Also, this is not self-censorship. We all have (controversial) opinions about a variety of topics and when we voice those opinions we send a signal. Some of these signals we don't wish to send and consequently, on some matters we choose not to voice our opinion. It's just a mundane cost-benefit analysis; nothing more.

I disagree. A decision being the result of a cost-benefit analysis doesn't preclude it from being an act of self-censorship. (Otherwise it would follow that a perfect utility maximizer could never self-censor, which I see as a reductio.) As I see it, avoiding controversial opinions to prevent controversy or an off-putting signal is usually self-censorship, albeit self-censorship that's often benign & helpful.

I think there's a big difference between discussing a specific idea and discussing the person and everything he writes from Quora posts to the blog, the mailing list and the book.

Agreed. But I see all of them as legitimate things to discuss.

They're different works though and they don't deserve to be clumped together in one "what do I think about Rao" kind of post.

Seems alright to me; nothing's stopping a commenter from using this thread to give their opinions about individual works. Besides, people who've read one part of Rao's work are likely to have read others, so it makes some sense to try soliciting their thoughts in one go.

It's just incredibly difficult to do a person's accomplishments justice with some kind of quick summary. If I don't think I can stand behind what I write a couple of years down the road I shouldn't write it in the first place.

That's a high standard. A good standard, but a far higher one than is normal (both on Less Wrong and in general). People on LW post shorthand judgements of others' work quite often (here's a recent example) without being 100% rigorous about it but I don't think it lowers LW's level of discussion appreciably. Someone saying "I'm not a fan of this author, here are a couple of reasons why" or "I really liked this aspect of so-and-so's work on such-and-such" can be very useful even if it's not a careful, judicious balancing of a writer's pros & cons.

[Edited to fix brackets.]