In the spirit of striving for constructive criticism, let me follow up on my earlier comment with a response to this short excerpt, which does qualify as a problem description:

The high quality standard, heavy use of neologisms, and karma penalties for being wrong might be intimidating to newcomers.

A quick trip down memory lane reveals that my first two comments on LW were elicited by coming across something that my professional expertise allowed to identify as misinformation.

This is partial evidence of how newcomers can be encouraged to contribute through the discussions themselves, rather than through extraneous means.

I was largely unaware of the site's specialized vocabulary at that time, or at least comfortable ignoring it when I started contributing.

I had no use at all for karma initially, and was only peripherally aware of it. I think I only started taking karma seriously at all when a comment of mine, about one month after I started commenting in the first place, garnered a fair number of upvotes.

Prior to my first writing a top-level post, I had gleaned karma through the following types of interactions:

• directly answering a question asked in a top-level post
• responding to top-level posts with disagreement, external links, amplifications, or even just sympathy
• posting a link in the open thread

In all, this leads me to doubt that specialized jargon or karma penalties have much to do with discouraging newcomers. I agree that the high standards the community sets for itself may discourage newcomers, but that if anything is something that should be increased.

What seems to me to discourage newcomers is something perhaps a little harder to specify: an inward focus of the discussions at any given time, contrasted to an attitude of encouraging and rewarding engagement by outsiders.

The recent "Attention Lurkers" post was a straightforward and successful example of directly engaging outsiders. However, it was limited in its potential to draw forth interesting contributions, since it deliberately lowered the barrier to "just saying hi".

The post I responded to early in my newbiehood was probably a better example: it asked a rather concrete question, "What is your most valuable skill", and encouraged participation in a way that I suspect was particularly likely to turn commenters into later contributors.

These "homework assignment" type posts have seemed most effective to me at encouraging me to increase my level of participation. Admittedly what worked for me may not work for others, but this suggests that the most effective ways to achieve the outcomes we desire may not be quick technological fixes, but rather deliberate and cumulative efforts to encourage and reward specific types of content.