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komponisto comments on What bothers you about Less Wrong? - Less Wrong Discussion
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While I'm griping:
I have always been puzzled and somewhat disappointed by the reception of this post. Almost all the comments seemed to fall within the following two categories: either they totally didn't understand the post at all, or thought its main point was so utterly obvious that they had trouble understanding why I had bothered to write it.
There seemed to be very few people in the targeted intermediate group, where I myself would have been a year before: those for whom the main idea was a comprehensible yet slightly novel insight.
The issue is people who found it comprehensible yet slightly novel are the least likely to comment. There isn't that much they can add. So, here is a retroactive response from me: Thanks! I've been vaguely aware of this, but it's nice to see it laid out explicitly.
OK. (FWIW, I upvoted that when you posted it and thought it was a very nifty post that drew out the implications of something I thought I understood already.)
So what does this imply? Are said implications a problem? How would one fix said problems?
I suppose the main implication is that the readers I was targeting make up a smaller proportion of the LW readership than I had realized.
Perhaps the only "fix" is for me to update my estimate of the relative size and influence of "my" audience within the general LW population, so as to better predict reaction to my posts.
(Thanks for the positive feedback, by the way.)
Those are good conclusions.
I would have added that it'd be a good idea to be clear about who your audience is and how you can target them. This avoids alienating the 'experts', who can see the disclaimers' avowed target group, reason they are not in it and either stop reading or read it as an example of pedagogy.
You can also try to target advanced outsiders by submitting to places like Hacker News or Reddit, something which has worked fairly well for my own 'beginner' pieces.