eliezer’s problem is what you have if your friend group is getting diluted. this problem is what you have if you’re trying to dilute your friend group as much as you can.
I’m not sure I like the word “dilute”/”diluted” here, but in any case Eliezer and I are responding to rather different circumstances. Eliezer was writing after having experienced the SL4 mailing list being overrun by low-quality discussions and withering away; I’m writing after having experienced LW1.0 being overrun by overly high standards and withering away.
SL4 quite plausibly died thanks to pacifism; LW1.0, on the other hand, quite plausibly died to enforcement of the wrong standards. In other words, one might say SL4 was *too* welcoming, even to low-quality content; by contrast, I would say LW1.0 wasn’t welcoming *enough*, and I believe my opinion on this matter is shared by many of its top contributors, who found it too annoying to deal with all the nitpicking and critical comments!
(Now, one might argue that the nitpicking and overly critical comments themselves represent LW1.0 dying by pacifism—but in my view it’s still notable that SL4 and whatever other groups Eliezer is alluding to in his post seem to have died thanks to letting too much bad content in, while LW1.0 seems to me to have died thanks to screening too much good content out!)
I strongly agree with this point. This is the core reason I have mostly stopped using less wrong. I just made a post, and being able to set my own moderation standards is kind of cool. That might make less wrong worth of use as a blog, actually.
eliezer’s problem is what you have if your friend group is getting diluted. this problem is what you have if you’re trying to dilute your friend group as much as you can.
I’m not sure I like the word “dilute”/”diluted” here, but in any case Eliezer and I are responding to rather different circumstances. Eliezer was writing after having experienced the SL4 mailing list being overrun by low-quality discussions and withering away; I’m writing after having experienced LW1.0 being overrun by overly high standards and withering away.
SL4 quite plausibly died thanks to pacifism; LW1.0, on the other hand, quite plausibly died to enforcement of the wrong standards. In other words, one might say SL4 was *too* welcoming, even to low-quality content; by contrast, I would say LW1.0 wasn’t welcoming *enough*, and I believe my opinion on this matter is shared by many of its top contributors, who found it too annoying to deal with all the nitpicking and critical comments!
(Now, one might argue that the nitpicking and overly critical comments themselves represent LW1.0 dying by pacifism—but in my view it’s still notable that SL4 and whatever other groups Eliezer is alluding to in his post seem to have died thanks to letting too much bad content in, while LW1.0 seems to me to have died thanks to screening too much good content out!)
I strongly agree with this point. This is the core reason I have mostly stopped using less wrong. I just made a post, and being able to set my own moderation standards is kind of cool. That might make less wrong worth of use as a blog, actually.