As an alternative to Inkhaven Residency, for the people who can’t take a 30 day break, I propose an alternative. I am writing about it here, in case someone else also wants to do something, so that we could coordinate. Please respond here if you plan something, otherwise I will announce my plan officially in a LW post on Sept 30.
My current vision, which I provisionally call Halfhaven, is to make an online blog-writing group, probably on Discord, that will try to produce the same total output in twice as much time. That is 30 articles posted during October and November 2025, so on average one article in two days. Feels slightly more doable for the people who have a job/school.
The rules, still somewhat under construction:
in addition to blog articles, other media such as videos and podcasts are also accepted (this is primarily about productivity, not about written text), but e.g. tweets are not
languages other than English are okay (but all translations of the same content are counted as the same thing, so you can’t get 30 points by writing one article and translating it to 30 languages)
you can publish at multiple places, e.g. 5 articles on Less Wrong, 20 articles on your Substack, and 5 videos on YouTube = total 30 points; but it has to be actually published online, not just e.g. shared as a Google Doc
AI-generated text is forbidden (in theory, although I have no way to detect it), but it is okay to use AI generated pictures to illustrate your text (but you should disclose the fact)
Anyway, this is all honor-based and there are no rewards (other than the intrinsic ones, using the peer pressure to boost your personal productivity). If someone wants to cheat by posting AI-generated articles, or making tweet-sized articles, etc., I can’t really stop them. (Maybe in case of blatant cheating, we should have a vote on expelling the transgressor?) But there are no hard lines, like whether your article should be 10000 words or only 1000. I’d suggest, do it the way you expect yourself to do it after this marathon is over; otherwise you are not really training yourself for the real thing.
Technically, I imagine this as a channel that will be exclusively for posting references to your published content, along with the number from 1 to 30, such as: “1) My First Article”, and then another channel for the debate among the participants. And maybe another for sharing useful resources. Maybe some pressure that after X days if you haven’t posted Y links, you will be kicked out. (The numbers not too strict, I was thinking e.g. after 7 days you need to have at least 1 article, after 10 days at least 2 total, etc.) It would be ironical if I had to kick myself out, but I precommit to stop posting in the forum (but otherwise keep maintaining it) if that happens.
Once in a week I might post a summary on LessWrong, and that summary won’t count towards my number of published articles. (Because the articles should be more than just a bunch of copy-pasted links.) Authors can opt out of this if they wish; the details will be discussed in the forum.
Some reasonable limitations on the content, such as no terrorism and no porn. Sorry, I don’t have an exact definition, you will have to accept my judgment.
People who go to Inkhaven Residency are allowed to participate, but only during October. (Please do not mention this fact in the forum, until Oct 31.) Actually, it could be interesting to compare your productivity and experience during both months.
As an alternative to Inkhaven Residency, for the people who can’t take a 30 day break, I propose an alternative. I am writing about it here, in case someone else also wants to do something, so that we could coordinate. Please respond here if you plan something, otherwise I will announce my plan officially in a LW post on Sept 30.
My current vision, which I provisionally call Halfhaven, is to make an online blog-writing group, probably on Discord, that will try to produce the same total output in twice as much time. That is 30 articles posted during October and November 2025, so on average one article in two days. Feels slightly more doable for the people who have a job/school.
The rules, still somewhat under construction:
in addition to blog articles, other media such as videos and podcasts are also accepted (this is primarily about productivity, not about written text), but e.g. tweets are not
languages other than English are okay (but all translations of the same content are counted as the same thing, so you can’t get 30 points by writing one article and translating it to 30 languages)
you can publish at multiple places, e.g. 5 articles on Less Wrong, 20 articles on your Substack, and 5 videos on YouTube = total 30 points; but it has to be actually published online, not just e.g. shared as a Google Doc
AI-generated text is forbidden (in theory, although I have no way to detect it), but it is okay to use AI generated pictures to illustrate your text (but you should disclose the fact)
Anyway, this is all honor-based and there are no rewards (other than the intrinsic ones, using the peer pressure to boost your personal productivity). If someone wants to cheat by posting AI-generated articles, or making tweet-sized articles, etc., I can’t really stop them. (Maybe in case of blatant cheating, we should have a vote on expelling the transgressor?) But there are no hard lines, like whether your article should be 10000 words or only 1000. I’d suggest, do it the way you expect yourself to do it after this marathon is over; otherwise you are not really training yourself for the real thing.
Technically, I imagine this as a channel that will be exclusively for posting references to your published content, along with the number from 1 to 30, such as: “1) My First Article”, and then another channel for the debate among the participants. And maybe another for sharing useful resources. Maybe some pressure that after X days if you haven’t posted Y links, you will be kicked out. (The numbers not too strict, I was thinking e.g. after 7 days you need to have at least 1 article, after 10 days at least 2 total, etc.) It would be ironical if I had to kick myself out, but I precommit to stop posting in the forum (but otherwise keep maintaining it) if that happens.
Once in a week I might post a summary on LessWrong, and that summary won’t count towards my number of published articles. (Because the articles should be more than just a bunch of copy-pasted links.) Authors can opt out of this if they wish; the details will be discussed in the forum.
Some reasonable limitations on the content, such as no terrorism and no porn. Sorry, I don’t have an exact definition, you will have to accept my judgment.
People who go to Inkhaven Residency are allowed to participate, but only during October. (Please do not mention this fact in the forum, until Oct 31.) Actually, it could be interesting to compare your productivity and experience during both months.
I know henryaj’s also planning something; his comment is here in case you’d like to coordinate with him.
Thank you, I saw that comment previously but couldn’t find it. I will contact henryaj.
EDIT: no response yet
I am interested in participating in some type of commitment like this.
Don’t miss: Halfhaven virtual blogger camp