Not entirely opaque, but like reading a language which you’ve learned the 200 most common words of, enabling you to understand 95% of a text and not come away with the point (because the key parts are in the other 5%). Not an error, just a reader mismatch; it wouldn’t have been worth mentioning except that you asked.
After trying to figure out where the response would be best suited, I’m splitting the difference; I’ll put a summary here, and if it’s not obviously stupid and seems to garner comments, I’ll post the full thing on its own.
I’ve read some of the sequences, but not all; I started to, and then wandered off. Here are my theories as to why, with brief explanations.
1) The minimum suggested reading is not just long, it’s deceptively long.
The quantity by itself is a pretty big hurdle to someone who’s only just developing an interest in its topics, and the way the sequences are indexed hides the actual amount of content behind categorized links. This is the wrong direction in which to surprise the would-be reader. And that’s just talking about the core sequences.
2) Many of the sequences are either not interesting to me, or are presented in ways that make them appear not to be.
If the topic actually doesn’t interest me, that’s fine, because I presumably won’t be trying to discuss it, either. But some of the sequence titles are more pithy than informative, and some of the introductory text is dissuasive where it tries to be inviting; few of them give a clear summary of what the subject is and who needs to read it.
3) Even the ones which are interesting to me contain way more information, or at least text, than I needed.
I don’t think it’s actually true that every new reader needs to read all of the sequences. I’m a bad example, because there’s a lot in them I’ve never heard of or even thought about, but I don’t think that’s true of everyone who walks up to LW for the first time. On the other hand, just because I’d never heard of Bayes’s Theorem by name doesn’t mean that I need a huge missive to explain it to me. What I turned out to need was an example problem, the fact that the general form of the math I used to solve it is named after a guy called Bayes, and an explanation of how the term is used in prose. I was frustrated by having to go through a very long introduction in order to get those things (and I didn’t entirely get the last one).
My proposal for addressing these is to create a single introductory page with inline links to glossary definitions, and from there to further reading. The idea is that more information is available up front and a new reader can more easily prioritize the articles based on their own knowledge and interest; it would also provide a general overview of the topics LW addresses. (The About page is a good introduction to the site, but not the subjects.) On a quick search, the glossary appears to have been suggested before but not yet exist—unless I just can’t find it, in which case it’s not doing much good. There are parts of this I’m not qualified to do, but I’d be happy to donate time to the ones that I am.
To be clear, do you actually think that time spent reading later posts has been more valuable than marginal time on the sequences would have been? To me that seems like reading Discover Magazine after dropping your intro to mechanics textbook because the later seems to just tell you thinks that are obvious.
I think some of my time spent reading articles in the sequences was well spent, and the rest was split between two alternatives: 1) in a minority of cases where the reading didn’t feel useful, it was about something I already felt I understood, and 2) in a majority of such cases, it wasn’t connected to something I was already curious about.
It’s explained a bit better in the longer version of the above comment (which now appears to be homeless). But I think the sequences, or at least the admonition to read them all, are targeted at someone who has done some reading or at least thinking about their subjects before. Not because they demand prior knowledge, but because they demand prior interest. You may have underestimated how much of a newbie you have on your hands.
It’s not that I’m claiming to be so smart that I can participate fully in the discussions without reading up on the fundamentals, it’s that participating or even just watching the discussion is the thing that’s piquing my interest in the subjects in the first place. It feels less like asking me to read about basic physics before trying to set up a physics experiment, and more like asking me to read about music theory without ever having heard any music. It’s just not as meaningful before having observed what it’s good for—and even a highly talented and technical musician would admit that attending a performance with other people is more interesting than doing theory homework, even if they have a very clever theory teacher who makes the lessons into little stories.
Just to put this into perspective, I don’t think any of the above is nearly as significant to my reading habits as the simple amount of material in the sequences. I do keep reading bits and pieces, but how much time in a day I’m able or even willing to focus on it is finite. I’ve spent a lot of time this week reading LW when I could have been out getting vitamin D or practicing the guitar, and at the current rate it would still take me quite a while to get through all the sequences (less, but not a trivial amount, to get through just the core sequences). That’s a time commitment it’s difficult to justify if I’m to make it before being allowed to discuss the ideas with human beings in the current blog.
