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beoShaffer comments on LessWrong could grow a lot, but we're doing it wrong. - Less Wrong
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Comments (106)
Oops sorry. I removed pontificate. Thank you for not assuming I was being rude.
"I mean that maybe only a small fraction of new visitors to LW are people whose presence would enhance LW, and that if that's so then anything we do to encourage a lot more new visitors to stay will make LW worse."
Good problem. However, that can happen whether it grows quickly or slowly.
"I am not optimistic about the prospects of keeping it if LW grows rapidly by keeping a much larger fraction of its new visitors."
Yes! I did warn that this could happen, and that it could happen whether we like it or not.
I wonder whether you think this idea would work:
"http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/e5r/lesswrong_could_grow_a_lot_but_were_doing_it_wrong/78r2"
I also had another idea:
I like that things can be voted up and down, but I think it would be a heck of a lot more effective if specific feedback was provided. As a new user, I will adjust a lot faster if I know WHAT I am doing wrong/right not just THAT I am doing something wrong/right. Also, I wouldn't write off the votes to "bad attitude" and "trolls" when I don't understand them. That's what I'm doing now, lol, and I don't like that, but I don't know what else to think of them, lol.
I think if the votes required a reason, which could be as quick as the word "Trolling" or the name of a logical fallacy, that would make a huge difference. That would ALSO force us to get conscious of our reasons for voting, which would provoke conscious review of the reason, which would probably result in better decisions.
And to ensure the culture doesn't change too quickly, what if it took, say, three months and X number of posts before you're allowed to vote? That way, the oldest users get to influence the culture, and users who just aren't compatible with LessWrong will wander away before they've exerted an influence.
This is basically the same as how you have to be a resident of a country before you can vote.
From a developer's standpoint, that would be a very easy change, but more importantly, it would protect the site no matter whether it grows faster or at the current pace.
"please consider the possibility that in some cases the issue isn't others' obtuseness but that they simply aren't interested in the "web marketing" goals you have in mind, and for a possibly-good reason."
Oh, I did! I did consider that. (: That was the entire reason I created this thread. I figured you would all let me know what you wanted and if growth wasn't it, you'd shoot me down. (:
"They might outweigh the likely loss in quality of discussion that (I think) would go along with it. "
Has anyone thought much about what would improve the quality of discussion? Because that could be improved at the same time. Or before making marketing changes -- to be sure that the safeguard is in place first.
"Or maybe "basic web marketing principles" can in fact be applied in a way that pulls in a huge new population of people with the extremely unusual characteristics LW's current regulars have. "
Yes! That's what I was hoping for. (: That's why I asked who your target demographic is. I might think I know, but you guys are the ones that have been talking to them for years.
Yes, but one of the things that effects wether someone is a good user or bad user is how well they acculturate. From what I understand, sites with a high old timer to newb ratio usually have an easier time acculturating the newbs.
That's not what I meant... Imagine a curve that gets more and more steep as it progresses. In the first quarter of a year, say a website gets 1000 new users. In the second quarter of the year, it gets 1500 new users. In the third quarter of the year, 2250 new users.
In the second quarter, 2/3 of the members are old members, 1/3 of the members are new. In the third quarter, the ratio changes because there are so many new members - nearly half the members are new. In the fourth quarter, an even larger number of new members joins, and suddenly there are more new members than old ones. If this keeps up for any length of time, the culture will be totally destroyed.
Whether you start with 20 members and increase it by an increment of 1 and 1/4 the amount of users every quarter, or start with 1000 and increase it by an increment if 1 and 1/2 the number of users every quarter, if the number of users keeps increasing this way, eventually it will get to a point where the ratio flips and there are more new users than old ones.
It doesn't matter whether that type of growth happens quickly or slowly. If the growth is exponential there's a good risk of that eventually happening. Slow growth might mean it happens next year, fast growth might mean it happens next month. Either way, it's important to protect the community from that problem.
I think you're missing my point. Does your model have any allowance for the idea that new members can eventually become old members, and that this process is speed up by new members interacting with old members? Because the main point that I was trying to make is that a large portion (though nowhere near all) of a user's desirability is how well they absorb the culture, and that culture can survive (more or less) intact through multiple "generations" if at any given point in time a large enough proportion of people have already acculturated. Consider a toy model were users can be discreetly divided into "old-hands" and "newbs". In this toy model newbs turn into old-hands in x weeks iff at least 50% of the other users are old-hands (who can set a proper example), otherwise the culture collapses. In this case the culture can survive indefinitely iff the doubling time is longer than x.