If you'd explained that I misunderstand Gibbs sampling, that would have been a failure to update. You didn't.
I wrote a comment that was so discordant with your understanding of Gibbs sampling and EM that it should have been a red flag that one or the other of us was misunderstanding something. Instead you put forth a claim stating your understanding, and it fell to me to take note of the discrepancy and ask for clarification. This failure to update is the exact event which prompted me to attach "Dunning-Kruger" to my understanding of you.
I don't see how distinction makes sense for Gibbs sampling or EM... That's why these algorithms exist--they spare you from having to choose a prior, if the data is strong enough that the choice makes no difference.
The way in which the ideas you have about EM and Gibbs sampling are wrong isn't easily fixable in a comment thread. We could do a Google Hangout at some point; if you're interested, PM me.
I believe my ideas about Gibbs sampling are correct, as demonstrated by my correct choice and implementation of it to solve a difficult problem. My terminology may be non-standard.
Here is what I believe happened in that referenced exchange: You wrote a comment that was difficult to comprehend, and I didn't see how it related to my question. I explained why I asked the question, hoping for clarification. That's a failure to communicate, not a failure to update.
[Summary: Trying to use new ideas is more productive than trying to evaluate them.]
I haven't posted to LessWrong in a long time. I have a fan-fiction blog where I post theories about writing and literature. Topics don't overlap at all between the two websites (so far), but I prioritize posting there much higher than posting here, because responses seem more productive there.
The key difference, I think, is that people who read posts on LessWrong ask whether they're "true" or "false", while the writers who read my posts on writing want to write. If I say something that doesn't ring true to one of them, he's likely to say, "I don't think that's quite right; try changing X to Y," or, "When I'm in that situation, I find Z more helpful", or, "That doesn't cover all the cases, but if we expand your idea in this way..."
Whereas on LessWrong a more typical response would be, "Aha, I've found a case for which your step 7 fails! GOTCHA!"
It's always clear from the context of a writing blog why a piece of information might be useful. It often isn't clear how a LessWrong post might be useful. You could blame the author for not providing you with that context. Or, you could be pro-active and provide that context yourself, by thinking as you read a post about how it fits into the bigger framework of questions about rationality, utility, philosophy, ethics, and the future, and thinking about what questions and goals you have that it might be relevant to.