If LW feels like work then it's creating an ugh field. I've noticed this when I saw someone treating reading HPMOR like homework instead of as reading for pleasure.
The main/discussion split was supposed to help alleviate this but I feel like too many are treating discussion as only appropriate for rough drafts of main material.
How can we fix this?
If LW feels like work then it's creating an ugh field.
Not necessarily.
Posting to my own blog is kinda the same way for me sometimes. It hasn't created an ugh field and I have no problem thinking about it but I end up with a huge backlog of posts with the main idea spelled out but not understandable to others.
A couple partial solutions come to mind:
1) When you see a post that looks like it belongs on LW, tell the author. This gets rid of a lot of the uncertainty about whether LW would appreciate it or whether it's too off-topic/speculative/whatever.
2) If...
Ever since Eliezer, Yvain, and myself stopped posting regularly, LW's front page has mostly been populated by meta posts. (The Discussion section is still abuzz with interesting content, though, including original research.)
Luckily, many LWers are posting potentially front-page-worthy content to their own blogs.
Below are some recent-ish highlights outside Less Wrong, for your reading enjoyment. I've added an * to my personal favorites.
Overcoming Bias (Robin Hanson, Rob Wiblin, Katja Grace, Carl Shulman)