Provide a good landing page for newcomers. Let newcomers see what we’re up to, why a person might care about it, and which past posts can help them with which of their own questions.
Provide a good review, or summary of what has been discussed or figured out where, for current community members who’d like a better birds-eye picture of our project.
Provide a list of “open problems” and “articles someone should write”, together with a picture of how progress on those problems would contribute to LW’s project, and an index of progress to date. So that would-be authors can see useful avenues to contribute, and so that some portion of LW posts can visibly contribute to a cumulative project, instead of being like a succession of randomly entertaining newspaper articles that no one much cares about afterwards. (I’m not hoping all LW posts will do this; but it would be nice if some portion would, and if LW readers build some cummulative competencies over time.)
I agree that discussion, and temporary or controversial content or scratchwork, should be at LW instead of at the wiki. I guess I also agree that completely standard, non-LW-flavored content should be put in Wikipedia, but I’m unclear on where the boundaries are: I’ve liked LW posts that mostly do summarize standard stuff, except the standard stuff they summarize is linked in to our specific goals and prior knowledge and open questions.
I put up a bad rough draft of a questions-first index, and began editing a page for one of the questions. I’m imagining each question on the initial list eventually leading to a list of progress to date (links to OB/LW posts, with sentence-long summaries) and open questions. It gives a better idea of what I’m imagining for the wiki. If anyone has time to look at my pages there and say whether that’s what the wiki should be or shouldn’t be, the feedback would be helpful.
Points 1 and 2 are very much what I have in mind. Sorry to say though, I don’t think 3 is a good idea.
We can better make LW a cumulative project by working on what we have done, rather than what we haven’t done. Similarly, we can avoid duplication with proper coverage of what we do have.
The best articles will come about because people feel the need to write them; I think high quality articles will rarely result from people reading a list of desired articles and deciding to work on them. Where a specific open question deserves more attention, there’s nothing wrong with an article about it, as per Yvain’s very popular article Why support the underdog?.
So I think that your current list would best live in your own personal namespace, as “User:AnnaSalmon/Open problems, and summarized progress to date”—thoughts?
I’m not really sure I follow you. Yes, we can avoid duplication with proper coverage of what we do have, but how is that a reason not to mention the things that still need to be explained? You say that we “can better make LW a cumulative project by working on what we have done, rather than what we haven’t done”, but why should those things be mutually exclusive? People work on the things which happen to interest them—a list may inspire a person with otherwise no inspiration to work on something on the list. The net result is more articles written, not less.
You say that “high quality articles will rarely result from people reading a list of desired articles and deciding to work on them”, but provide little reason for why this would be so. Indeed, beginners may feel intimidated by having to come up with their own subjects and would probably prefer having a ready list of example topics they could work on. And even if what you’re saying is true, that high quality articles will rarely result from people reading the list isn’t the same as saying they never result from reading such a list—even a list that’s of limited use is better than having no list at all.
We could use NPOV if necessary. E.g., we could note that “many have expressed an interest in techniques for reducing akrasia, and in gaining a better understanding of akrasia”, perhaps with links to the relevant LW comments. Similarly, we could note that “there has been much discussion of anthropics/Newcomb/whatever, and most commenters seem to agree on (a), (b), and (c), but there remains quite a bit of controversy on how to coherently conceptualize (d)”...
I think the basic technique for agreeing about what should be on a wiki, is just to summarize the spread of disagreement when significant disagreement occurs on a particular point.
Somehow, it seems unlikely that “beginners” are going to contribute major new articles on LW. In order to get the right to post, they’ll have to join the community and fit in well enough to get upvoted on their comments on other people’s posts. Once they’ve done that, they’ll be well on the way to understanding the jargon (even if there are holes in their understanding.) At that point, they’ll know what areas are of interest, and if they have a contribution to make in an area we don’t often talk about, finding it on a list of things we think are missing is less likely than noticing a lacuna that was invisible to everyone else.
I believe there would be value in a list of Contentious Subjects, but Articles to be Written will be unlikely to cover the new material we’re not aware we’re waiting for.
Um, well, hmm. Thanks for the input. I agree that good articles will sometimes come from people autonomously feeling the need to write them. And I’m not trying to have the community open problems list be the sole place from which good contributions spring. But as an intermittent posts author, I would find it helpful to have a better idea of what LW is trying to do, what loose corners people are puzzled by on which I might have thoughts, etc. And I was hoping some (though not all) authors or potential authors would feel the same.
A list in my personal namespace, representing only my own views on what LW has done and aims to do, wouldn’t serve this purpose at all.
What do other people think about whether point 3 is a good idea? I’ll insert a makeshift poll to gather votes, but comments with reasons would be good too.
Also, ciphergoth, in what sense will you be using your wikia administrator status? Are you advising against purpose 3 as one wiki contributor among many, helping to work out what our aims should be, or are you deciding it as our administrator?
Poll: Should aim 3 above (providing an [incomplete] list of open problems, and wanted articles, together with an indication of how those open problems would contribute to LW’s overall project) be one of the aims of the LW wiki?
Hum. I voted this comment up to 2, but now I see that it’s down to 1 again. People who disagree shouldn’t vote this down but rather vote up the “no” comment, right?
Yes. The same happened to me, and I just assumed that the “poll” user had removed their own upvote after I voted to make voting zero-based, but it looks like we shouldn’t trust the results of this poll. I don’t think a poll is a good way to settle things like this anyway; it’s better to hear what people think.
I’d like the wiki to do three things:
Provide a good landing page for newcomers. Let newcomers see what we’re up to, why a person might care about it, and which past posts can help them with which of their own questions.
