Nominull comments on Beware Trivial Inconveniences - Less Wrong

90 Post author: Yvain 06 May 2009 10:04PM

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Comment author: gwern 07 May 2009 01:15:26AM *  19 points [-]

'I was reminded of this recently by Eliezer's Less Wrong Progress Report. He mentioned how surprised he was that so many people were posting so much stuff on Less Wrong, when very few people had ever taken advantage of Overcoming Bias' policy of accepting contributions if you emailed them to a moderator and the moderator approved. Apparently all us folk brimming with ideas for posts didn't want to deal with the aggravation.'

I don't really have a point here, but this shouldn't really be surprising at all, not at this moment in time.

I mean, has anyone here not used Wikipedia? (I'd also wager even odds that >=90% of you have edited WP at some point.)

EDIT: Looking back, it seems to me that what would not be surprising is, upon observing LW suddenly skyrocketing in contributors & contributed material, noticing that the sudden increase comes after a loosening of submission guidelines. When a site skyrockets, it's for one of a few reasons: being linked by a major site like Slashdot, for example. Loosening submission guidelines is one of those few reasons.

But that's not to say that Eliezer should have confidently expected a sudden increase just because he loosened submission criteria; the default prediction should have been that LW would continue on much as OB had been going. Lots of wikis never go anywhere, even if they let anyone edit.

Comment author: Nominull 07 May 2009 01:54:58AM 2 points [-]

It's nice to see that even Eliezer can be shockingly stupid.

Comment author: Lawliet 07 May 2009 02:39:24AM 2 points [-]

How is that good?

Comment author: gwern 07 May 2009 12:44:19PM 10 points [-]

How is that good?

Well, it makes us feel better about ourselves? Pity about the whole FAI thing though...

Comment author: ABranco 15 October 2009 04:39:33AM 2 points [-]

Making us reap good feelings from downward social comparison.

Naughty brains, love those tricks.

Comment author: Annoyance 07 May 2009 05:52:48PM -1 points [-]

We didn't need that particular example for that - it's just one that you immediately recognize as being shockingly stupid.

When we're as shockingly stupid on something as the person we're examining, we don't notice their error, because it's ours as well.