I guess there are two theses here: that the sequences are good at bestowing information, but the current posts are better at garnering interest in them; and that the latter is simply more enjoyable, because it’s interactive. (I, like some other commenters here, read LW as play, not work; if it weren’t fun I wouldn’t be here.) If you want to convince people to read the sequences before participating, those are your obstacles.
and even a highly talented and technical musician would admit that attending a performance with other people is more interesting than doing theory homework, even if they have a very clever theory teacher who makes the lessons into little stories
I am struck by the inclusion of the seemingly unnecessary phrase “with other people”, which suggests that your real interest is social in nature. And sure enough, you confirm this later in the comment:
That’s a time commitment it’s difficult to justify if I’m to make it before being allowed to discuss the ideas with human beings in the current blog.
and
[current posts are] simply more enjoyable, because it’s interactive
It seems like an important point, and another argument in favor of additional (sub)forums. About that, I’m not sure what I think yet.
Incidentally, against the notion that attending performances is the most enjoyable part of the musical experience, here is Milton Babbitt on the subject:
“I can’t believe that people really prefer to go to the concert hall under intellectually trying, socially trying, physically trying conditions, unable to repeat something they have missed, when they can sit at home under the most comfortable and stimulating circumstances and hear it as they want to hear it. I can’t imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen.
suggests that your real interest is social in nature
Well, to say it’s my “real” interest suggests that my interest in rationality is fake, which is false, but I am indeed a very social critter and a lot of the appeal of LW is being able to discuss, not just absorb. (I even get shiny karma points for doing it well!)
So, yes—and I was actually realizing that myself over the course of writing that comment (which necessarily involved thinking about why I’m here).
It seems like an important point
Despite the above, I’m not actually sure why it is.
and another argument in favor of additional (sub)forums
Well, I voted for ’em, so it’s good to hear that’s consistent. :)
here is Milton Babbitt
That quote is pretty funny. We clearly differ in at least these two ways: 1) I either don’t know or don’t care enough about music to be bothered by period distractions from it (I’m not sure how to tell the difference from inside my own head), and 2) I like the noisy hall.
He’s right about the novel, though, that would be appalling. (Difference being that verbal language breaks down a lot faster if you miss a piece.)
I can’t imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen.
Oh, my. Fiction put in a good effort, but truth pulls ahead as always:
Nor is it precisely a theatricalization of the novel …. Rather, in “Gatz” … the text of “The Great Gatsby” is spoken aloud, all forty-nine thousand words of it
A clever point, but is it really useful to compare the sequences to a textbook? Maybe a textbook at some community college somewhere. I personally found the sequences to be overloaded with anecdote and motivation, and rather lacking in technical substance.
There is one thing that the post and comment part of this site has that the sequences do not have. Dialog. Posters and commenters are challenged to clarify their positions and to defend their arguments. In the sequences, on the other hand, it often seemed that Eliezer was either busy demolishing strawmen, or he was energetically proving some point which I had never really apprehended.
The “sequences” posts have comment sections too—no?
Yes, but I don’t think the discussion was all that vigorous. Eliezer was making a full size posting every day back then. He really didn’t have the time to engage commenters, even if the commenters had tried to engage him.
Evidently the definition of “rationality” is not up for debate.
My proposal for addressing these is to create a single introductory page with inline links to glossary definitions, and from there to further reading.
Also briefly explaining where the subjects connect to rationality. It’s not immediately obvious what e.g. evolutionary biology or quantum physics have to do with human rationality, which probably puts people off. Actually, it’s so not-obvious that I think it’d be easy to miss the point if one wasn’t somewhat careful about making sure they read most of the posts in the sequence, or the ones explaining how everything’s connected.
By the by, is this a vote for or against making an actual post on this subject (or neither)? I’m trying to get a sense of whether that would be acceptable and useful; I’ve gotten a handful of upvotes on comments about it, but I don’t know if that means to go ahead or not. (This is an area of local etiquette I’m not yet familiar with and don’t particularly want to take the karma hit for messing up.)
In general, suggestions for site improvements are frowned upon because very few people here are keen on actually implementing them, and the typical response is “Yeah that’d be great, now let’s have a long discussion about how great that is and subtle improvements that could make it even better while not actually doing anything.”
