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DeVliegendeHollander comments on Open Thread, May 18 - May 24, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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If Less Wrong is, indeed, losing steam as a community (I wouldn't have considered myself part of it until recently, and hadn't kept up with it before then), there are options to deal with it.
First, we could create enjoyable media to be enjoyed by large quantities of people, with rationalistic principles, and link back to Less Wrong in it. HPMOR is already a thing, and certainly does well for its purpose of introducing people to and giving some basic instruction in applied rationality. However, as it's over, the flow of people from the readership it generated has ceased.
Other media is a possibility. If people are interested in supporting Less Wrong and CFAR specifically, there could perhaps be a youtube channel made for it; maybe streaming live discussions and taking questions from the audience. Non-video means are also, obviously, possible. Webcomics are somewhat niche, but could drive readership if a high quality one was made. I'm loathe to suggest getting already-established content creators to read and support Less Wrong, partially because of my own reticence in such, and partially because of a host of problems that would come with that, as our community is somewhat insular, and though welcoming in our own way, Less Wrong often comes off to people as arrogant or elitist.
On that note, while I would not suggest lowering our standards for discourse, I think that in appealing to a larger community it's necessary to realize that newer members of the community may not have the background necessary to take constructively the criticisms given. I'm not sure how to resolve this problem. Being told to "go and read such and such, then you'll understand" comes off rudely. Perhaps some form of community primer link on the front page, regarding customs here? The about page is a little cluttered and not entirely helpful. That in addition to a marker next to someone's name indicating they're new to Less Wrong could do a lot to help. Furthermore, a section for the "younger" (in terms of account) posters with encouragement for the older ones to come in and help out may be of help.
Well, I could go on for a while longer, but I think that's enough of a thought dump for now.
There's some research that suggests that videos that actually help people to learn aren't pleasant to watch. http://chronicle.com/article/Confuse-Students-to-Help-Them/148385/
If the student feels confused by the video they are more likely to actually update.
The kind of informational videos that are popular aren't useful for learning and vice versa.
I voted other. The reason I suggested nontextual formats is because I don't believe that rationality can be taught solely through text, even if I personally prefer to learn that way. I have multiple friends who do not learn well at all in such a manner, but I believe that both of them would learn much more effectively from a video; I suspect this extends out to others, for whom the text dump nature of this site might be intimidating.