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JStewart comments on Attention Lurkers: Please say hi - Less Wrong
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Hi.
edit: to add some potentially useful information, I think the biggest reason I haven't participated is that I feel uncomfortable with the existing ways of contributing (solely, as I understand it, top-level posts and comments on those posts). I know there has been discussion on LW before on potentially adding forums, chat, or other methods of conversing. Consider me a data point in favor of opening up more channels of communication. In my case I really think having a LW IRC would help.
Hi, I think explanations for lurking, if people feel comfortable giving them, may indeed be helpful.
I also felt uncomfortable about posting to LW for a long time and still do to some extent, even after spending a couple months at SIAI as a visiting fellow. Part of the problem is also lack of time; I feel guilty posting on a thread if I haven't read the whole thread of comments, and, especially in the past, almost never had time to read the thread and post in a timely fashion. People tell me that lots of people here post without reading all the comments on a thread, but (except for some of the particularly unwieldy and long-running threads), I can't bring myself to do it.
I agree that a forum or Sub-Reddit as announced by TomMcCabe here might encourage broader participation, if they were somewhat widely used without too significant a drop in quality. But the concerns expressed in various comments about spreading out the conversation also seem valid.
Reddit-style posting is basically the same format as comment threads here, it's just a little easier to see the threading. One thing that feels awkward using threaded comments is conversation, and people's attempts to converse in comment threads is probably part of why comment threads balloon to the size they do. That's one area that chat/IRC can fill in well.
Another issue is that top-level posts have a feeling of permanence to them. It's like publishing something. I'd rather start with an idea and be able to discuss it and shape it. Top-level posts seem like they should have been able to be exposed to feedback before being judged ready to publish. I'm not really sure what kind of structure would work for this, but if I did, I probably would have jumped into an open thread or a meta thread before now :)
Google Wave is decent for this - it's wikilike in that document at hand can be edited by any participant, and bloglike in that comments (including threaded comments) can be added underneath the starting blip. There's a way to set it up so that members of a google group can be given access to a wave automatically, which would be convenient.
I have a few invitations left for Wave, if anyone would like to try it. I'm not interested in taking charge of a google group, though.
I agree. Google Wave is awesome. I use it constantly. Though it's still in beta, and it shows. But I guess I shouldn't start ranting about the advantages and disadvantages of Wave here.
I also have some Wave invitations left over.
This made me think of how cool a LessWrong MOO would be. I went and looked at some Python-based MOOs, but they don't seem very usable. I'd guess that the LambdaMOO server is still the best, but the programming language is pretty bad compared to Python.
What exactly would we do with it?
Chat, and sometimes write code together.
Some of the MOO's programming is pretty easy. I think I used to use something called cyber.
You would create your world by creating rooms and exits. With just the to you could create some nice areas. Note an exit from a room could be something like 'kill dragon'
It got more complex with key objects and automated objects but even with simple rooms and exits a person could be very creative.
Yes, but if you want to make, say, a chess AI or a computer algebra system, then your code ends up being much longer and harder to read than it would be in Python.
I liked LambdaMoo enough that I wrote a compiler for it, targeting the JVM. Fun stuff.
. #lesswrong on Freenode!
And a local Less Wrong subreddit is coming, eventually...
IT IS?! Really?
The Less Wrong site authorities all want it; it's just an issue of getting someone to program it. It's not exceptionally challenging or anything to code, but it would require some real programmer-hours.
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=lesswrong#
There it is.
(at least, that is how I know to access it...)