Vaniver comments on Revitalising Less Wrong is not a lost purpose - Less Wrong

4 Post author: casebash 15 June 2016 08:10AM

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Comment author: passive_fist 24 June 2016 12:04:28AM *  0 points [-]

The LW community is in rapid decline and people have been leaving in large numbers for years. LW is probably in the terminal stage of decline now, not in the initial or even middle stage. If you think this isn't true you are in denial - all the poll data and post/comment data shows this to be true.

I used to be an active member of this group. This is my first comment in months. I don't know why other people left; I can only speculate and offer the reasons why I left. The reason I left was because I perceived (maybe incorrectly, I don't know) that discourse was being dominated by a handful of individuals who had very little interest in actual rational unbiased discussion and were more interested in forcing their views on everyone under the pretense of rationality.

I guess it's a lesson and a set of things to learn for the next LW-like site. It's a lesson in how quickly good intentions (rational discussion and questioning authority) can lead to the evaporative cooling effect and the adoption of extreme sociological/political views while pretending that this is not taking place.

Comment author: Vaniver 24 June 2016 12:13:27AM 0 points [-]

It's a lesson in how quickly good intentions (rational discussion and questioning authority) can lead to the evaporative cooling effect and the adoption of extreme sociological/political views while pretending that this is not taking place.

Which time period do you have in mind, here? Because "quickly" seems inaccurate. LW is old, and the decline has taken a long time.

If anything, the interesting thing with LW's decline is how slow it was, and how much attention the site continues to receive despite the lack of content. There was no major crisis that split things apart; it just got more and more stale, mostly as people graduated to more impressive and important things without replacements growing up here in the same way.

Comment author: passive_fist 24 June 2016 02:04:54AM *  0 points [-]

I somewhat agree. Sometimes communities dissolve through a publicized schism. Other times they just decay without any visible drama. It's not realistic to expect every single person who gets fed up and leaves to post a detailed criticism of the site and why they are leaving. A lot of people would rather just leave quietly and not waste their time with that kind of thing.

Still, it seems like the decline definitely accelerated over the past couple of years.