Thank you for this! I saw this post just as I was working on a mammoth post on an economic topic with strong political implications. (Before posting it, I was going to nicely ask people in the next open thread if they allow me to make a top-level discussion post on this and if maybe I wouldn't cause gigantic disturbances in the Force if I opened that can of worms.)
Signed up. Just a small suggestion: the fields in the registration form are too narrow. In particular I don't know whether the form recorded the entirety of my password (I follow that piece of advice that says you should have really long passwords.) Would it be difficult to expand them a little?
Also, how long does it take until I receive the authentication email?
Edit: After browsing the format for a few more minutes, I'm not sure this is sufficiently forum-like for my preferences. There doesn't seem to be a way to propose new or non-traditional discussion topics, the discussion seems to be US-centric, there doesn't seem to be any format for threading, and the questions raised frame the discussion too much in terms of simple agreement/disagreement; there's no apparent room for more nuanced views on the topics.
Also, how long does it take until I receive the authentication email?
Sorry for the confusion.
To avoid cold start, we wanted to sign up a sufficiently large group of people before opening the discussions. The site is scheduled to be opened on May 1 (you’ll receive an email notification).
There doesn't seem to be a way to propose new or non-traditional discussion topics
the discussion seems to be US-centric
The site is not officially open yet. So far, we just had several test runs with randomly selected people.
In a recent poll, many LW members expressed interest in a separate website for rational discussion of political topics. The website has been created, but we need a group of volunteers to help us test it and calibrate its recommendation system (see below).
If you would like to help (by participating in one or two discussions and giving us your feedback) please sign up here.
About individual recommendation system
All internet forums face a choice between freedom of speech and quality of debate. In absence of censorship, constructive discussions can be easily disrupted by the inflow of the mind-killed which causes the more intelligent participants to leave or descend to the same level.
Preserving quality thus usually requires at least one of the following methods:
On the new website, we are going to experiment with a different method. In brief, the idea is to use an automated recommendation system which sorts content, raising the best comments to the top and (optionally) hiding the worst. The sorting is done based on the individual preferences, allowing each user to avoid what he or she (rather than moderators or anyone else) defines as low quality content. In this way we should be able to enhance quality without imposing limits on free speech.
UPDATE. The discussions are scheduled to start on May 1.