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Jack comments on MathOverflow as an example for LessWrong - Less Wrong
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Comments (64)
Do we have evidence there is actually a demand for this? Any lurkers want to pop in and say they would like this?
One issue is that math is an established domain of expertise in a way philosophy isn't. Even someone who fancies themselves good at math has to listen to someone who has more expertise than they when they say "You're not ready for this place: try this for beginners." But, especially on the internet, there is a class of person who will just be offended by this suggestion when it comes to philosophy.
Not sure if I qualify as a lurker, but, well... this is a dojo. If a little kid walks in here and asks a stupid question, rhetorical and logical ass-kicking will commence. The virtues of rationality number twelve, and mercy is not among them. It's all terribly serious.
I have a theory about fiction, which I would like to test. People take fiction less seriously, because they aren't personally involved, but they can still learn from it (which explains the fallscy of generalization from fictional evidence). If it was possible for newcomers to adopt an explicitly fictional persona, and roleplay as budding rationalists within a fictional setting, I predict that would get more new people engaged. There is considerable precedent for success of online roleplay communities, and no reason I am aware of to believe that establishing a fictional setting with the explicit goal of rationally exploring the fantastical elements of that setting would be less successful.
I think the idea of personas is at least worth trying.
I very strongly recommend maintaining norms of courtesy, unless we are specifically trying to train the ability to stay calm when attacked-- and that isn't beginner's work.
It's impossible to completely avoid hurting people's feelings, but it cuts down on the noise level if you start with the presumption that people are capable of learning, and that you can't deduce their general defects of intellect and character because they asked a stupid question.
If I've jumped to inaccurate conclusions about what you mean by ass-kicking and lack of mercy, please let me know.
No, that's exactly what I meant. Thank you.
Yeah, really cool idea. And you found a use for this.
I could get behind a Less Moo. :)
What if we make a LessWrong World of Warcraft guild? ;)
No, no, you've flipped the twos bit - MOO, not MMO. (:
(In all seriousness: we want metarationality fun and games in our official venues - a rationality-dojo MOO might do, but WoW is optimized for something else.)
I intend to start playing World of Warcraft when the summer break begins. Does anyone actually want to do this? Please reply to this in the open thread.
I can't imagine why anyone would do this to their ability to get things done. Like, I read it as "I intend to start doing hard drugs when the summer break begins. Does anyone want to join me?"
Come now, hard drugs aren't that bad.
Personally, I got bored with WoW after about six months.
This sounds like fun; I'm not sure how useful it would be, but it might be fun enough to warrant trying even if it probably won't help.
In the context of attempts to attract more contributors, fun strongly implies useful.
As a semi-lurker, this likely would have been very helpful for me. One problem that I had is a lack of introduction to posting. You can read everything, but its hard to learn how to post well without practice. As others have remarked, bad posts get smacked down fairly hard, so this makes it hard for people to get practice... vicious cycle. Having this could create an area where people who are not confident enough to post to the full site could get practice and confidence.
I wonder if experienced, high-karma posters should offer to take on apprentices, or something. Would that be valuable? Does anybody want to be my apprentice and try it out?
This seems like a bad idea. Such apprenticeships would likely result in even further groupthink and could also result in the construction of cliques and political factions.
Your response was more serious mine. I was thinking of fun rules we can apply..
APPRENTICES MUST SHOW DEFERRENCE TO THEIR MENTORS BY UP-VOTING EVERY COMMENT MADE BY THEIR MENTOR
MENTORS MUST EXPLAIN EVERY DOWNVOTE (which means sometimes they'll need to make something up and this will encourage people to come forward with their real objections)
Of course, rules are between the mentor and mentee and needn't be made public.
That's so crazy that it just might work!
I agree with JoshuaZ that it might result in the construction of 'cliques', though I think the word we're looking for is "competing schools of thought". It's the ordinary way of things in academia, particularly philosophy.
What would this entail?
Not sure. I guess I'd make myself available to vet comments before posting, explain LW-related concepts that can be conveyed quicker or more effectively in conversations than by trawling the archives, and possibly introduce the apprentice to other people who I know from LW and are willing to be friendly.
Some feature that lets us share read and write access to post drafts would be nice for this reason: make it easier to get feedback on articles before giving them to the wolves. It would also be nice to have a way to coauthor posts as there are lots of benefits to cooperating on projects.
Mentoring.
Is that an addition or a summary?
Summary. "Apprenticing" seems to imply something else to several people here.
I avoided this problem by using a hard-to-Google pseudonym, figuring that I could always make a new account or just stop posting if I majorly screwed up. I don't know if pseudonymity alone would reassure other lurkers, though; framing it as fictional roleplaying might be more useful for people who aren't me.
ETA: perhaps adding a reminder to the FAQ that pseudonymity is acceptable would help? And linking the FAQ more prominently.
Personally, pseudonymity wasn't that helpful, its not that I didn't want to risk my good name or something, as much as that I just didn't want to be publicly wrong among intelligent people. Even if people didn't know that the comment was from me per se, they were still (hypothetically) disagreeing with my ideas and I would still know that the post was mine. For me it was more hyperbolic discounting than it was rational cost-benefit analysis.
Voted up for advocating fun.
I nominate Second Life as a potential venue for this (or OpenSim, if we don't want Linden Labs to host the place or want more control than they give). Assuming that I have time to do so among my work obligations, I'd be willing to help set such a place up.
I actually think a little kid will get a useful answer to either his question or the question he should have asked. Much like in a dojo, ass kicking tends to be reserved for little kids who make obstinate stupid assertions that cannot be backed up.
We'd have to be careful flaming didn't spill over into the main threads. I think Karma would take care of that.
On the contrary, I think it would be more important to avoid having out-of-character hostility from the main threads spill over to the roleplay. One important rule would be, don't vote for or against an in-character post based on whether you agree, or how rational it is, but rather on how consistent it is with the setting and the character being portrayed. If you want to criticize a fictional character's statement, do so within the context of that fictional world, rather than sniping from behind the impenetrable ramparts of reality.
This just sounds better and better. Practice with devil's advocating can help people develop rationality skills without being sabotaged by their usual egos. But then you have to help them de-compartmentalize and apply it as themselves.
I am glad to have contributed, particularly in a way so closely connected to my obsession with nested worlds.