I think this post should at least not be promoted.
On a related note, it might be a good idea to create a “community” top-level section, beside “promoted” and “new”, that will keep the community posts away from the front page, so that the “promoted” page will only contain good content that won’t be noise for an outside visitor.
Edit: Created feature request issue 228 in the bug tracker.
I agree with this. The post is not about the blog’s theme. It’s a tangential subject which might be of interest to some of the people who read the blog (those who are unemployed, seeking work, fit the qualifications, and live in the area). To anyone not in that small subset, it’s completely useless.
I disagree. He’s not saying “if we allow relevant job ads, clearly we must allow irrelevant job ads.” He’s demonstrating that “anything of or relating to real-world jobs [is relevant to LW]” is false. It’s possible that Eliezer intended “anything relating to real-world jobs whose field overlaps with the topics of LW,” but I’d still disagree with him for the reasons mentioned above. Everyone here is presumably interested in the topics of LW; only a subset
are unemployed, seeking work, fit the qualifications, and live in the area
and those are the only ones to whom this post is relevant. I don’t object to it being posted at all, but the promotion doesn’t seem appropriate, given the above.
It’s a threat, not a fallacy. And if I understand LW correctly, few would notice random want-ads because they wouldn’t gain enough votes to make it to the front page.
I’m pretty sure the problem is EY. He could post pictures of his cat, and they’d go all the way up. (And if he doesn’t have a cat, then he should know that there are several in my neighborhood who might be happy to be adopted. And kittens! Omygosh!)
I think this post should at least not be promoted.
On a related note, it might be a good idea to create a “community” top-level section, beside “promoted” and “new”, that will keep the community posts away from the front page, so that the “promoted” page will only contain good content that won’t be noise for an outside visitor.
Edit: Created feature request issue 228 in the bug tracker.
Actually I find promoting this a good move. It may not be intended as such but it actually seems a step in this direction.
Oh, it’s intended.
The area meetups are another type of post which are often promoted, and which I think would be better in some kind of community section.
Indeed, promoting this post seems completely arbitrary.
I agree with this. The post is not about the blog’s theme. It’s a tangential subject which might be of interest to some of the people who read the blog (those who are unemployed, seeking work, fit the qualifications, and live in the area). To anyone not in that small subset, it’s completely useless.
If you want to be more practical and useful, then anything of or relating to real-world jobs is a large step forward.
I don’t think that’s what you meant to say.
If it is, I may start cross-posting want ads from Craig’s List at random and expect them to be promoted.
I’m pretty certain this particular kind of job isn’t on Craig’s List.
Ha, you said this much better than I was going to.
Maybe if it was a really good want ad.
And your logical fallacy is...
I disagree. He’s not saying “if we allow relevant job ads, clearly we must allow irrelevant job ads.” He’s demonstrating that “anything of or relating to real-world jobs [is relevant to LW]” is false. It’s possible that Eliezer intended “anything relating to real-world jobs whose field overlaps with the topics of LW,” but I’d still disagree with him for the reasons mentioned above. Everyone here is presumably interested in the topics of LW; only a subset
and those are the only ones to whom this post is relevant. I don’t object to it being posted at all, but the promotion doesn’t seem appropriate, given the above.
It’s a threat, not a fallacy. And if I understand LW correctly, few would notice random want-ads because they wouldn’t gain enough votes to make it to the front page.
I’m pretty sure the problem is EY. He could post pictures of his cat, and they’d go all the way up. (And if he doesn’t have a cat, then he should know that there are several in my neighborhood who might be happy to be adopted. And kittens! Omygosh!)
That’s part of the problem, but the other half is that if he wanted to post pictures of his cat, he’d promote them.
ETA: And in this case, at least, the post is hovering around 0.