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DataPacRat comments on Open thread, September 15-21, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I've claimed to operate under Crocker's rules for some time now - though this might be the first time anyone has invoked that.
I'll take a look at that subreddit; but at the moment, I'm mainly concerned with figuring out how to best communicate the new ideas presented in the draft (the Lottery Oracle, etc) to the reader (keeping in mind that said reader is going to have gone through roughly 120,000 words of my attempt at rationalist fiction to get this far), rather than any particular grammar or style details that don't affect that goal.
I'm afraid that /r/destructivereaders doesn't look like a good place for me. They're set up so they (just about) require submitters to have previously critiqued multiple other submissions, and I'm already trying to come up with clever ways to make sure I spend so much time each day working on my story, instead of being distracted by all the shiny things on the internet.
From what I've looked at so far, it looks like they tend to focus on the basics. I already know that I over-use semicolons, and use sentences that are too long and complicated (and contain multiply nested subclauses (like these)) for many readers' comfort, and that I've been skimping on descriptions which aren't directly plot-relevant. I don't anticipate that being told these facts yet again would be worth the time I'd spend critiquing other posts for my entry fee.
If you know, why don't you solve the issue? Rereading a post and asking yourself for every sentence: "Can I break this down into multiple sentences?" and "Does this sentence really need that many words?" isn't complicated.
Identifying common errors in the writing of other people is good training to then identify the same errors in your own writing.
I also know that I should arrange my diet to have more fruits and vegetables than it currently does. However, after a few decades of doing things one way which isn't optimal, but is good enough to get the job done, simply "deciding" to do things a different way isn't enough to alter all the various unconscious mental sub-units whose interactions lead to the behaviour in question.
I bought a pumpkin pie yesterday instead of a box of cookies. I've started using beta-readers. Neither one is a perfect solution - but each is a single-step improvement over the previous situation, a step that is within the range of behaviours I can get my unconscious processes to actually accomplish, and hopefully, isn't going to be the only step.
While I won't claim that my writing is very good I think I learned to handle the issue of writing sentences that are too long. It just takes a decision to allocate some time to reviewing your own writing and then looking at every sentence.
I don't do that for everyone of my LW posts, but if I would write a blog or fiction I would.