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John_Maxwell_IV comments on LessWrong could grow a lot, but we're doing it wrong. - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (106)
A/B testing is useless without variations to test. If you want to create a variation, go for it.
Right now there is a lot of commentary in this thread but not much action.
We're starting to come up with a lot of plans here and I don't want this to step on anybody's toes.
I'm not sure whether you're the sole decision maker for the website, or if other people need to be told. Do changes like these need to be approved or is the website delegated to you?
I'm no decisionmaker. I just created that post because I thought things could be improved.
If you or anyone else has text they want to put on the about page or the home page, send me a personal message and I'll tell you how. Right now things rely on security by obscurity.
Edit: As matt points out, it's not security by obscurity so much as Wikipedia-style open collaboration.
Erm… that's security by obscurity in the same way that Wikipedia relies on security by obscurity, right?
Fair enough.
Please don't. All edits to the about page should go through an editor. Random people should not be told how to edit the about page.
Er, want to specify who counts as an "editor"?
Don't worry, I would have politely turned down anyone who didn't meet some threshold of credibility...
See Who are the LW editors?
OK.
This policy doesn't make very much sense, in my opinion. Based on the log, lots of people have already edited the homepage who weren't editors, and at least some of the edits they made were valuable.
Asking an editor's permission to make changes to the homepage is an inconvenience, and it's also a little demeaning. I suspect that the (extremely small) amount of community effort that's been put forward towards actually making improvements to these pages will completely dry up if this policy is broadcasted. (I know my enthusiasm has dropped dramatically.)
I could see why this policy might sense if spam or prank edits were a problem, but as it is it seems needlessly controlling. Bleh.
Edit: Eliezer has communicated via email to Louie, Matt and me that he retracts his statement.
The Singularity Institute has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into LessWrong.com. I don't think it's too unreasonable that we'd like to have some quality control on a few central pages like the home page and the about page.
Wait if they've got so much money to invest into this, why have users been allowed to edit the home page and why is the marketing bad? Might those pages have been done like that intentionally to throttle growth and filter people using an err on the side of caution approach to preserve the culture? Maybe they have plans in mind we don't even know about, and this entire discussion is irrelevant.
Note that most of the investment was (1) web development donated by TrikeApps and (2) Eliezer's salary while writing The Sequences. We don't have much money to invest in further development, but we are currently paying Trike and an oDesk coder to add new features to LW and fix some old bugs. I have plans to revisit the LW design and marketing but... so much to do, so little time/money. If you'd like to help, you can (1) give earmarked donations or (2) find a professional web designer/marketer who is willing to look at this stuff for free.
People able to edit other people's LW posts. AFAIK, Eliezer and Alicorn (and possibly someone else too).
Current design is the control.
Hm. Do you see any advantages to formal A/B testing over just popping something in and seeing how stats like the bounce rate change?