The biggest problem as I see it is loss of members and lack of talented new ones. I'm willing to bet if you plotted the histogram of user activity, you'd see virtually all of the posts and comments coming from a very small number of members. The 'Top Contributors' section in the side panel probably contains most of them, and has been relatively stable in composition over the past two years. If the first step in instrumental rationality is to identify reality in an objective way, then we have to realize this site has become an echo chamber for a small few, with their own vocabulary and system of thought which is incompatible with the outside world. The barriers to entry (reading the sequences, reading the 'seminal' comment threads, etc.) are too high for most people. HPMOR offers a pathway for new members to start reading the rationality materials, but it doesn't equip them to meaningfully contribute.
Another thing is that there is only so much 'low-hanging fruit' lying around. In terms of general rationality, we've covered most everything. There are only so many threads you can have about biases and logical inconsistencies. The topic has become quite stale.
I like AI because at least it offers the possibility for new material to arise every once in a while, leading to useful discussions. Other people might like other topics. I have a huge list of topics whose implications are quite relevant to the art of rationality and so would be quite compatible with the goals of this site:
The problem is, the types of people likely to be knowledgeable about these things probably have no idea this site exists. And if they do it is unreasonable to expect them to learn the required information to be 'on the same page' as this site's core users. And this is very bad, because it means that this site's users will attempt to foray into these topics themselves without any help from actual experts.
I don't know what the solution is. Maybe it's already too late to do anything.
We should somehow survey the users to see if their alone-in-a-crowd attitude prevents them from actively posting, and then encourage them to post, because compartmentalization is not a good habit. And I think people who agree that you should help the epileptic however many people are also present, but not that you should speak out 'what is obvious' if there are other users with a history of commenting, compartmentalize.
(OTOH, maybe it's me rationalizing asking much and answering little.)
TLDR: I had idea to apply some tools I learned on coursera to our community in order to grow it better. I wanted to start some organized thinking about goals our community has, and offer some materials for people who are eager to work on it, but are maybe lost or need ideas.
Yesterday I did a course on coursera.org. It's called "Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses, Part I". (I play lectures often at x2.5 so I can do 5 weeks course in one day)
Though this course seems obvious, it'd say pretty worth 3 hours, so look it up. (It's hard to say how much is hindsight and how much is actually too easy and basic) I got some ideas sorted, and I saw the tools. I'm not an expert now, obviously, but at least i can see when things are done in unprofessional manner, and it can help you understand what follows.
When growing anything (company, community, ...) you have different options. You should not opt for everything, because you will be spread thin. You should grow with measure, so that people can follow, and so that you can do it right. This is the essence of the course. Rest is focused on ways of growing.
This was informative part of this article. Rest is some thoughts that just came to my mind that I would like to share. Hopefully I inspire some of you, and start some organized thinking about this community.
This community is some kind of organization, and it has a goal. To be precise, it probably has two goals, as I see it:
Note that second focus is to grow.
I will just plainly write down some claims this course made:
In order to grow:
1. I guess no-one is against this. After all, we are all here to grow.
2. My guess is that our customers could be defined as new members. So, first steps someone makes here are responsibility of this organization. After, when they get into rationality more, when they start working on themselves, they become employees. That's at least how it works in my head. Book on sequences is a good step here since it helps to have it all organized in one pdf.
3. this is actually where it all started. We are just a bunch of people with common drive to be more rational. There are meetups, but that's it. I guess some people see EY as some kind of leader, but even if he were one, that's not an organization. My first idea is to create some kind of separation of topics, reddit-like. (With or without moderators, we can change that at any point if one option does not work.)
For example, I'm fed with AI topics. When i see AI, I literally stop reading. I don't even think it's rational to force that idea so much. I understand the core of this community is in that business, but:
So, I would STRONGLY encourage new topics, and I would like to see some kind of classification. If I want to find out about AI, I want to know where to look, and if I don't want to read about it, I want to know how to avoid it. If I want to read about self-improvement, I want to know where to find it. Who knows, after some rough classification people start to do finer ones, and discuss how to increase memory without being spammed with procrastination. I think this could help the first goal (to make existing members more rational) since it would give them some overview.
I also think this would reduce cult-ism, since it would add diversity, and loose the "meta".
4. Understatement. Anyone who worked, or read anything about work knows how important plan is. It is OBLIGATORY. Essential. (See course https://www.coursera.org/learn/work-smarter-not-harder/outline )
5. I think this is not very important to us. There are lots of people here. Many enthusiasts. However, this should be some kind of guideline to make a good plan, and to tell us how much resources to devote to each problem.
In conclusion, I understand these things are big. But growth means change. (There is some EY quote on this, I think:not every change is improvement, but every improvement is a change, correct me if I'm wrong.) Humans did not evolve this far by being better, but by socializing and cooperating. So I think we should move from herd to organization.