lukeprog comments on Preventing discussion from being watered down by an "endless September" user influx. - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Epiphany 02 September 2012 03:46AM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 03 September 2012 10:45:17PM *  4 points [-]

This would include a video of somebody explaining in 5-10 minutes what Less Wrong is about, the values of the community, etc. (Project under development.)

What's the case for a video? Seems a little cheesy, IMO.

Have an army of volunteers regularly comment on selected blogs and discussion forums (e.g. for computer scientists, cognitive scientists, mathematicians, and formal philosophers), linking back to the stickest relevant LW posts. (This project is under development: if you want to be part of this once it's ready, please notify malo@intelligence.org.)

OK, but let's make sure they really do have some domain expertise in the area that they're leaving comments in, so they don't make us look bad. Link.

Have the system deliver a welcome message to a user's inbox when they first sign up, one linking to the "community values" page, the "welcome to LW" page, etc.

I like this idea. One potential logistical glitch: If the user isn't already familiar with reddit, they won't know what an orange envelope means and they may just see it as orange forever and never click on it.

Comment author: lukeprog 03 September 2012 10:47:38PM 2 points [-]

What's the case for a video? Seems a little cheesy, IMO.

People like videos and it makes the community more human to newcomers.

Comment author: Kindly 04 September 2012 04:06:15AM 13 points [-]

People like videos? I hate videos to the point that I will go out of my way to avoid links with videos in them, and I've seen this sentiment expressed by other people here.

Comment author: Epiphany 06 September 2012 05:42:26AM *  5 points [-]

I hate video because it goes too slow. I can read at least twice as fast as a video goes. It always feels like such an excruciating waste of time. Also, I can't use find in page. I am addicted to find in page. Ctrl-F and me are attached at the hip. Of all the pages I open, the proportion I read in entirety is very small. Ctrl-F is like half my way of navigating the internet. I'm really glad to see someone else express this. I thought i was the only one.

Comment author: komponisto 04 September 2012 06:57:27AM 3 points [-]

I like videos. They are more passive than written text and feel less cognitively demanding per unit time. In fact, I will often prefer to watch/listen-to a video/audio recording more than once in order to achieve the same level of retention as reading text in a concentrated fashion, thereby exchanging time for concentration-willpower.

Comment author: Kindly 04 September 2012 12:18:12PM 0 points [-]

I suppose I have nothing to complain about as long as the transcript is present and easy to get to.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 04 September 2012 04:57:00AM 3 points [-]

I seem to recall lots of complaints on lukeprog's first Q&A about the fact that the answers were delivered in video format.

Comment author: curiousepic 05 September 2012 05:37:25PM 0 points [-]

FYI he also provided a text transcript.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 September 2012 10:31:13PM 2 points [-]

People like videos?

Some do and some don't.

Comment author: TraderJoe 05 November 2012 12:43:43PM *  0 points [-]

[comment deleted]

Comment author: gwern 05 November 2012 04:01:34PM 0 points [-]

Transcripts are fairly expensive; patio11 pays for transcripts to be made for his podcasts (a big factor in why those submissions do well on Hacker News), but IIRC the quoted figure is north of $100. So you would pay... but would you pay enough?

Comment author: TraderJoe 06 November 2012 08:45:36AM *  0 points [-]

[comment deleted]

Comment author: gwern 06 November 2012 03:27:36PM 0 points [-]

College students would be flaky and unreliable, and you'd want at least 2 for error-checking. You get what you pay for.

Comment author: Curiouskid 22 October 2012 10:22:56PM 0 points [-]

Confirmation bias and selection effects?

Comment author: Karmakaiser 13 September 2012 12:47:26AM 0 points [-]

Echoing komponisto, my job is incredibly non demanding of my cognitive resources so I constantly listening to audiobooks, youtube channels, and TCC/TMS Lectures at 2x speed. Over the course of an 8 hr work day I can finish about 200 pages at reasonable comprehension.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 04 September 2012 04:56:21AM *  2 points [-]

People like videos

I'd be curious to hear your evidence for this. In any case, even if there is conclusive evidence that internet users prefer video presentations over corresponding text presentations, it's not obvious that this trend extends to LWers or potential LWers.

Also, this seems to have been a flop. I suspect that if videos were a good fit for LW concept transmission, we'd have seen more success with that small experimental effort.

Comment author: lukeprog 04 September 2012 05:03:49AM 2 points [-]

Those video experiments were very poorly produced. That's not the kind of video I have in mind. And video would of course only be there in addition to text.

Comment author: RomanDavis 04 September 2012 06:33:38AM 0 points [-]

I would have enjoyed and reccomended even poorly produced videos if you guys had bothered to extend them. I keep meaning to finish the last third or so of the sequences I haven't read, but their all over the place and it makes sense for me to start from the top. It'd be great if I could listen while doing other things. In my case, painting mostly, in other cases, probably cleaning, laundry, dishes, pet care and other activities that take up very low or no verbal mental resources.

Guys. It's not rocket science. You're smart. You have good content. Present it well. Or better. If you can't do that, hire someone who can. Get it out there. If you can't do that, hire someone who can.