RobbBB comments on Help us Optimize the Contents of the Sequences eBook - Less Wrong

11 Post author: lukeprog 19 September 2013 04:31AM

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Comment author: RobbBB 20 September 2013 08:09:12AM *  5 points [-]

I can think of two possible primary goals for this project:

  1. A prettier format for LWers to review the Sequences in, allowing easy full-text-search. A refresher and trophy.

  2. A tidier, better-organized, more approachable update of the Sequences to introduce entirely new people to the ideas therein.

If the latter, brevity is a virtue. Every 50 pages longer the eBook gets probably takes a significant chunk out of how many people read any of it at all. So there's a lot of reason to excise everything unnecessary to an Appendix. And to shunt the Appendix off into a separate eBook of its own. ("The Out-Of-Sequences.")

An alternative (or complementary) solution is to divide the Sequences into several separate volumes, each no more than 250 pages long. Then you can be given the option either of downloading a single eBook that collects these volumes, or of downloading the separate eBooks and choosing a favorite one to send to a friend. Makes for a drastically less intimidating Christmas present.

Comment author: lukeprog 20 September 2013 07:16:31PM 2 points [-]

We may later decide to release particular sequences as ebooks, especially the Quantum Physics sequence.

Comment author: alexvermeer 20 September 2013 06:22:35PM *  1 point [-]

A prettier format for LWers to review the Sequences in, allowing easy full-text-search.

That's the one.

A tidier, better-organized, more approachable update of the Sequences to introduce entirely new people to the ideas therein.

This is outside the scope of this project.

Comment author: Benito 20 September 2013 03:54:22PM 0 points [-]

They'd be more easily bought as books then too.