So what gives? Why is the comment quality so much higher on LW than on OB? My first thought is karma, but OB didn't have karma when Eliezer Yudkowsky was posting, and the comments were pretty good back then. My best guess is that the good commenters were mostly Yudkowsky fans, and they left when EY left.
I expect that was the biggest reason. When I started following OB it basically was Eliezer's blog. Sure, occasionally Robin would post a quote and an interpretation but that was really just 'intermission break' entertainment.
I do note that comments here have been said to have reduced in quality. That is probably true and is somewhat related to lacking a stream of EY posts and also because there aren't many other prominent posters (like Yvain, Roko, Wei, etc.) posting on the more fascinating topics. (At least, fascinating to me.)
I expect that was the biggest reason. When I started following OB it basically was Eliezer's blog. Sure, occasionally Robin would post a quote and an interpretation but that was really just 'intermission break' entertainment.
lol, yeah, that's the impression I got in the OB days. When there was discussion about renaming the site, I half-seriously thought it should be called "Eliezer Yudkowsky and the backup squad" :-P
...I do note that comments here have been said to have reduced in quality. That is probably true and is somewhat related to lacki
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