Alternate titles: What Comes Next?, LessWrong is Dead, Long Live LessWrong!

You've seen the articles and comments about the decline of LessWrong. Why pay attention to this one? Because this time, I've talked to Nate at MIRI and Matt at Trike Apps about development for LW, and they're willing to make changes and fund them. (I've even found a developer willing to work on the LW codebase.) I've also talked to many of the prominent posters who've left about the decline of LW, and pointed out that the coordination problem could be deliberately solved if everyone decided to come back at once. Everyone that responded expressed displeasure that LW had faded and interest in a coordinated return, and often had some material that they thought they could prepare and have ready.

But before we leap into action, let's review the problem.

The people still on the LW site are not a representative sample of anything. With the exception of a few people like Stuart Armstrong, they’re some kind of pack of unquiet spirits who have moved in to haunt it after it got abandoned by the founding community members. At this point it’s pretty much diaspora all the way down.

--Yvain on his Tumblr.

One of the problems is that people who control the LW website are running it in pure maintenance mode. LW was put out to pasture -- there have been no changes to functionality in ages.

--Lumifer

LW's strongest, most dedicated writers all seem to have moved on to other projects or venues, as has the better part of its commentariat.
In some ways, this is a good thing. There is now, for example, a wider rationalist blogosphere, including interesting people who were previously put off by idiosyncrasies of Less Wrong. In other ways, it's less good; LW is no longer a focal point for this sort of material. I'm not sure if such a focal point exists any more.

--sixes_and_sevens

This dwindling content can be seen most clearly in the "Top Contributors, 30 Days" display. At the time I write this there are only seven posters with > 100 karma in the past 30 days, and it only takes 58 to appear on the list of 15. Perhaps the question should not be whether the content of LW should be reorganised, but whether LW is fulfilling its desired purpose any longer.
As nearly all the core people who worked the hardest to use this site to promote rationality are no longer contributing

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