I think we both think it would be sad for people to not notice that info. Also my current sense is that it’s fit into a somewhat too-tight margin, I think we’re currently trying a re-design that gives it a bit more space.
Insofar as you think that this is the standard for what a blog is like, do note that most substacks, wordpress blogs, and slatestarcodex don’t show people the “about” page or “bio” on the landing page. They show the blogposts!
Note though that the reference class “blog” is only partially apt. For example, some authors publish on LessWrong in the course of attempting to make or propagate serious intellectual progress, which is a rare aim among bloggers. It seems to me LessWrong’s design has historically been unusually conducive to this rare aim, and personally, this is the main reason I hope and plan to publish more here in the future (and why I’d feel far less since excited about publishing on Medium or Substack or other platforms formatted like standard blogs).
True, but on LessWrong I interact with commenters, and sometimes want to quickly see who they are. In particular, I’m sometimes trying to check if a LessWrong commenter is a specific person that vaguely know or have a profesional connection with. And “this person works for [specific or]” is a generally concretely helpful piece of information.[1]
Having selected posts is also an improvement, because it lets me skim their thinking better than just reading their recent comments (which I sometimes also do).
It’s a little tricky to say why it’s helpful. But among other things it allows me to situate them in their social context. If I know that someone works at OpenPhil or Forethought, I can quickly narrow down who they spend a lot of their time with.
Yeah, the explicit logic for de-emphasizing the bio on desktop was “well, in order to end up on this page the user needs to have hovered over a username before, and in that preview they saw the bio of the user, so we don’t need to show that exact thing again when they navigate to the page”.
On mobile where you don’t have that interaction the bio is above the fold and more emphasized.
I think we both think it would be sad for people to not notice that info. Also my current sense is that it’s fit into a somewhat too-tight margin, I think we’re currently trying a re-design that gives it a bit more space.
Insofar as you think that this is the standard for what a blog is like, do note that most substacks, wordpress blogs, and slatestarcodex don’t show people the “about” page or “bio” on the landing page. They show the blogposts!
Note though that the reference class “blog” is only partially apt. For example, some authors publish on LessWrong in the course of attempting to make or propagate serious intellectual progress, which is a rare aim among bloggers. It seems to me LessWrong’s design has historically been unusually conducive to this rare aim, and personally, this is the main reason I hope and plan to publish more here in the future (and why I’d feel far less since excited about publishing on Medium or Substack or other platforms formatted like standard blogs).
True, but on LessWrong I interact with commenters, and sometimes want to quickly see who they are. In particular, I’m sometimes trying to check if a LessWrong commenter is a specific person that vaguely know or have a profesional connection with. And “this person works for [specific or]” is a generally concretely helpful piece of information.[1]
Having selected posts is also an improvement, because it lets me skim their thinking better than just reading their recent comments (which I sometimes also do).
It’s a little tricky to say why it’s helpful. But among other things it allows me to situate them in their social context. If I know that someone works at OpenPhil or Forethought, I can quickly narrow down who they spend a lot of their time with.
You can also just hover over their username to get their bio.
Good point!
Had I not noticed that before now? Or did I just retcon my memory to think that it was just on the landing page?
Yeah, the explicit logic for de-emphasizing the bio on desktop was “well, in order to end up on this page the user needs to have hovered over a username before, and in that preview they saw the bio of the user, so we don’t need to show that exact thing again when they navigate to the page”.
On mobile where you don’t have that interaction the bio is above the fold and more emphasized.