Less Wrong needs improvements, but more than that it needs people willing to improve it. The Intro Page idea has been around for awhile, but the people who have control over the site have a lot of other stuff to focus on and there’s limited time. So overall I don’t think a post would be good, but I’m unsure as to how to fix the general problem.
the people who have control over the site have a lot of other stuff to focus on
If it was done on the wiki, would they need to commit time to it? It seems like a dedicated member or set of members could just write the page and present it to the community as a fait accompli. The only reason I haven’t done it is that i don’t feel I know enough yet. Maybe I’ll do it anyway, and that will inspire more experienced LWers to come fix it. ;)
Yes, write something on the wiki and ask later for it to be placed somewhere useful. There is the problem that the people who need introductions probably aren’t going to write them. If you go back to reading the sequences, it would be a good exercise to write summaries.
I like your characterization of what is “wrong” with the sequences, but I’m not sure what
ought to be done about it. I suspect that different people need to read different sequence postings. I would like to have the introductionpages for each sequence be expanded to provide roughly a paragraph of description for each posting in the sequence. If you disagree with the paragraph or don’t understand it, then you should probably read that posting.
ETA: After reading Will’s comment, I will withdraw my vote. Proceed with caution.
I suspect that different people need to read different sequence postings.
I agree; that’s one of the things I wanted to discuss (and something my solution would theoretically address). I might try to find another useful place to put my longer writeup of the subject, e.g. my own talk page on the wiki.
Also briefly explaining where the subjects connect to rationality.
This is a very good point; I agree that this belongs in the summary. In fact, logically, it would be the thread connecting everything that needed to be summarized.
What I turned out to need was an example problem, the fact that the general form of the math I used to solve it is named after a guy called Bayes, and an explanation of how the term is used in prose...(and I didn’t entirely get the last one).
You’ll want to see this post, if you haven’t already.
Ah, thank you. I hadn’t seen that one, although I had seen the technical explanation, which did a much better job of explaining the intuitive usage than the intuitive one, and involved less math. ;) I’ll check this out too.
I started a reply to this and then noticed that it was getting to be a solid pageful. Is “why don’t newbies read the sequences” a sufficiently commonly addressed topic to warrant a post? What I’ve got so far includes a breakdown of my theory as to the answer, as well as a suggestion for a solution.
I would like to see that analysis and suggestion very much. But it does sound a bit risky
as a topic for a premier top-level post. Why not just present it as a comment?
The reason would be if it were of interest to the community at large, but I trust your (pl.) judgment if you say it would be better suited to a comment. I’ll post when I’m done tinkering with it.
Good point. I saw Yvaine post a poll recently, so I have a general idea of how that works here, but if there’s anything non-obvious I need to know by all means elucidate. (Similarly, I’d welcome any advice on formatting a useful article.)
Thanks. Was the post useful to you, or just opaque?
Not entirely opaque, but like reading a language which you’ve learned the 200 most common words of, enabling you to understand 95% of a text and not come away with the point (because the key parts are in the other 5%). Not an error, just a reader mismatch; it wouldn’t have been worth mentioning except that you asked.
Have you read the sequences yet? If not, can you suggest a good way to encourage people who haven’t yet done so to do so?
After trying to figure out where the response would be best suited, I’m splitting the difference; I’ll put a summary here, and if it’s not obviously stupid and seems to garner comments, I’ll post the full thing on its own.
I’ve read some of the sequences, but not all; I started to, and then wandered off. Here are my theories as to why, with brief explanations.
1) The minimum suggested reading is not just long, it’s deceptively long.
The quantity by itself is a pretty big hurdle to someone who’s only just developing an interest in its topics, and the way the sequences are indexed hides the actual amount of content behind categorized links. This is the wrong direction in which to surprise the would-be reader. And that’s just talking about the core sequences.
2) Many of the sequences are either not interesting to me, or are presented in ways that make them appear not to be.
If the topic actually doesn’t interest me, that’s fine, because I presumably won’t be trying to discuss it, either. But some of the sequence titles are more pithy than informative, and some of the introductory text is dissuasive where it tries to be inviting; few of them give a clear summary of what the subject is and who needs to read it.
3) Even the ones which are interesting to me contain way more information, or at least text, than I needed.
I don’t think it’s actually true that every new reader needs to read all of the sequences. I’m a bad example, because there’s a lot in them I’ve never heard of or even thought about, but I don’t think that’s true of everyone who walks up to LW for the first time. On the other hand, just because I’d never heard of Bayes’s Theorem by name doesn’t mean that I need a huge missive to explain it to me. What I turned out to need was an example problem, the fact that the general form of the math I used to solve it is named after a guy called Bayes, and an explanation of how the term is used in prose. I was frustrated by having to go through a very long introduction in order to get those things (and I didn’t entirely get the last one).
