dclayh comments on Of Gender and Rationality - Less Wrong

41 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 April 2009 12:56AM

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Comment author: dclayh 16 April 2009 07:23:59PM 1 point [-]

It's nice for reading, yes (although it does mean that reading one Eliezer post can quickly turn into eight tabs' worth of previous posts), but when it comes to writing a post (or even a comment), I feel like if I don't have a bunch of references I'm leaving myself open to accusations of "Oh, that point was addressed here, here, and here. Try doing some reading."

Which might not be a bad thing, necessarily: it's certainly not too productive to be constantly going over the same ground as MrHen says below, but it certainly does affect what I choose to write.

Comment author: MBlume 16 April 2009 07:34:45PM 2 points [-]

reading one Eliezer post can quickly turn into eight tabs' worth of previous posts

I spent a lot of happy afternoons this way last year (didn't get much done on my quantum problem sets though)

but when it comes to writing a post (or even a comment), I feel like if I don't have a bunch of references I'm leaving myself open to accusations of "Oh, that point was addressed here, here, and here. Try doing some reading."

Ah, this I totally get. I think this might be a good function for the welcome thread -- you could just leave a comment saying "hi, I'm thinking about writing something about X -- is there anything I ought to be reading first?"

Comment author: MrHen 16 April 2009 10:02:19PM 0 points [-]

Ah, this I totally get. I think this might be a good function for the welcome thread -- you could just leave a comment saying "hi, I'm thinking about writing something about X -- is there anything I ought to be reading first?"

I imagine that some of this task will be handled by the wiki or the tags assigned to each post.

That being said, I have little problem with someone talking about a topic that was broached seventy times previously as long as it either adds a new perspective or is a decent summary or launching point for people not there during the past discussions.

That being said, having "little problem with" may mean I will not read it because I consider the topic saturated.