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Epiphany comments on Great rationality posts by LWers not posted to LW - Less Wrong
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Relevant data: I actually have completed 70% of a post that's fairly suitable to front page and I'm sure would go positive (my expectation is 10-40 karma, but high uncertainty), and 90% of a post suitable to discussion (expected karma ~3-10), and then after having them close to done I thought about the prospect of posting them and realised that I'm not sure whether they're "valuable enough" and whether actually posting them is worth the potential stressfulness (I really dislike losing even slightly). As you can see, a karma prediction tool wouldn't really do anything for me, while a writer's group might be helpful.
"I really dislike losing even slightly"
I wonder if a way to post anonymously or as part of a group would help with this. Example: Say you submitted a piece to the writer's group, instructing them to post it anonymously for you, and they reviewed it and posted it under the account "Writer's Group" - then there would be no risk of you losing karma. Would an arrangement like that be desirable?
Not especially - while it removes the disincentives to posting, it also removes the incentives. If I write something, half my motivation is to increase my status and be appreciated (the other half being altruistic - and I'm not sure it's actually "half"). Unless, of course, the writer's group was exclusive in membership and belonging to it were already high-status, but that's probably not the ideal direction to go.
I figured you'd probably say that, but I didn't want to assume my guess was correct. I don't have much inhibition about posting, myself, so I am not entirely sure I understand other's inhibitions.
What exactly is it about the writer's group that would do the trick? Maybe it's having other people read it first and confirm that it's good?
Ideally, the benefit would be receiving feedback at multiple stages of the writing process.
At idea conception, I'd like good feedback on whether an idea is interesting and worth pursuing further or obviously flawed or already covered (there are way too many posts for someone who's not been here for years to be aware of all of them, and search is only sometimes helpful). After that, it may be good to get quick comments on an outline or choice of style (e.g. "you should try to make it less dry" or "you need to spend more time explaining the importance"). Once the post is completed, it would be valuable to know whether the end result is good/salvageable/how it can be improved (e.g. I have one post up, and I recall that after posting it, there was instantly a comment at like +10 saying "this pair of sentences is stupid" and then I realised that it was indeed stupid and I shouldn't have included them - having someone point that out before I posted would've helped). All of this preferably without even potential karma losses to avoid creating ugh fields or even general worries.
I agree that it would be nice to have feedback on whether a concept has already been written about. Searching isn't perfect. I have some friends that I've asked for feedback a few times, and that has stopped me from posting topics that were already covered. I also desire to have someone read my post to find any communication glitches I may not have noticed.
The ability to invite people to see drafts would be an interesting one, that would make this sort of writing group much easier to do. (Basically, posting a draft to discussion without posting a draft to discussion.)
Yes, but then we'd also need a place to discuss them... and the discussions wouldn't be appropriate because not only do people hate meta threads but it would also give away the content of the post and defeat the purpose of limiting exposure to refine the piece first. Also, from what I gather, it's relatively hard to get changes made to the website. The best route is apparently to just make them and then hope that Luke or somebody likes them enough to implement.
What would be much easier in this case is to simply throw a private open source message board and hidden Wordpress install onto some web space specifically for the writer's group to discuss various things, both related to their specific pieces, and to writing in general.
Then, if LessWrong ever does create a framework for the group, the database can be imported. Until then, progress does not have to be hindered.
I am seriously dying to start this writer's group, but I have major projects to finish right now. Making the site would be easy (and I could do it myself). It's leading the group that I don't have time for - they need somebody who is willing to read and give feedback on each piece, organize, and advertise for the group.