(tl;dr: In this post, I make some concrete suggestions for LessWrong 2.0.)
Less Wrong 2.0
A few months ago, Vaniver posted some ideas about how to reinvigorate Less Wrong. Based on comments in that thread and based on personal discussions I have had with other members of the community, I believe there are several different views on why Less Wrong is dying. The following are among the most popular hypotheses:
(1) Pacifism has caused our previously well-kept garden to become overgrown
(2) The aversion to politics has caused a lot of interesting political discussions to move away from the website
(3) People prefer posting to their personal blogs.
With this background, I suggest the following policies for Less Wrong 2.0. This should be seen only as a starting point for discussion about the ideal way to implement a rationality forum. Most likely, some of my ideas are counterproductive. If anyone has better suggestions, please post them to the comments.
Moderation Policy:
There are four levels of users:
- Users
- Trusted Users
- Moderators
- Administrator
Personal Blogs:
Other Ideas:
I think both. There's more post and comment volume than I remember from "the good old days", but it's much lower quality in terms of density of interesting contributions.
I don't agree with that as the main cause. I don't think it's a negative culture, so much as a lack of positive culture. The people doing interesting work on rationality, decisionmaking, and AI are mostly not doing it here anymore.