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byrnema comments on Attention Less Wrong: We need an FAQ - Less Wrong
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So, am I the only one who thinks new users shouldn't be expected to read the sequences before participating? There are works of brilliance there but there are also posts that are far from required reading.
I mean, if a cognitive psychologist shows up and wants to teach us about some cool bias why the hell would she need to read about many worlds or Eliezer's coming of age as a rationalist?
What the FAQ should do is say what topics we've covered, what we think about them and from there link to posts in the sequences where our positions on those topics are covered in more depth. So if someone shows up they can look over the material, decide they want to talk to us about physics and read the posts on physics, and then say what they want to say.
Besides, if someone is just reading the new posts as they come they'll eventually pick up most of what is in the sequences just from links and repetition.
If I comment on Less Wrong, it's because factors conspire to make it worthwhile for me. That is, I participate because I find it fun or helpful. Often, I also find reading background material fun or helpful. But my response when I'm caught not having reading something -- this is thought but not spoken -- is that I will be dutiful about reading all the background material when I am being 'paid by the hour'. I am willing to suffer the down votes; the links that come with them are most efficient for me in the long run and help others who also don't have a mental map of all that has been discussed here.
I have a "matching effort" policy, here and in life in general, where I exert more and more effort on a task as I find that the effort is rewarded. Expecting people to do a lot of work upfront, even before they have formed a positive opinion about Less Wrong, is unrealistic. Some people like to lurk for a while, but I presume there are others like me that want to immediately engage in the active experience of Less Wrong, or not bother. This is probably just a personality difference, whether people prefer to prepare first or just dive in.