Seems to me that Eliezer followed the latter pattern when writing Sequences.
I'm not sure that Eliezer outlined the posts in order- he did mention at some point wanting to explain X, but realizing that in order to explain X he needed to explain W, and in order to explain W...
I understand the temptation of posting the outline first, but that's a huge promise you shouldn't make unless you are really confident you can fulfill it.
Agreed. One of the ways I've worked around this is to not post the start of a sequence until it's mostly done (I have the second post to this sequence fully finished, and the third post ~2/3rds finished). I'm not sure I'd recommend it- if you find the shame of leaving something unfinished motivating, it's probably better to post the early stuff early. (I let that particular sequence sit for months without editing it.)
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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