There are certain signalling risks as you broaden the discussion topics, so I’d specifically vote against C. The single-Discussion-forum, social norm, and karma model works very well the more targeted the discussion, and frays further more varied topics become.
I’d be interested to see the number or distribution of users creating top-level Discussion opening posts. There are advantages to having a number of high profile, well-written advocates, but there are downsides as well—if there are three people /really/ good at starting discussions, you get great discussions until one of them has a busy workweek. If there are thirty people only mediocre at it, the highs are as high, but there’s significantly less loss if one person has their internet connection go down.
At least as a user, the Top Contributor List on the right side of this page is somewhat discouraging.
As a user who has partially-finished posts and ideas for posts, but has not published them, another matter is that it’s not terribly clear where and how to start. The Sequences are have the greatest promotion and are the most obvious place to look within the site hierarchy, but they seem to be (probably intentionally) built to avoid such metacontent. The FAQ page actually has some useful tips, but it’s fairly ‘deep’ in the site hierarchy, and is written with an expert’s knowledge of ‘how’ things work and thus lacks things like a “what tags are commonly used” bit. Filtering by Top tends toward inside-ball due to certain mechanics. There is no obvious list of rules (what is a core LessWrong topic?), even as the rules are not static (the recent “no hypothetical violence/illegal action” rules). I’m very unsure how well the site tolerates discussion on well-traveled ground, or what degree folk are expected to search for similar pre-existing topics before posting. The first rule-like post I could find is Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism which… uh, not the most encouraging.
Of course, the social norms discouraging content exist for reasons.
There are certain signalling risks as you broaden the discussion topics, so I’d specifically vote against C. The single-Discussion-forum, social norm, and karma model works very well the more targeted the discussion, and frays further more varied topics become.
I’d be interested to see the number or distribution of users creating top-level Discussion opening posts. There are advantages to having a number of high profile, well-written advocates, but there are downsides as well—if there are three people /really/ good at starting discussions, you get great discussions until one of them has a busy workweek. If there are thirty people only mediocre at it, the highs are as high, but there’s significantly less loss if one person has their internet connection go down.
At least as a user, the Top Contributor List on the right side of this page is somewhat discouraging.
As a user who has partially-finished posts and ideas for posts, but has not published them, another matter is that it’s not terribly clear where and how to start. The Sequences are have the greatest promotion and are the most obvious place to look within the site hierarchy, but they seem to be (probably intentionally) built to avoid such metacontent. The FAQ page actually has some useful tips, but it’s fairly ‘deep’ in the site hierarchy, and is written with an expert’s knowledge of ‘how’ things work and thus lacks things like a “what tags are commonly used” bit. Filtering by Top tends toward inside-ball due to certain mechanics. There is no obvious list of rules (what is a core LessWrong topic?), even as the rules are not static (the recent “no hypothetical violence/illegal action” rules). I’m very unsure how well the site tolerates discussion on well-traveled ground, or what degree folk are expected to search for similar pre-existing topics before posting. The first rule-like post I could find is Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism which… uh, not the most encouraging.
Of course, the social norms discouraging content exist for reasons.