My proposal for addressing these is to create a single introductory page with inline links to glossary definitions, and from there to further reading. The idea is that more information is available up front and a new reader can more easily prioritize the articles based on their own knowledge and interest; it would also provide a general overview of the topics LW addresses. (The About page is a good introduction to the site, but not the subjects.) On a quick search, the glossary appears to have been suggested before but not yet exist—unless I just can’t find it, in which case it’s not doing much good. There are parts of this I’m not qualified to do, but I’d be happy to donate time to the ones that I am.
To be clear, do you actually think that time spent reading later posts has been more valuable than marginal time on the sequences would have been? To me that seems like reading Discover Magazine after dropping your intro to mechanics textbook because the later seems to just tell you thinks that are obvious.
I think some of my time spent reading articles in the sequences was well spent, and the rest was split between two alternatives: 1) in a minority of cases where the reading didn’t feel useful, it was about something I already felt I understood, and 2) in a majority of such cases, it wasn’t connected to something I was already curious about.
It’s explained a bit better in the longer version of the above comment (which now appears to be homeless). But I think the sequences, or at least the admonition to read them all, are targeted at someone who has done some reading or at least thinking about their subjects before. Not because they demand prior knowledge, but because they demand prior interest. You may have underestimated how much of a newbie you have on your hands.
It’s not that I’m claiming to be so smart that I can participate fully in the discussions without reading up on the fundamentals, it’s that participating or even just watching the discussion is the thing that’s piquing my interest in the subjects in the first place. It feels less like asking me to read about basic physics before trying to set up a physics experiment, and more like asking me to read about music theory without ever having heard any music. It’s just not as meaningful before having observed what it’s good for—and even a highly talented and technical musician would admit that attending a performance with other people is more interesting than doing theory homework, even if they have a very clever theory teacher who makes the lessons into little stories.
Just to put this into perspective, I don’t think any of the above is nearly as significant to my reading habits as the simple amount of material in the sequences. I do keep reading bits and pieces, but how much time in a day I’m able or even willing to focus on it is finite. I’ve spent a lot of time this week reading LW when I could have been out getting vitamin D or practicing the guitar, and at the current rate it would still take me quite a while to get through all the sequences (less, but not a trivial amount, to get through just the core sequences). That’s a time commitment it’s difficult to justify if I’m to make it before being allowed to discuss the ideas with human beings in the current blog.
I guess there are two theses here: that the sequences are good at bestowing information, but the current posts are better at garnering interest in them; and that the latter is simply more enjoyable, because it’s interactive. (I, like some other commenters here, read LW as play, not work; if it weren’t fun I wouldn’t be here.) If you want to convince people to read the sequences before participating, those are your obstacles.
I am struck by the inclusion of the seemingly unnecessary phrase “with other people”, which suggests that your real interest is social in nature. And sure enough, you confirm this later in the comment:
and
It seems like an important point, and another argument in favor of additional (sub)forums. About that, I’m not sure what I think yet.
Incidentally, against the notion that attending performances is the most enjoyable part of the musical experience, here is Milton Babbitt on the subject:
Well, to say it’s my “real” interest suggests that my interest in rationality is fake, which is false, but I am indeed a very social critter and a lot of the appeal of LW is being able to discuss, not just absorb. (I even get shiny karma points for doing it well!)
So, yes—and I was actually realizing that myself over the course of writing that comment (which necessarily involved thinking about why I’m here).
Despite the above, I’m not actually sure why it is.
Well, I voted for ’em, so it’s good to hear that’s consistent. :)
That quote is pretty funny. We clearly differ in at least these two ways: 1) I either don’t know or don’t care enough about music to be bothered by period distractions from it (I’m not sure how to tell the difference from inside my own head), and 2) I like the noisy hall.
He’s right about the novel, though, that would be appalling. (Difference being that verbal language breaks down a lot faster if you miss a piece.)
Oh, my. Fiction put in a good effort, but truth pulls ahead as always:
Source; non-free, but includes a thorough abstract.
Thanks for a very thoughtful answer.
You’re quite welcome. I appreciate how much thought and respect you’re giving a newbie’s opinion.
A clever point, but is it really useful to compare the sequences to a textbook? Maybe a textbook at some community college somewhere. I personally found the sequences to be overloaded with anecdote and motivation, and rather lacking in technical substance.
