beoShaffer comments on LessWrong could grow a lot, but we're doing it wrong. - Less Wrong

51 Post author: Epiphany 20 August 2012 05:21AM

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Comment author: gjm 20 August 2012 09:16:05PM 6 points [-]

I'm all for trying to make the LW front page more engaging, but I am skeptical about an assumption pervading this post: that growth should be a major goal, and that faster growth is better aside from major pathologies like spammers and trolls.

For a website that exists mostly to make money (by selling things, advertising a product, gaining visibility for a person or company, etc.) this is a good assumption: all else being equal, you want more page views, lower bounce rates, higher conversion rate, etc. But LW doesn't exist mostly to make money; it exists (in high-minded principle) to refine the art of human rationality and (more prosaically) to provide interest and entertainment for its participants, and for these purposes some visitors are much, much more valuable than others and many have negative value. (This is true even taking into account the prospective value of LW to those visitors.)

By definition, LW wants (or should want) to "grow optimally" -- but that may mean "grow very rapidly" or "grow slowly" or even "not grow at all, at present".

Comment author: beoShaffer 20 August 2012 10:14:01PM 3 points [-]

I concur. I have implied this in my previous comments, but I will going come out and explicitly say it here. Caeteris paribus I want LW's growth rate to be higher than it currently is, but I am more concerned with keeping out the intellectual riff-raff than encouraging growth. Furthermore, I actively want to avoid the exponential growth scenario, unless we can create an effective user orientation or another way of reducing the time it takes for new members to acculturate. </monocle>

Comment author: Epiphany 21 August 2012 12:29:18AM *  2 points [-]

I agree that there's a lot of annoyance for both the new user and old users when new people join. A new user orientation is needed. That's why I wrote an outline for a New User Orientation full of suggestions that I personally would like to see included in the new user orientation. Please go and critique it - older members are surely going to have suggestions I wouldn't think of. I have nothing against writing one, but I can't write a good one with no input, I'm too new.

Please distinguish "keeping out the intellectual riff-raff" from elitism. Are you talking about people who really aren't serious about rational though? Maybe you just mean you don't want more trolls? Or do you mean you want to outright make an IQ requirement?

I have an idea for scaring off those who are not serious about rational thought that goes like this:

The culture here is very, very honest, very confrontational when it comes to errors in reasoning. That's one of my top five reasons for joining. But it feels a bit tentative, a bit ambiguous. People also react with hurt feelings. I think, when it comes to that, we have to choose. I know what I choose - If the truth is brutal, hurt my feelings, I want to know. I'll be responsible for cleaning up whatever mess it makes of my emotions. I think that's the only way rationalists can go. I would like to see a description that demands honesty - not just mentions "yeah people are more honest here" but DEMANDS honesty. I'll show you what I mean:

I am not an employee of Amazon but a friend showed me their values page and I thought it was inspiring: It states that their employees (referred to as "leaders") are "...obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable..." Amazon Leadership Principles

I want to see something just as bold, just as tough as part of the joining agreement. I'm not talking about hiding it in some website policy or rules page everyone ignores. I want to see it right by the join button:

"By pressing this join button, I agree that I am here to improve myself. I understand that my flawed reasoning will be pointed out. My feelings about that will be my own responsibility. I agree also that I will point out flawed reasoning when I see it, no matter whose it is."

(I also wrote about how LessWrong seems to balance brutal honesty and manners and my favorite technique for that)

From my post New User Orientation

Do you think this would work?

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