I’ve seen posts which summarize research get massive upvotes and similar posts get downvotes.
To answer this, it would probably help to see specific examples. Without them, I can only guess wildly. So here are my wild guesses:
1) The article itself should be nicely written, easy to read. Short introduction at the beginning, easily legible text, summary at the bottom (with bold font), then references… I think this is close to optimal format.
2) Don’t exaggerate. Don’t pretend your references say more than they really do; don’t pretend they are more reliable than they really are. (Also: don’t post random stuff in “Main”.)
3) It also depends on whether readers are interested in the topic, how much the topic was already discussed, and whether your article brings something new.
4) Most important: thousand other random factors. :D
For example, my rating of this article based on this criteria would be: 1) I like the way you write; 2) there is not much research in the article, but you don’t exaggerate, so this makes it completely okay for me; 3) the topic seems useful and I don’t remember it reading recently, but I also don’t see much new information here. 4) Originally I didn’t upvote the article, but when writing this comment I realised I actually like it and would like to encourage you, so I upvoted it now.
I agree with your breakdown, do you think this post would count as ‘random stuff’? I’ve spent a lot of time browsing through Main and some pretty random stuff gets posted there, including by people like Luke and Eliezer. I did strongly consider posting to Discussion, but thought posting to Main would make a good experiment.
I meant simply “putting into Main an article that everyone else would put in Discussion”. There is no single uniting topic for Main, but the idea is that the most important articles should be there—for example exceptionally well written articles, or official announcements of MIRI and CFAR. (The rules are not exact, but I guess in the case of uncertainty you should post in Discussion and wait if someone else will recommend moving to Main. That happens, sometimes.)
I imagine that an article on meditation would be good for Main, if it contained a good description of meditation technique(s), and a list of a scientific articles about specific benefits of meditation. A good description would be one that wouldn’t require familiarity with buddhist words and concepts, and would contain no bullshit. A technical description, like: “do this, and this will happen”; preferably if the same description was also used in the linked research.
To answer this, it would probably help to see specific examples. Without them, I can only guess wildly. So here are my wild guesses:
1) The article itself should be nicely written, easy to read. Short introduction at the beginning, easily legible text, summary at the bottom (with bold font), then references… I think this is close to optimal format.
2) Don’t exaggerate. Don’t pretend your references say more than they really do; don’t pretend they are more reliable than they really are. (Also: don’t post random stuff in “Main”.)
3) It also depends on whether readers are interested in the topic, how much the topic was already discussed, and whether your article brings something new.
4) Most important: thousand other random factors. :D
For example, my rating of this article based on this criteria would be: 1) I like the way you write; 2) there is not much research in the article, but you don’t exaggerate, so this makes it completely okay for me; 3) the topic seems useful and I don’t remember it reading recently, but I also don’t see much new information here. 4) Originally I didn’t upvote the article, but when writing this comment I realised I actually like it and would like to encourage you, so I upvoted it now.
I agree with your breakdown, do you think this post would count as ‘random stuff’? I’ve spent a lot of time browsing through Main and some pretty random stuff gets posted there, including by people like Luke and Eliezer. I did strongly consider posting to Discussion, but thought posting to Main would make a good experiment.
I meant simply “putting into Main an article that everyone else would put in Discussion”. There is no single uniting topic for Main, but the idea is that the most important articles should be there—for example exceptionally well written articles, or official announcements of MIRI and CFAR. (The rules are not exact, but I guess in the case of uncertainty you should post in Discussion and wait if someone else will recommend moving to Main. That happens, sometimes.)
I imagine that an article on meditation would be good for Main, if it contained a good description of meditation technique(s), and a list of a scientific articles about specific benefits of meditation. A good description would be one that wouldn’t require familiarity with buddhist words and concepts, and would contain no bullshit. A technical description, like: “do this, and this will happen”; preferably if the same description was also used in the linked research.
Ah, so I should apply Coherent Extrapolated Volition theory to LW user-preferences to decide where to put my posts ;)
Yeah, that would be a good start, though ideally you should apply CEV to make LessWrong posts no longer necessary ;-)