One of the things I loved about studying liberal arts is that you actually got to know your professors. They would discuss their personal experiences in a topic ("Here's what I did during the feminist movement.."), you might get slide shows from their vacation in the country of study, or even invited to their house for a group dinner.
Going into engineering was rather jarring for me in that regard. The vast majority of professors would come to class, lecture on the topic, and that would be it. They might share what their specific field of study was, but they rarely shared any personal details. It actually made it harder for me to learn, because it was like "Who is this person who is talking to me?"
(I think a large part of this for me personally was because I am motivated by a desire to please, and so if I liked my professors, then I wouldn't want to inconvenience them by handing things in late, or bore them by giving them another sub-par paper to read. But that's another discussion...)
I've noticed that Less Wrong is similar in some ways. We may know about each other's views on particular topics, and general fields of study, but we know very little about each other as people, unless a personal topic happens to be related to a particular rationalist study. Even the intro thread set up here focuses mainly on non-personal information.
For example, a Generic Intro post right now would be something like: "I'm X years old. From place Y. The fields I study/want to study are Z. Here's what college/HS was/is like for me. I have akrasia." Pretty boring, right? INSTEAD, the things I would be interested in knowing about my fellow LWers include: "On my time off I enjoy underwater basketweaving and climbing Mt Kilamanjaro. I have 6 young daughters and a dog named Grrr. I love pesto. etc"
From a rational perspective, an argument could be made that it's easier to have constructive arguments that remain civil when you humanize the people you are speaking with.
I was wondering how other LWers feel on the subject. Do you like that our discussions are un-hampered by personal data? Do you like the idea of providing personal intros? Do you not want to provide personalish information for safety reasons, or because you don't think it's anyone business?
If you think you might need help writing a personal intro, I wrote [a general guide](http://lesswrong.com/lw/8nq/more_personal_introductions/5d4e) on the topic in the comments below.
Note: I predict there will be two types of response to this post. People discussing how they feel about this (Meta-Comments), and people giving personal introductions (Intros). To make navigating the responses easier, I am trying an experiment where I set up a meta-comment thread and a personal introduction thread.
PLEASE PLACE COMMENTS ABOUT THIS IDEA IN META-COMMENT THREAD, AND COMMENTS INTRODUCING YOURSELF IN INTRO THREAD.
Edited to make it more clear to focus on personality, hobbies, likes/dislikes, and NOT on what you study, or school.
ETA- Added link to "How to Write Personal Intro" comment
I am somewhat of a hobby collector, in that I really get into some strange random hobbies, but when I move on, instead of completely abandoning them, I just add them to the list of Fun Things I Do Sometimes.
When I was a teenager, I did high-level colorguard, winterguard, and drum corps. Drum corps is like a marching band that sleeps on a bus and rehearses all day, every day, for three months. It's sort of an all-or-nothing activity, so I don't do it at all anymore.
For a couple years, I was really active in the SCA, a big medieval re-creation group. Now I just do Pennsic. It's the biggest event with 11,500 people, and lasts 2 weeks. It's pretty awesome. LWers might be interested in the Class List (scroll down a bit, because the first week is all boring stuff).
One of my favorite things to do is dance. Besides bellydancing, I used to professionally teach and perform a bunch of circus-style dancing. At professional level I did poi, fire arts, and hooping (my favorite). At a decent level is diabolo, stilt dancing, staff, hat manipulation, and maybe meteors. Things I worked on and still suck at include: contact juggling, club juggling (I can do 3-club cascade and that's IT!), unicycling, and devil sticks.
I performed at Cincinnati Music Hall, Cincy Fringe Festival, Saks 5th Ave, and more. But I primarily focused on teaching, and that's what I'm most proud of. At a time when, at least in Ohio, standards were very wishy-washy, I started a group whose focus was to educate and inform. Get anyone who wants to able to spin, and do it safely. I am told that some of the teaching methods I developed are in use in a lot of local burns and pagan festivals (I'm not pagan, but a lot of fire folk are).
When YouTube was new, and people would post vids of their hooping performance, but never vids explaining how to do any of it, I was among the first to post tutorials on hooping tricks. I am really proud of this, because it started the ball rolling, and now everyone posts tutorials, which means that anyone anywhere can learn. (Random bragging: I still have about 900 subscribers to my YouTube channel, despite the fact that I haven't posted anything in years.)
Especially since I was often bellydancing at places that didn't have canned music, I wanted to learn how to play stuff. I learned doumbek, a middle-eastern hand drum, which I am pretty good at so long as you don't want frilly stuff; and I learned oud, a ME fretless 11-stringed instrument, which I suck at, unless you want one of the eight folk songs I know to be played badly.
Other types of dancing I do are social swing which I am pretty good at, and bharathanatyam, a classical Indian dance, which I only got to study for about a year total, because each time I'd find a new teacher (hard in the first place), they'd end up moving away. :/
Other hobbies I've focused on include: wall climbing, embroidery, and dabbled in a lot of things through the SCA.
I did the whole "Married with a House in Suburbia" REALLY young in life. Got divorced (pretty amicably) about a year ago, and I moved to Columbus, OH. My brother lives in cbus, and he really helped get me back on my feet. I absolutely love this city, and if "exploring Columbus and doing fun stuff" can be considered a hobby, I guess that's what I'm doing now. I go laser tagging with friends. Right next to that place is a trampoline park, which is awesome. This weekend I'm going to the Zoo Holiday Lights (and seeing polar bears! yay!) Columbus is also known for having LOTS of these really great non-chain restaraunts. And Jeni's Ice Cream.
I'm a vegetarian. I have a Australian Shepherd puppy named Griffyndor who has been my best friend for 11 years now. I have a 10 foot shelf of (primarily loose-leaf) tea, but I'm normally lazy and just stick with whatever bags I got at the grocery this month. I work with children, and people (or children) with disabilities. I like Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, Miyazaki, GRRM, and more! I think everyone should see Life is Beautiful at least once.
Can I pick your brain about SCA sometime? My husband loves medieval-y stuff, and I'm vaguely crafty, so I've been curious about it, but shy of just showing up at a meeting.