There is one thing that the post and comment part of this site has that the sequences do not have. Dialog. Posters and commenters are challenged to clarify their positions and to defend their arguments. In the sequences, on the other hand, it often seemed that Eliezer was either busy demolishing strawmen, or he was energetically proving some point which I had never really apprehended.
The “sequences” posts have comment sections too—no?
There are only a few posts with disabled comments—such as this one:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/
Evidently the definition of “rationality” is not up for debate. Perhaps it is the royal “we”.
I think that’s a bug, not a feature. I’ll look into it.
Yes, but I don’t think the discussion was all that vigorous. Eliezer was making a full size posting every day back then. He really didn’t have the time to engage commenters, even if the commenters had tried to engage him.
Cute.
Pretty often, when a post has an obvious flaw, or attacks a straw man, that is pointed out in the comments.
Good analysis.
Also briefly explaining where the subjects connect to rationality. It’s not immediately obvious what e.g. evolutionary biology or quantum physics have to do with human rationality, which probably puts people off. Actually, it’s so not-obvious that I think it’d be easy to miss the point if one wasn’t somewhat careful about making sure they read most of the posts in the sequence, or the ones explaining how everything’s connected.
By the by, is this a vote for or against making an actual post on this subject (or neither)? I’m trying to get a sense of whether that would be acceptable and useful; I’ve gotten a handful of upvotes on comments about it, but I don’t know if that means to go ahead or not. (This is an area of local etiquette I’m not yet familiar with and don’t particularly want to take the karma hit for messing up.)
In general, suggestions for site improvements are frowned upon because very few people here are keen on actually implementing them, and the typical response is “Yeah that’d be great, now let’s have a long discussion about how great that is and subtle improvements that could make it even better while not actually doing anything.”
Less Wrong needs improvements, but more than that it needs people willing to improve it. The Intro Page idea has been around for awhile, but the people who have control over the site have a lot of other stuff to focus on and there’s limited time. So overall I don’t think a post would be good, but I’m unsure as to how to fix the general problem.
Thanks, that’s the answer I was looking for.
If it was done on the wiki, would they need to commit time to it? It seems like a dedicated member or set of members could just write the page and present it to the community as a fait accompli. The only reason I haven’t done it is that i don’t feel I know enough yet. Maybe I’ll do it anyway, and that will inspire more experienced LWers to come fix it. ;)
Yes, write something on the wiki and ask later for it to be placed somewhere useful. There is the problem that the people who need introductions probably aren’t going to write them. If you go back to reading the sequences, it would be a good exercise to write summaries.
Yup. And for people who don’t need them, it’s pretty tedious.
That occurred to me as well. We’ll see how that comes along.
I’ll vote for making a post.
I like your characterization of what is “wrong” with the sequences, but I’m not sure what ought to be done about it. I suspect that different people need to read different sequence postings. I would like to have the introduction pages for each sequence be expanded to provide roughly a paragraph of description for each posting in the sequence. If you disagree with the paragraph or don’t understand it, then you should probably read that posting.
ETA: After reading Will’s comment, I will withdraw my vote. Proceed with caution.
I agree; that’s one of the things I wanted to discuss (and something my solution would theoretically address). I might try to find another useful place to put my longer writeup of the subject, e.g. my own talk page on the wiki.
This is a very good point; I agree that this belongs in the summary. In fact, logically, it would be the thread connecting everything that needed to be summarized.
You’ll want to see this post, if you haven’t already.
Ah, thank you. I hadn’t seen that one, although I had seen the technical explanation, which did a much better job of explaining the intuitive usage than the intuitive one, and involved less math. ;) I’ll check this out too.
I started a reply to this and then noticed that it was getting to be a solid pageful. Is “why don’t newbies read the sequences” a sufficiently commonly addressed topic to warrant a post? What I’ve got so far includes a breakdown of my theory as to the answer, as well as a suggestion for a solution.
I would like to see that analysis and suggestion very much. But it does sound a bit risky as a topic for a premier top-level post. Why not just present it as a comment?
The reason would be if it were of interest to the community at large, but I trust your (pl.) judgment if you say it would be better suited to a comment. I’ll post when I’m done tinkering with it.
Phenomenon → Theory(s) → Experiment!
If you make a post, it would probably benefit from a simple poll.
Good point. I saw Yvaine post a poll recently, so I have a general idea of how that works here, but if there’s anything non-obvious I need to know by all means elucidate. (Similarly, I’d welcome any advice on formatting a useful article.)
Someone else asked, so I pasted my original long answer to this question over here.