if LW is actually in a serious period of decline, the problem is more serious than just WrongBot
Agreed. In particular, LW has successfully weathered long flurries of comments and posts by people worse than WrongBot.
The primary sign that LW is in danger of becoming the kind of place that I and those I admire no longer want to visit is the (negative) magnitude of the score on comments asking WrongBot to stop writing on things beyond his skill and the (positive) magnitude of the scores of WrongBot’s replies to those (negatively scored) comments. That is new.
Note that the vast majority of readers of LW never attempt to create evolutionary arguments relevant to human behavior or summarize novel arguments made by others. I would hope that that is because they realize that it is too difficult for them.
Agreed. In particular, LW has successfully weathered long flurries of comments and posts by people worse than WrongBot.
The primary sign that LW is in danger of becoming the kind of place that I and those I admire no longer want to visit is the (negative) magnitude of the score on comments asking WrongBot to stop writing on things beyond his skill and the (positive) magnitude of the scores of WrongBot’s replies to those (negatively scored) comments. That is new.
Note that the vast majority of readers of LW never attempt to create evolutionary arguments relevant to human behavior or summarize novel arguments made by others. I would hope that that is because they realize that it is too difficult for them.