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Repository repository

35 Post author: pinyaka 28 July 2013 10:59PM

A few weeks ago, Adele_L suggested that the repositories were underutilized and looked for suggestions on how to improve that. In that spirit, I added the following links to the Special Threads wiki page.

Solved Problems Repository - A collection of "solved problems in instrumental rationality."
Useful Concepts Repository - A collection of concepts that Less Wrong users have "found particularly useful for understanding the world."
Boring Advice Repository - A collection of advice that is optimized for helpfulness rather than depth of insight.
Useful Questions Repository - Questions that are useful to keep in mind in various situations.
Bad Concepts Repository - A collection of useless or harmful concepts
Grad Student Advice Repository - A collection of advice for graduate students.
Textbook Repository - The Best Textbooks on Every Subject
Reference repository - List of references and resources for LessWrong
Procedural Knowledge Gaps - How to do things that are "common sense" but that you may not know.
Mistakes Repository - A list of life-course altering mistakes that LW members have made.
Good things to have learned - A collection of skills and life lessons LWers have learned
Financial Effectiveness Repository - Tips for maximizing financial returns on (not necessarily market) investments.

In a similar vein, there is also a wiki page for the LessWrong Communities How-To's and Recommendations.

If there are other repositories that I've missed or a better way to collect these things, please link to it in a top level comment so that I get a direct message. A year and a half after this was originally posted, I still get suggestions and still add them or explain why I don't add them.

Edit: Added a few more to the list.

Comments (30)

Comment author: Rukifellth 28 July 2013 11:19:54PM 10 points [-]

I eagerly await the next level of meta.

Comment author: pinyaka 28 July 2013 11:27:47PM *  3 points [-]

We will cast everything to void. Alternately, I can put a link to this discussion in the repository list and just head it off there.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 29 July 2013 03:51:29AM 2 points [-]

To re-posit or enumerate a repository.

Comment author: DanielLC 28 July 2013 11:29:20PM 13 points [-]

You forgot to list the repository repository.

Comment author: jaibot 29 July 2013 01:20:57AM *  16 points [-]
Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 28 July 2013 11:57:07PM *  10 points [-]

Some older LW threads could be retroactively regarded as repositories, e.g. Best Textbooks.

Comment author: pinyaka 29 July 2013 12:20:00AM 6 points [-]

Also, the mother of all repositories, the References & Resources for LessWrong.

Comment author: [deleted] 29 July 2013 01:49:52PM 5 points [-]

Procedural knowledge gaps too, and probably a few others.

Comment author: pinyaka 29 July 2013 06:12:04PM 1 point [-]

Added, thanks.

Comment author: diegocaleiro 03 September 2013 02:57:28PM 0 points [-]
Comment author: peter_hurford 29 July 2013 01:44:41AM 5 points [-]

I figured it was only a matter of time until it came to this.

Comment author: shminux 29 July 2013 04:31:09AM 6 points [-]

I would be nice to have a link to it on the main page. Or is it already there?

Comment author: pinyaka 29 July 2013 11:05:43AM 2 points [-]

The special threads page is linked to from the wiki main page.

Comment author: Benito 30 July 2013 06:47:09PM 4 points [-]

I feel this isn't direct enough, because I'm rarely in the wiki nowadays.

Comment author: Larks 29 July 2013 01:07:36PM 0 points [-]

You forgot this one

Comment author: Adele_L 30 July 2013 03:42:59PM 2 points [-]

Thanks for putting these on the wiki!

Comment author: pinyaka 30 July 2013 04:04:20PM 5 points [-]

Thank you for suggesting it. Seriously, I'm new enough that I want to contribute something, but haven't yet come up with any original enough ideas to contribute otherwise, so it was nice to have a way to do something for the community.

Comment author: Adele_L 30 July 2013 04:13:44PM 1 point [-]

Yeah, I feel kind of in the same boat right now. I'm not sure what the best way to deliberately work on coming up with more quality contributions, it might be interesting to try to brainstorm on this.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 30 July 2013 06:12:14PM 6 points [-]

"Possible Repositories Repository"?

Comment author: Adele_L 30 July 2013 08:51:35PM 3 points [-]

I see the joke, but I was thinking of ways to contribute more generally.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 31 July 2013 07:40:03AM 4 points [-]

Who was joking? I think that's a great idea for a repository!

Comment author: [deleted] 01 August 2013 12:07:25AM 1 point [-]

It would be great to have a repository of task-time estimates, as well as "time until habitual." Setting estimates of how long one needs to practice before a "maintenance event horizon" occurs could aide in my motivation, at least.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 August 2013 05:11:56AM 1 point [-]

I don't know how best to curate these, but http://lesswrong.com/lw/h9m/minor_perspective_changing_facts/ and http://lesswrong.com/lw/h9b/post_ridiculous_munchkin_ideas/ are also somewhat repository-like.

Comment author: somervta 11 August 2013 08:12:36PM 1 point [-]
Comment author: pinyaka 13 August 2013 01:57:39PM 1 point [-]

I'm hesitant to include this in the list above because only two of the comments actually followed the format outlined in the post. The rest were criticisms of the concept mixed with a few criticisms of one of the rebuttals you posted in the main article. It's a neat idea - kind of like the solved problem repository but applies to philosophies.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 09 September 2013 05:29:19AM 1 point [-]

Perhaps you should integrate this wiki page? Similar concept.

Comment author: pinyaka 10 September 2013 03:45:06PM 0 points [-]

The concepts are similar, but I don't want to water down the idea of repositories with things like the entertainment recommendation thread so I just added a link to that wiki page since it's sort of like the repo repo itself.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 16 June 2014 10:49:07AM 0 points [-]
Comment author: tog 11 December 2014 10:25:04AM *  0 points [-]

Gunnar_Zarncke recently started a LessWrong Financial Effectiveness Repository. Perhaps someone could add it to the wiki/this post?

Comment author: pinyaka 11 December 2014 04:42:41PM 0 points [-]

Done, although I have some reservations about the quality of that thread. I don't think it's awful and maybe people following the link will make it better.