By now this looks rather unlikely in the original time-frame, even though there are still encouraging hints from time to time.
Morendil
Karma: 9,444
On Sci-Hub
Me, as well.
(Edit: looking at Internet Archive’s cached snapshots, all of them that I checked look that way to me too.)
(Edit2: it has looked that way to others as well for quite some time. I wouldn’t worry about it.)
I’m seeing similarities between this and Goldratt’s “Evaporating Cloud”. You might find it worthwhile to read up on applications of EC in the literature on Theory of Constraints, if you haven’t already.
Does that mean Main is no longer deprecated?
I realize I haven’t given a direct answer yet, so here it is: I’m in, if I’m wanted, and if some of the changes discussed here take place. (What it would take to get me onboard is, at the least, an explicit editorial policy and people in charge of enforcing it.)
There was a sudden exodus of talent, which reduced posting frequency, and took the wind out of the sails.
I’d be wary of post hoc ergo propter hoc in this context. You might also have expected that by leaving for other projects these posters would create a vacuum for others to fill. It could be worth looking at why that didn’t happen.
Yes, and this would be a general trend—affecting all community blogs to some extent. I was looking for an explanation for the downfall of LessWrong specifically, but I suppose it’s also interesting to consider general trends.
Would you say that LessWrong is particularly prone to this effect, and if so because of what properties?
This feels like a good start but one that needs significant improvement too.
For instance, I’m wondering how much of the situation Anna laments is a result of LW lacking an explicit editorial policy. I for one never quite felt sure what was or wasn’t relevant for LW—what had a shot at being promoted—and the few posts I wrote here had a tentative aspect to them because of this. I can’t yet articulate why I stopped posting, but it may have had something to do with my writing a bunch of substantive posts that were never promoted to Main.
If you look at the home page only (recent articles in Main) you could draw the inference that the main topics on LessWrong are MIRI, CFAR, FHI, “the LessWrong community”, with a side dish of AI safety and startup founder psychology. This doesn’t feel aligned with “refining the art of human rationality”, it makes LessWrong feel like more of a corporate blog.
We have lately ceased to have a “single conversation” in this way.
Can we hope to address this without understanding why it happened?
What are y’all’s theories of why it happened?
Absolutely—so don’t be insincere in the setup. If you think “no way”, say “no way”.
Yup. I learned the business version of this early in my consulting career. One of my consultant buddies, David Schmaltz, calls it a “Dedication Test”. It’s a small habit with huge positive effects.
Donated $300. Happy New Year!
Where in that (long) post does he say that?
Would appreciate an explanation from whoever downvoted the parent.
You might also want to hire (or otherwise team up with) people who publish designs on sites like RedBubble or Threadless.
Form and content are not that easily separated. For instance, I like #15 (a bit), because the typography fits the message.
Instead, I’d suggest you focus on design that reinforces, ideally in a humorous way, the message of the slogan.
I feel strongly that “Please Provide an Example” ought to have the word “example” consist of hairy green ball things, in homage to Fenyman’s famous explanation of how he would debug math or physics claim by turning abstract concepts into imagined examples.
“I notice I am confused” could play on a classic “magnifier” icon in the word “notice”, and jumble up the letters of “cnfosued”, or mess up their typography.
Whatever happened to looking for evidence?
Ruling this prediction as wrong. (Only three years late, but who’s counting.)