team asks me to retract the census then I’ll retract this census.
I am unaware of any rule, official or unofficial, that the census should be done by someone with more than 1000 karma. I don’t actually think karma score is the right metric here, but if that rule officially exists then I’ll retract this census.
In November of 2022, SurfingOrca offered to run the census. This also stayed as a Personal Blog, so likely not many people saw it, but by my count eight different people (including Ben and yourself) commented on it and everyone seemed positive. As far as I know, this effort has not been published. If your objection is based on karma score I have about ten times as much as SurfingOrca, but I don’t actually think karma score is the right metric here. Still, if SurfingOrca has a census ready to go, I’m willing to defer to the person who started working on this in November 2022 instead of starting in January of 2023. If SurfingOrca announces one that’s up and ready in the next ~48 hours, I’ll retract this census and offer to merge any data this one has as best as I can.
The 2020 General Census was the last census done, run by B Jacobs, who also has less than a thousand karma. B Jacobs was aware of my plans to run the census this year and made no objection, advising me to make the privacy options clear and that it would be helpful if I could get the administration’s assistance. Still, they had the torch last, and if B Jacobs objects and would prefer to run it then I’ll retract this census.
I disagree that my request is an awful move. The status quo is no census. I don’t think anyone has argued that the census should not be run. I don’t think that anyone in particular is currently responsible for the census; there exists no person whose job title is “Less Wrong Census Administrator.” It’s not quite “Somebody Has To And No One Else Will” mode, because nobody actually has to and several people have offered. Nobody else did though, and since I did this at the end of January after talking to an admin and giving a week of RFC it’s not like I’m blocking anyone else who was visibly about to do it.
You didn’t make a request that’s comparable to the request that SurfingOrca made. SurfingOrca’s request got community approval if you look at it’s karma response while yours didn’t.
I think ignoring the fact that your post got single digit karma and ending your “RFC” after only five days and a single person commenting when there’s no reason to rush it, is a bad sign when it comes to the question to whether you are likely trustworthy when it comes to handling sensitive private data.
Ben Pace was the person who was previously planning a census for this year before cancelling it, so if he sent you the brainstorm doc to help, presumably you have the official LessWrong stamp of approval.
I think the post is slightly misleading in that it represents it as “The LessWrong census” (i.e. something done by the less wrong team), instead of a survey by a less wrong user.
This is an important distinction. For example, I trust the less wrong team with my personal information much more than a random user.
I’m open to suggestions on titles and phrasing! I am not claiming to be a member of the site administration. I am claiming the lineage of the LessWrong Demographics Census, which I do not believe was ever actually run by the official LessWrong team.
For the moment, I’ve put up a sentence in the opening of the census stating that I’m a user, not an administrator.
The LW team has known about my census plans for over a month, and, without putting words in their mouth, they seem positively inclined. I currently have >1000 karma. If you’d like to have a discussion about how the census should look, this is an invitation.
What are backlinks? I don’t see any such links in the post.
[ edit: no, really. Are “backlinks” actually a thing? I have this link, but if there’s a generalized way to get such links, I’d like to learn it. ]
Regardless, this claims to be “THE” general census, not “A survey of users”. It should ABSOLUTELY be agreed by the mods in advance if it is to be official, and probably removed or retitled if not.
If any member of the LessWrong administration team asks me to remove this or retitle this, I’ll cheerfully comply. Ben Pace, one of the site admins, was aware of my intent to do this before I put up the Request for Comment and his response was to send me a Google Doc full of brainstormed questions. I took that as light encouragement to go ahead.
As to what absolutely should be done: I’ll bet you ten bucks at 5:1 neither the 2009 or the 2011 censuses were run by a site administrator or received official advance agreement by the mods. I am not claiming to be a member of the site administration. I am claiming the lineage of the LessWrong Demographics Census.
I generally like surveys! Here’s a silly little survey I did that 100 people filled out, here’s a survey John Wentworth did on people’s technical background that 250 people that I know informs his writing. I think small surveys that directly answer key questions are very cheap and worthwhile.
It’s important to do a good job on a survey that you try to make the schelling annual survey for ~10k people on the site to complete. One user made a mess of it in 2017 and the survey died (link, same link with different comments), and another user also didn’t succeed in reviving in 2020 (link).
I think it’d be a nice-to-have to get an annual survey going, especially if it was run by someone who was trying to test particular hypotheses. For instance, if it were me, a bunch of questions on how users use the site that will help the LW team inform new feature development.
So I think it’s fine for you to do a basic demographics-and-beliefs survey, though I think it’s a bit much to demand/expect everyone to take your survey. Calling it “General Census” is a demand that people should actually fill it out that you have to develop buy-in for. Maybe you get lucky and everyone actually fills it out, but if it doesn’t then those who filled it out will be unhappy with you for making them spend effort on a stag hunt where they didn’t get the stag, and also people will trust you less-than-baseline in the future for such stag hunts.
I don’t want to block people from trying things (which is why I didn’t try to in our brief PMs and shared you on the q’s I’d gathered), nor am I freely endorsing any user who wants to run a survey that tries to take up 100s of hours of LW users.
