They’re pretty important as a place for less relevant to the whole community topics.
Regarding a sticky for the OT:
Even if it will increase clutter and decrease the visibility of other posts very slightly by being always on top it should more than make up for that by decreasing the number of ‘unworthy for discussion’ posts that are made in Discussion instead of in the Open Thread (where they belong). If someone has the time to analyze whether there are less ‘unworthy for discussion’ posts on the 1st to 3rd and 15th to 18th of the month, that’d be good for convincing purposes but it seems almost obvious that it s the case. Additionally, given that OT is the overflow for a lot of topics it kind of sucks that you get significantly less replies to your comments there at the end of the month/half-month and this will probably change if the current OT is always at the top.
It’s a tradeoff between “do we need OT as the top link?” and “do we need articles that should be posted as comments in OT?”. Therefore, if putting the OT as the top link prevents creation of at least two new articles per month, it has paid its price.
Is there a way to sticky the current open thread to the top of discussion? (and if not, would it be difficult to implement?)
That would be an ideal solution for a person with similar LW browsing habits to me.
Are the open threads important enough that they should always be the top link?
They’re pretty important as a place for less relevant to the whole community topics.
Regarding a sticky for the OT: Even if it will increase clutter and decrease the visibility of other posts very slightly by being always on top it should more than make up for that by decreasing the number of ‘unworthy for discussion’ posts that are made in Discussion instead of in the Open Thread (where they belong). If someone has the time to analyze whether there are less ‘unworthy for discussion’ posts on the 1st to 3rd and 15th to 18th of the month, that’d be good for convincing purposes but it seems almost obvious that it s the case. Additionally, given that OT is the overflow for a lot of topics it kind of sucks that you get significantly less replies to your comments there at the end of the month/half-month and this will probably change if the current OT is always at the top.
It’s a tradeoff between “do we need OT as the top link?” and “do we need articles that should be posted as comments in OT?”. Therefore, if putting the OT as the top link prevents creation of at least two new articles per month, it has paid its price.