Most healthy intellectual blogs/forums participate in conversations among larger communities of blogs and forums. Rather than just "preaching to a choir" of readers, such blogs often quote and respond to posts on other blogs. Such responses sometimes support, and sometimes criticize, but either way can contribute to a healthy conversation.
If folks at Less Wrong saw themselves as a part of a larger community of rationalists, they would realize that most rationalist authors and readers are not at Less Wrong. To participate in a healthy conversation among the wider community of rationalists, they would often respond to posts at other sites, and expect other sites to respond often to them. In contrast, an insular group defined by something other than its rationality would be internally focused, rarely participating in such larger conversations.
Today at Overcoming Bias I respond to a post by Eliezer here at Less Wrong. Though I post occasionally here at Less Wrong, I will continue to post primarily at Overcoming Bias. I consider myself part of a larger rationalist community, and will continue to riff off relevant posts here and elsewhere. I hope you will continue to see me as a part of your relevant world.
I worry a little that Less Wrong karma score incentives may encourage an inward focus, since karma is so far only scored for internal site activity.
So on a related point that may or may not be worth its own post. Looking at the new Less Wrong facebook group one rapidly becomes aware that basically everyone here is demographically identical. The vast majority are white men in their twenties- and among those who volunteered the information, most had degrees in math, science or philosophy. There did appear to be a large international presence (and by international I mean European).
So my question is 1) why? What about the Less Wrong project selects YWM and 2) is it a problem? I tend to think that someone biography influences their perspective to such an extent that its useful to talk to and read people with different biographical backgrounds. So maybe its just a matter of reading different blogs... on the other hand if you're trying to build a broad rationalist movement then we're doing something wrong, no?
I'll read some OB and LW articles to my mom and hear why she's not interested in rationality.
Though, I can predict her response already: "You know how emotional I am! And you know I can't help it."