I want to do a good job on this one. The decision to mostly re-use previous questions was a deliberate attempt to return to the Scott Alexander era, and my main changes were in trying to avoid what I see as the flaws in 2017 and 2020. 2017 used special software that wound up with software issues, so I went back to Google Forms. 2020 didn’t get seen by very many people, so I made an effort to get this one more visibility. So far nobody has mentioned a software issue and we already have more responses than 2020, so I’m feeling relatively good about how it’s going.
The goal of having a clear return to form overrode most of the new questions I wanted to explore. The remnants of that are the “Do You Organize Less Wrong Meetups?” question (I’m curious what percentage of people who read LW go to meetups, and what percentage of people who go to meetups run them!) and the “Most Important Lesson” question that I plan to feed directly into Meetups-In-A-Box activities to emphasize those lessons. In the end I decided I wanted the census to look familiar and reliable, so the new questions in Section 10 are mostly goofy and everything else is pretty standard.
“Demand” seems a bit stronger than I wanted to communicate but we might have a difference in connotations. It’s now called the Unofficial General Census, which might lower that somewhat. I was going for “encourage” rather than “demand.” Still, if this attempt flops and people subtract some of my Calling For Stag Hunt points, I would find that reasonable and fair. I’m also happy with the amount of endorsement; this census isn’t official, I’m not associated with the LessWrong team, most surveys shouldn’t wind up in front of the whole site, but this census isn’t blocked or dis-endorsed either.
Did you coordinate with anyone else about you being the person who’s responsible for the census? The LessWrong census is something that costs hundreds of hours of opportunity time of smart people and is thus worth of coordination to be unilaterally done by a person with <1000 karma.
To me making such a request only after you post a census, seems like an awful move and I would recommend closing the census and having a discussion about how the census should look first.
Seems worth mentioning that Screwtape is now the ACX/Rationality global meetups coordinator, which I feel gives him a certain degree of moral authority to run this (not to mention the other stuff he mentions about how the LW team was aware of his plans).
Hey, sorry for not saying something sooner. As Screwtape says below, the LessWrong team was aware of this plan to make a survey. Since realistically we weren’t going to run one ourselves, didn’t make sense to get in the way of someone else doing one (and the questions seem reasonable).
I think putting something in title and prominently in the description like “Unofficial” would be good. Edit: I think if this post for the census got like 100 karma, that’d give it enough legitimacy from the community to be official even if the LW mod team wasn’t endorsing it.
I’d say the status is that this not done with the collaboration/support of the LessWrong team, but neither do we wish to block it.
“Unofficial” is now in the post title, post description, and the title of of the Google form. Let me know if there’s other changes you or the rest of the LessWrong team would like.
The extent of support that was particularly useful was having a the visibility front page brings, which it seems this now has. Thank you to whoever did that.
I know that at least one administrator (Ben Pace) was aware of my intent to run the census if there were no objections from the LessWrong team prior to me putting up the Request For Comments. Ben sent me a Google Doc of brainstormed census questions in response. I made a request for comments post. I agree most people probably didn’t see it, but don’t know how to fix that without asking for more visibility, which I did. I didn’t get told not to do it or that there was a decision not to give this more visibility, that part didn’t get addressed. If anyone from the LessWrong team asks me to retract the census then I’ll retract this census.
I am unaware of any rule, official or unofficial, that the census should be done by someone with more than 1000 karma. I don’t actually think karma score is the right metric here, but if that rule officially exists then I’ll retract this census.
In November of 2022, SurfingOrca offered to run the census. This also stayed as a Personal Blog, so likely not many people saw it, but by my count eight different people (including Ben and yourself) commented on it and everyone seemed positive. As far as I know, this effort has not been published. If your objection is based on karma score I have about ten times as much as SurfingOrca, but I don’t actually think karma score is the right metric here. Still, if SurfingOrca has a census ready to go, I’m willing to defer to the person who started working on this in November 2022 instead of starting in January of 2023. If SurfingOrca announces one that’s up and ready in the next ~48 hours, I’ll retract this census and offer to merge any data this one has as best as I can.
The 2020 General Census was the last census done, run by B Jacobs, who also has less than a thousand karma. B Jacobs was aware of my plans to run the census this year and made no objection, advising me to make the privacy options clear and that it would be helpful if I could get the administration’s assistance. Still, they had the torch last, and if B Jacobs objects and would prefer to run it then I’ll retract this census.
I disagree that my request is an awful move. The status quo is no census. I don’t think anyone has argued that the census should not be run. I don’t think that anyone in particular is currently responsible for the census; there exists no person whose job title is “Less Wrong Census Administrator.” It’s not quite “Somebody Has To And No One Else Will” mode, because nobody actually has to and several people have offered. Nobody else did though, and since I did this at the end of January after talking to an admin and giving a week of RFC it’s not like I’m blocking anyone else who was visibly about to do it.
You didn’t make a request that’s comparable to the request that SurfingOrca made. SurfingOrca’s request got community approval if you look at it’s karma response while yours didn’t.
