I will post some thoughts about the document in the second link:
I believe that speaking about a decline is an exaggeration. We have MIRI and CFAR, which seem to have enough money to survive and do some activities. We have meetups around the world. We have discussion on LW; sometimes more articles, sometimes less, but usually it's a few articles a day. I don't think we had more than this in the past. Sometimes it feels like we are losing momentum (which is not the same thing as decline), and I am not sure whether data support it. I admit that a few years ago I expected "something huge", and these days it's like "I don't even know what exactly is happening", but this may be a fact about my knowledge.
Maybe a good start would be to make a page on LW wiki describing the timeline of the rationalist movement. What happened when. Looking at this calendar would give us better idea about our progress. (Also it would provide some material to media.)
I agree with the idea of smaller task groups. I mean, we have MIRI, we have CFAR, but most of us at this website are members of neither. Yet some of us would like to do something. We could start informal groups cooperating on internet (or in person in those lucky places with enough rationalists), pick some smaller task and do it. There is a website for volunteers, but we don't have to limit ourselves to the tasks given by other people; we could also try our own ideas.
The details of motivation and organization of these groups seem to me overly complicated. If the group has half dozen members, I guess we can just use the common sense. The difficult part would be finding those half dozen people willing to spend their time towards a common goal. And I think that for the beginning, a sufficient motivation could be: just do your task, and then publish a bragging article on LW.
Educating those people in rationality seems like a task for one of such groups.
Could someone explain why I've been downvoted?
I didn't downvote you, but something that makes me refrain from engaging with your ideas more is the irony that your thoughts about becoming more organized are pretty disorganized.
Edit: Could someone explain why I've been downvoted?
I believe that rationality has a more populist message, and I would like to see it refined and spread. I have a collection of my thoughts https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9BZfCmYSqm-TTlfRW1hMVJ5VnM&usp=sharing,
I you link to a collection of your thoughts, than you should shortly give a summary to the articles you link. Formatting your post so that the links look nice and don't contain "0B9BZfCmYSqm-TTlfRW1h" would also make your post more appealing.
As for the linked document it lacks separation into paragraphs. It contain a bunch of ideas thrown together without good structure. You make complex arguments about voting procedures when that's not central to starting a new group. Leadership at local LW meetups is mostly chosen because someone wants to put in the effort to be a leader. You don't need competitive elections.
I would like to start by discussing the ideas in the google drive folder that I shared and move from there.
English provides multiple ways to parse that sentence.
The first is based on instrumental rationality, and I'd like to call it Success Club
Is the group that you want to have something that's commonly called a mastermind group? If so, why don't you use that term?
You haven't said what kind of communication forms the groups are going to use.
It seems to me that the rationality movement is doing a sub-optimal job at proliferating. I have seen on multiple occasions posts which suggest that LessWrong is in decline. I think that this has a lot to do with organization, and by organization I mean the effectiveness with which a group of people obtains its goals. I believe that rationality has a more populist message, and I would like to see it refined and spread. I have a collection of my thoughts https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9BZfCmYSqm-TTlfRW1hMVJ5VnM&usp=sharing, with the more concise and up to date summary of my suggestions https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I-T-jiuhHr951FUHZ6q-KUW4oK-GHCjF9bVGr2dwR1M/edit?usp=sharing. I have not developed these ideas to the point where I am strongly attached to them. What I would like to do for now is to create three monthly discussion groups.
The first is based on instrumental rationality, and I'd like to call it Success Club. For this group I would like to use [Alex Vermeer's 8760 hours guide](http://alexvermeer.com/8760hours/) as a basis. If you want to join this group, I would suggest you be open minded and able to deal with other people's sensitive issues. This will work as a support group, and if you can't keep confidentiality you won't be able to be a member. The second group is based on more general or epistemic rationality. I would use the sequences as a basis, but if any CFAR alums have better suggestions I would welcome them. The third group is a meta group, discussing the movement as a whole and how to make it more effective. I would like to start by discussing the ideas in the google drive folder that I shared and move from there.
If anyone is interested in any of these groups, please send me a PM with a little about yourself and which group(s) you'd be interested in joining.
Edit: Could someone explain why I've been downvoted? Judging by the way the karma is proportioned I'm getting a good number of positive and negative reactions but not a whole lot in the way of feedback.