I joined in late December (so my intro post is there), but I was wondering if anyone has any advice regarding LW-style blogging?
I’ve been ruminating a lot on the nature of motivation, and I think it would be helpful to my fellow students/friends in real life. A lot of the concepts have their basis in rationalist ideas, so I’m finding myself restating a lot of ideas that are expressed much better here.
So, I suppose my question is, “What is the typical consensus on rationalist blogs?” and “Would anyone be willing to offer their advice on this type of thing/give feedback on what I’m thinking of posting?”
What I write here is just my personal opinion, I am not speaking for the whole LW. Obviously. For the sake of brevity, please assume that every sentence begins with “I think...” and ends with ”...unless you have good reasons to do otherwise, of course.” I am saying this to avoid scaring a new member, because sometimes new members report that LW culture feels scary to them. /end-of-disclaimers
If you write your beliefs about the nature of motivation (or anything else), it is better to also provide an information why you think that. So that we could estimate your level of certainty, and possibly find out more about the topic. If what you write is based on a research, please provide links, so curious people can look at the original papers. But don’t worry, quoting research is not necessary for blogging on LW. If what you write is based on your personal observation, that’s also okay. If you have some credentials, e.g. you are a motivation coach, feel free to say shortly something about yourself and link to your website. But not having credentials is still okay. If your conclusions are based on some specific examples you have seen, the article would be better if you write not only the conclusions but also an example or two (properly anonymized) that have led you to the conclusion. This may prevent or reduce misunderstanding.
Please start with the topic you want to write about; avoid long disclaimers and introductions. Don’t write an introductory article that merely describes what are you planning to write in the following articles; instead go ahead and post the first part. Make the first part contain its own conclusion, instead of merely opening the topic and promissing to come to the conclusion in one of the future parts. Essentially, write in a way that doesn’t leave anything unfinished. If your topic is too long for a single article, choose a subset that can fit in a single article, and write that first. Then choose another subset (now you are allowed to refer to the article you already wrote) and write that. Repeat until the topic is exhausted, or until you lose interest in writing more. Why? For the reader, it allows to discuss and vote on your articles immediately, instead of thinking “okay, this seems kinda interesting, but I haven’t heard anything specific yet”. For the writer, not promising anything means not creating a pressure on yourself: there are only the articles you have already published, and the completely unconstrained future. (If you have read the Sequences, which I recommend, especially in the book form, you’ll see it was written mostly this way.)
What is the typical consensus on rationalist blogs?
About what—motivation? I remember reading about “hyperbolic discounting” and similar mathy stuff, but to me personally that always felt wrong… not technically incorrect, but avoiding the core of the matter, which is usually something emotional, not an equation. I would recommend reading PJ Eby, who also sometimes posts on LW (Spock’s Dirty Little Secret, Improving The Akrasia Hypothesis).
Would anyone be willing to offer their advice on this type of thing/give feedback on what I’m thinking of posting?
If your post will contain interesting information, I am sure people will reply.
Thanks for the thoughts! I can see why having “self-contained” articles is helpful—and the Sequences definitely are arranged that way.
It had occurred to me to put a few of the essays here, but I’m also considering putting up a personal blog for them—targeted for my friends at school, who are nonrationalists.
Because of that, I’ve found myself writing a few basic essays to go into some core rationalist ideas (before talking about motivation), but they pale in comparison to better-explained articles here.
So I feel a little guilty about writing about both motivation and the core ideas because I don’t feel “worthy”, as I haven’t had too much experience—mainly just anecdotal stuff and introspection.
Hello all,
I joined in late December (so my intro post is there), but I was wondering if anyone has any advice regarding LW-style blogging?
I’ve been ruminating a lot on the nature of motivation, and I think it would be helpful to my fellow students/friends in real life. A lot of the concepts have their basis in rationalist ideas, so I’m finding myself restating a lot of ideas that are expressed much better here.
So, I suppose my question is, “What is the typical consensus on rationalist blogs?” and “Would anyone be willing to offer their advice on this type of thing/give feedback on what I’m thinking of posting?”
What I write here is just my personal opinion, I am not speaking for the whole LW. Obviously. For the sake of brevity, please assume that every sentence begins with “I think...” and ends with ”...unless you have good reasons to do otherwise, of course.” I am saying this to avoid scaring a new member, because sometimes new members report that LW culture feels scary to them. /end-of-disclaimers
If you write your beliefs about the nature of motivation (or anything else), it is better to also provide an information why you think that. So that we could estimate your level of certainty, and possibly find out more about the topic. If what you write is based on a research, please provide links, so curious people can look at the original papers. But don’t worry, quoting research is not necessary for blogging on LW. If what you write is based on your personal observation, that’s also okay. If you have some credentials, e.g. you are a motivation coach, feel free to say shortly something about yourself and link to your website. But not having credentials is still okay. If your conclusions are based on some specific examples you have seen, the article would be better if you write not only the conclusions but also an example or two (properly anonymized) that have led you to the conclusion. This may prevent or reduce misunderstanding.
Please start with the topic you want to write about; avoid long disclaimers and introductions. Don’t write an introductory article that merely describes what are you planning to write in the following articles; instead go ahead and post the first part. Make the first part contain its own conclusion, instead of merely opening the topic and promissing to come to the conclusion in one of the future parts. Essentially, write in a way that doesn’t leave anything unfinished. If your topic is too long for a single article, choose a subset that can fit in a single article, and write that first. Then choose another subset (now you are allowed to refer to the article you already wrote) and write that. Repeat until the topic is exhausted, or until you lose interest in writing more. Why? For the reader, it allows to discuss and vote on your articles immediately, instead of thinking “okay, this seems kinda interesting, but I haven’t heard anything specific yet”. For the writer, not promising anything means not creating a pressure on yourself: there are only the articles you have already published, and the completely unconstrained future. (If you have read the Sequences, which I recommend, especially in the book form, you’ll see it was written mostly this way.)
About what—motivation? I remember reading about “hyperbolic discounting” and similar mathy stuff, but to me personally that always felt wrong… not technically incorrect, but avoiding the core of the matter, which is usually something emotional, not an equation. I would recommend reading PJ Eby, who also sometimes posts on LW (Spock’s Dirty Little Secret, Improving The Akrasia Hypothesis).
If your post will contain interesting information, I am sure people will reply.
Hello Viliam,
Thanks for the thoughts! I can see why having “self-contained” articles is helpful—and the Sequences definitely are arranged that way.
It had occurred to me to put a few of the essays here, but I’m also considering putting up a personal blog for them—targeted for my friends at school, who are nonrationalists.
Because of that, I’ve found myself writing a few basic essays to go into some core rationalist ideas (before talking about motivation), but they pale in comparison to better-explained articles here.
So I feel a little guilty about writing about both motivation and the core ideas because I don’t feel “worthy”, as I haven’t had too much experience—mainly just anecdotal stuff and introspection.
Every writer was a beginner once, don’t worry, you grow up by trying (and learning from feedback of course, but unless you try there is no feedback).