I think ignoring the fact that your post got single digit karma and ending your “RFC” after only five days and a single person commenting when there’s no reason to rush it, is a bad sign when it comes to the question to whether you are likely trustworthy when it comes to handling sensitive private data.
Ben Pace was the person who was previously planning a census for this year before cancelling it, so if he sent you the brainstorm doc to help, presumably you have the official LessWrong stamp of approval.
I think the post is slightly misleading in that it represents it as “The LessWrong census” (i.e. something done by the less wrong team), instead of a survey by a less wrong user.
This is an important distinction. For example, I trust the less wrong team with my personal information much more than a random user.
I’m open to suggestions on titles and phrasing! I am not claiming to be a member of the site administration. I am claiming the lineage of the LessWrong Demographics Census, which I do not believe was ever actually run by the official LessWrong team.
For the moment, I’ve put up a sentence in the opening of the census stating that I’m a user, not an administrator.
Scott Alexander isn’t the official LessWrong team but he was someone who actually earned had more authority. He was someone with community trust.
Be advised, the request for comments is up for the 2023 version.
The LW team has known about my census plans for over a month, and, without putting words in their mouth, they seem positively inclined. I currently have >1000 karma. If you’d like to have a discussion about how the census should look, this is an invitation.
they did make a request for comments, which you can see in the backlinks.
What are backlinks? I don’t see any such links in the post.
[ edit: no, really. Are “backlinks” actually a thing? I have this link, but if there’s a generalized way to get such links, I’d like to learn it. ]
Regardless, this claims to be “THE” general census, not “A survey of users”. It should ABSOLUTELY be agreed by the mods in advance if it is to be official, and probably removed or retitled if not.
The request for comment post is here.
If any member of the LessWrong administration team asks me to remove this or retitle this, I’ll cheerfully comply. Ben Pace, one of the site admins, was aware of my intent to do this before I put up the Request for Comment and his response was to send me a Google Doc full of brainstormed questions. I took that as light encouragement to go ahead.
As to what absolutely should be done: I’ll bet you ten bucks at 5:1 neither the 2009 or the 2011 censuses were run by a site administrator or received official advance agreement by the mods. I am not claiming to be a member of the site administration. I am claiming the lineage of the LessWrong Demographics Census.
I generally like surveys! Here’s a silly little survey I did that 100 people filled out, here’s a survey John Wentworth did on people’s technical background that 250 people that I know informs his writing. I think small surveys that directly answer key questions are very cheap and worthwhile.
It’s important to do a good job on a survey that you try to make the schelling annual survey for ~10k people on the site to complete. One user made a mess of it in 2017 and the survey died (link, same link with different comments), and another user also didn’t succeed in reviving in 2020 (link).
I think it’d be a nice-to-have to get an annual survey going, especially if it was run by someone who was trying to test particular hypotheses. For instance, if it were me, a bunch of questions on how users use the site that will help the LW team inform new feature development.
So I think it’s fine for you to do a basic demographics-and-beliefs survey, though I think it’s a bit much to demand/expect everyone to take your survey. Calling it “General Census” is a demand that people should actually fill it out that you have to develop buy-in for. Maybe you get lucky and everyone actually fills it out, but if it doesn’t then those who filled it out will be unhappy with you for making them spend effort on a stag hunt where they didn’t get the stag, and also people will trust you less-than-baseline in the future for such stag hunts.
I don’t want to block people from trying things (which is why I didn’t try to in our brief PMs and shared you on the q’s I’d gathered), nor am I freely endorsing any user who wants to run a survey that tries to take up 100s of hours of LW users.
I want to do a good job on this one. The decision to mostly re-use previous questions was a deliberate attempt to return to the Scott Alexander era, and my main changes were in trying to avoid what I see as the flaws in 2017 and 2020. 2017 used special software that wound up with software issues, so I went back to Google Forms. 2020 didn’t get seen by very many people, so I made an effort to get this one more visibility. So far nobody has mentioned a software issue and we already have more responses than 2020, so I’m feeling relatively good about how it’s going.
The goal of having a clear return to form overrode most of the new questions I wanted to explore. The remnants of that are the “Do You Organize Less Wrong Meetups?” question (I’m curious what percentage of people who read LW go to meetups, and what percentage of people who go to meetups run them!) and the “Most Important Lesson” question that I plan to feed directly into Meetups-In-A-Box activities to emphasize those lessons. In the end I decided I wanted the census to look familiar and reliable, so the new questions in Section 10 are mostly goofy and everything else is pretty standard.
“Demand” seems a bit stronger than I wanted to communicate but we might have a difference in connotations. It’s now called the Unofficial General Census, which might lower that somewhat. I was going for “encourage” rather than “demand.” Still, if this attempt flops and people subtract some of my Calling For Stag Hunt points, I would find that reasonable and fair. I’m also happy with the amount of endorsement; this census isn’t official, I’m not associated with the LessWrong team, most surveys shouldn’t wind up in front of the whole site, but this census isn’t blocked or dis-endorsed either.
Thanks. All seems good here to me.
It seems like the request for comments had single-digit karma, which is a sign that it didn’t found approval.