I've often had half-finished LW post ideas and crossed them off for a number of reasons, mostly they were too rough or undeveloped and I didn't feel expert enough. Other people might worry their post would be judged harshly, or feel overwhelmed, or worried about topicality, or they just want some community input before adding it.
So: this is a special sort of open thread. Please post your unfinished ideas and sketches for LW posts here as comments, if you would like constructive critique, assistance and checking from people with more expertise, etc. Just pile them in without worrying too much. Ideas can be as short as a single sentence or as long as a finished post. Both subject and presentation are on topic in replies. Bad ideas should be mined for whatever good can be found in them. Good ideas should be poked with challenges to make them stronger. No being nasty!
Thank you for this post -- I feel a bit lighter somehow having all those drafts out in the open.
I also think this post is a great idea. I've written 3 posts that were, objectively, not that appropriate here. Perhaps I should have waited until I knew more about what was going on at LW, but I'm one of those students that has to ask a lot of questions at first, and I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to learn the things that I wanted to know otherwise.
Along these lines, what do you guys think of encouraging new members (say, with Karma < 100) to always mini-post here first? [In Second Life, there was a 'sandbox area' where you could practi... (read more)