I think zero time should be devoted to solutions for excessive downvoting of old material. Rather, the mods and other de facto leaders ought to devote their time to finding ways to reinvigorate LW with new interesting content.
I stop by when I have time or interest. I don’t have the intelligence or writing skills to contribute much high level content. I consume LW when it’s good and try to comment my honest thoughts when they seem relevant.
I don’t think your band analogy holds. The person is a member of the community that stands or falls by what its members do. In this case, it’s a choice between cursing the darkness or turning on the light.
The type of criticism from Brillyant is low effort and fairly useless. Lots of people write one liners bemoaning the decline of LW. What is the point of doing that?
I agree with you on this, and I think this is an enormous problem. Somehow this need is written into the rationalist DNA, and I think to grow, the rationalist community needs to move past this.
It doesn’t matter what Yudkowsky does, it matters what (generic) “you” do. In fact, our good friend Yudkowsky said so himself, more or less, if you don’t want to take my word for it.
edit: I think it is also very important to let go of “intelligence” as a single number on your character sheet. That’s a really toxic way to think.
If low effort, only because it’s obvious to anyone who is paying attention. If useless, only because it’s been repeated so many times by so many people.
My initial reaction when I stop back and see a thread discussing banning procedures regarding voting on old content is, “Really? But that’s not important. LW doesn’t have anything interesting to read anymore and the good people on here (Nancy) are talking about banning people for voting down old stuff… Hm. That’s dumb. I should say something to let them know that’s dumb.”
I suppose the point is that someone would become aware of the lack of content and try to fix it. And that they would recognize this is the biggest priority, and that it dwarfs banning protocol discussions. I don’t know how to fix it. And LW isn’t “mine” in any meaningful sense. I try to fix things that are mine, and if I was an LW power user, and felt such ownership, I would help beyond commenting on what I see.
Maybe the answer is to not fix LW? Maybe it’s dead? Who knows.
If low effort, only because it’s obvious to anyone who is paying attention. If useless, only because
it’s been repeated so many times by so many people.
It’s low effort because it took you 10 seconds to think it and write it.
And LW isn’t “mine” in any meaningful sense. I try to fix things that are mine
Seems to me there is little reason for you to offer advice at all, then.
Maintenance is fine. But the lack of content is priority one with a bullet IMO. If the power user base wants to divvy up resources rationally, I think this sort of ban is very low on the list.
In one sense, banning someone takes almost no resources—all I have to do is enter their name into two web pages. However, thinking about whether to ban someone takes rather more time. Likewise if I chose discuss a banning.
I think zero time should be devoted to solutions for excessive downvoting of old material. Rather, the mods and other de facto leaders ought to devote their time to finding ways to reinvigorate LW with new interesting content.
If you have people being demotivated because of downvoting that reduces the chances that those people will write new interesting content.
Yes, but this post is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
So write awesome things here.
I stop by when I have time or interest. I don’t have the intelligence or writing skills to contribute much high level content. I consume LW when it’s good and try to comment my honest thoughts when they seem relevant.
But you do have time to drop by and criticize content people do produce, right?
I don’t think your band analogy holds. The person is a member of the community that stands or falls by what its members do. In this case, it’s a choice between cursing the darkness or turning on the light.
The type of criticism from Brillyant is low effort and fairly useless. Lots of people write one liners bemoaning the decline of LW. What is the point of doing that?
It’s not obvious to me that LW needs a hero. A cohort of excellent posters would be enough.
I agree with you on this, and I think this is an enormous problem. Somehow this need is written into the rationalist DNA, and I think to grow, the rationalist community needs to move past this.
It doesn’t matter what Yudkowsky does, it matters what (generic) “you” do. In fact, our good friend Yudkowsky said so himself, more or less, if you don’t want to take my word for it.
edit: I think it is also very important to let go of “intelligence” as a single number on your character sheet. That’s a really toxic way to think.
If low effort, only because it’s obvious to anyone who is paying attention. If useless, only because it’s been repeated so many times by so many people.
My initial reaction when I stop back and see a thread discussing banning procedures regarding voting on old content is, “Really? But that’s not important. LW doesn’t have anything interesting to read anymore and the good people on here (Nancy) are talking about banning people for voting down old stuff… Hm. That’s dumb. I should say something to let them know that’s dumb.”
I suppose the point is that someone would become aware of the lack of content and try to fix it. And that they would recognize this is the biggest priority, and that it dwarfs banning protocol discussions. I don’t know how to fix it. And LW isn’t “mine” in any meaningful sense. I try to fix things that are mine, and if I was an LW power user, and felt such ownership, I would help beyond commenting on what I see.
Maybe the answer is to not fix LW? Maybe it’s dead? Who knows.
Anyway, Merry Christmas. :)
It’s low effort because it took you 10 seconds to think it and write it.
Seems to me there is little reason for you to offer advice at all, then.
Perhaps you ought to start a thread proposing bans on obvious feedback from users below X karma?
I don’t care about karma (or bans).
I would like see a resurgence of interesting content myself, but that isn’t the same thing as giving up on maintenance.
Anyone here can work on interesting content. Do you have any ideas for encouraging it?
Not really.
Maintenance is fine. But the lack of content is priority one with a bullet IMO. If the power user base wants to divvy up resources rationally, I think this sort of ban is very low on the list.
It’s not like banning a single user takes a lot of resources.
In one sense, banning someone takes almost no resources—all I have to do is enter their name into two web pages. However, thinking about whether to ban someone takes rather more time. Likewise if I chose discuss a banning.