Provide a good review, or summary of what has been discussed or figured out where, for current community members who’d like a better birds-eye picture of our project.
Provide a list of “open problems” and “articles someone should write”, together with a picture of how progress on those problems would contribute to LW’s project, and an index of progress to date. So that would-be authors can see useful avenues to contribute, and so that some portion of LW posts can visibly contribute to a cumulative project, instead of being like a succession of randomly entertaining newspaper articles that no one much cares about afterwards. (I’m not hoping all LW posts will do this; but it would be nice if some portion would, and if LW readers build some cummulative competencies over time.)
I agree that discussion, and temporary or controversial content or scratchwork, should be at LW instead of at the wiki. I guess I also agree that completely standard, non-LW-flavored content should be put in Wikipedia, but I’m unclear on where the boundaries are: I’ve liked LW posts that mostly do summarize standard stuff, except the standard stuff they summarize is linked in to our specific goals and prior knowledge and open questions.
I put up a bad rough draft of a questions-first index, and began editing a page for one of the questions. I’m imagining each question on the initial list eventually leading to a list of progress to date (links to OB/LW posts, with sentence-long summaries) and open questions. It gives a better idea of what I’m imagining for the wiki. If anyone has time to look at my pages there and say whether that’s what the wiki should be or shouldn’t be, the feedback would be helpful.
Points 1 and 2 are very much what I have in mind. Sorry to say though, I don’t think 3 is a good idea.
We can better make LW a cumulative project by working on what we have done, rather than what we haven’t done. Similarly, we can avoid duplication with proper coverage of what we do have.
The best articles will come about because people feel the need to write them; I think high quality articles will rarely result from people reading a list of desired articles and deciding to work on them. Where a specific open question deserves more attention, there’s nothing wrong with an article about it, as per Yvain’s very popular article Why support the underdog?.
So I think that your current list would best live in your own personal namespace, as “User:AnnaSalmon/Open problems, and summarized progress to date”—thoughts?
I’m not really sure I follow you. Yes, we can avoid duplication with proper coverage of what we do have, but how is that a reason not to mention the things that still need to be explained? You say that we “can better make LW a cumulative project by working on what we have done, rather than what we haven’t done”, but why should those things be mutually exclusive? People work on the things which happen to interest them—a list may inspire a person with otherwise no inspiration to work on something on the list. The net result is more articles written, not less.
You say that “high quality articles will rarely result from people reading a list of desired articles and deciding to work on them”, but provide little reason for why this would be so. Indeed, beginners may feel intimidated by having to come up with their own subjects and would probably prefer having a ready list of example topics they could work on. And even if what you’re saying is true, that high quality articles will rarely result from people reading the list isn’t the same as saying they never result from reading such a list—even a list that’s of limited use is better than having no list at all.
OK, let me come at it from another angle. How are we going to agree as an editing community on what should be in a list of what hasn’t been written?
We could use NPOV if necessary. E.g., we could note that “many have expressed an interest in techniques for reducing akrasia, and in gaining a better understanding of akrasia”, perhaps with links to the relevant LW comments. Similarly, we could note that “there has been much discussion of anthropics/Newcomb/whatever, and most commenters seem to agree on (a), (b), and (c), but there remains quite a bit of controversy on how to coherently conceptualize (d)”...
I think the basic technique for agreeing about what should be on a wiki, is just to summarize the spread of disagreement when significant disagreement occurs on a particular point.
Somehow, it seems unlikely that “beginners” are going to contribute major new articles on LW. In order to get the right to post, they’ll have to join the community and fit in well enough to get upvoted on their comments on other people’s posts. Once they’ve done that, they’ll be well on the way to understanding the jargon (even if there are holes in their understanding.) At that point, they’ll know what areas are of interest, and if they have a contribution to make in an area we don’t often talk about, finding it on a list of things we think are missing is less likely than noticing a lacuna that was invisible to everyone else.
I believe there would be value in a list of Contentious Subjects, but Articles to be Written will be unlikely to cover the new material we’re not aware we’re waiting for.
Um, well, hmm. Thanks for the input. I agree that good articles will sometimes come from people autonomously feeling the need to write them. And I’m not trying to have the community open problems list be the sole place from which good contributions spring. But as an intermittent posts author, I would find it helpful to have a better idea of what LW is trying to do, what loose corners people are puzzled by on which I might have thoughts, etc. And I was hoping some (though not all) authors or potential authors would feel the same.
A list in my personal namespace, representing only my own views on what LW has done and aims to do, wouldn’t serve this purpose at all.
What do other people think about whether point 3 is a good idea? I’ll insert a makeshift poll to gather votes, but comments with reasons would be good too.
Also, ciphergoth, in what sense will you be using your wikia administrator status? Are you advising against purpose 3 as one wiki contributor among many, helping to work out what our aims should be, or are you deciding it as our administrator?
Poll: Should aim 3 above (providing an [incomplete] list of open problems, and wanted articles, together with an indication of how those open problems would contribute to LW’s overall project) be one of the aims of the LW wiki?
Vote this comment up if your impression is “Yes”.
Hum. I voted this comment up to 2, but now I see that it’s down to 1 again. People who disagree shouldn’t vote this down but rather vote up the “no” comment, right?
Yes. The same happened to me, and I just assumed that the “poll” user had removed their own upvote after I voted to make voting zero-based, but it looks like we shouldn’t trust the results of this poll. I don’t think a poll is a good way to settle things like this anyway; it’s better to hear what people think.
Vote this comment up if your impression is “No”.