Edit - Barring a major surprise, this post should be regarded as a worthless artifact of my impulse to do things instead of talking about them.  I apologize for any time wasted on this, and would recommend ignoring it unless it is for historical purposes.  I'll just stick to things I'm less bad at from now on.

This article will be edited as people post and discuss.  

I believe that we need to have a clear, concise statement about the beliefs, practices, and taboos that it is rational to hold, and that we already hold as a group.  To be clear, this is not an attempt to make new norms, but an attempt to codify the ones that we already hold and to get a rough estimate of the popularity/importance of each.

Core Rational - skills, meta-beliefs, and habits that enhance personal rationality

Social Rational - norms that enhance working in groups rationally

LessWrong Norms - norms for dealing with Less Wrong specifically

Common Knowledge - basic, useful beliefs to build on

Please post one phrase at a time and then give your reasoning under it.  Once any idea has a common consensus, I'll add it to this article in the appropriate list.  

Edited - Removed the word 'should' as someone has suggested a better phrasing.  Edited again - category change, remove extra now-useless examples.

Edit - many apologies to anyone that feels that this discussion was a waste of time.  

I just ran across an article (http://techno-anthropology.blogspot.com/2011/04/rough-guide-to-social-skills-for.html) on Hacker News that gives the barest minimum of a guide for social interaction. Unfortunately this isn't the high-quality advice you need to really handle social situations, though it will help with a few of the worst problems.

A few other rules that will help:

• Don't intrude on a conversation no matter how stupid or incorrect the arguments on either side are. No matter how you try, you will have turned your attempt to help into an intrusion into their social territory, and they will respond aggressively.
• Don't assume that being smart is the same thing as social authority; seeing that people are going the wrong way and telling them won't work. This is really social territory again, you're trying to take leadership.
• Don't assume that people equate brilliance and desirability. Don't even assume that people can tell that you're brilliant after talking to you for a while. Even if they do, they may not value brilliance.
• Learn to listen to people. Conversations have a natural pause inserted between concepts that is an opportunity for the other person to respond. Do not talk over anyone, instead wait for that pause. Try to stay on the same topic as the previous speaker, or a related topic. Avoid jumping back more than one previous topic without explicitly saying something like "I had a few more questions about <topic>," unless they do it first in the same conversation.
• To have a conversation with someone, ask them about their interests and when you find one that doesn't bore you talk about that. Try very hard not to talk about yourself unless they specifically ask first, and try to focus on what they have to say instead of what you have to say. If you are successful, they will give you opportunities to talk about your insights naturally. Avoid direct challenges; if you disagree then ask a question that exposes a hole, or say "it seems to me that ..."
• Conversations share a volume, and speaking at the same volume as someone else is a signal to them that you are part of their conversation.
• Avoid completing other people's words or sentences for them to speed up the conversation.
• If people don't laugh at your joke, don't explain it. Just continue the conversation. Don't be afraid to smile to show you find it funny, but always wait for someone else to laugh at your joke before you join in.
• To become friends with someone, you must have common interests and you must focus on those interests while you're with them. Do not assume that just because someone shares one of your interests that they will share others.
• Most people are not broken, though they are subject to biases. If someone comes to a different conclusion than you do, it probably is not 'stupidity' so much as you seeing a benefit or cost that they do not, or you valuing the benefit or cost differently. This can go both ways; sometimes even someone very shortsighted can have a flash of insight. The only way to know for sure is to ask them about it.

On the physical side:

• If you have not showered or bathed with soap in the last 24 hours and used deodorant, people will notice. If they do, they will almost never tell you. The same holds true for possible bad breath. The same holds true for clothing: avoid using a shirt two days in a row, change underwear and socks daily, while pants might be able to be reused for up to 5 days if they are not dirty.
• Do not approach within arm's reach (fingertips ourstretched) without them facing you. This is the approximate 'personal space' boundary. As soon as they back up even slightly, stop; you've gotten too close to them. If you find someone constantly edging away from you, adjust that distance upwards.
• If there is no space large enough to accommodate you around the person you wish to talk to, then wait for one or more people to leave first. When calculating this space, assume that each person is as big as their personal space, even if those spaces seem to be overlapping.

This is a long list, and it isn't even close to complete.

I'm linking to http://lesswrong.com/lw/372/defecting_by_accident_a_flaw_common_to_analytical/ at the suggestion of David Gerard.  It has a lot of deeper discussion into why this is worth knowing.

Apologies for wasting your time with this post.  Please disregard it.

My temporary plan is to meet together daily at one of the BART stops (Ashby or Berkeley, probably Ashby at first), choose a random set of directions, walk for 30-45 minutes, and then find a place to sit and chat for a while about other activities.  Then walk back and split up.  Total time may be 2-2.5 hours, 1-1.5 of it spent walking.  I'm planning on doing this in the evening to avoid the midday heat, and to be done before it gets dark.

Anyone that wishes can come along.  If you would like to bring ideas for future format or training ideas, please do!  Together we can come up with things that enhance us all.

Edit - forgot to add location!  Thanks for reminding me, Randaly.

Apologies for the wasted time spent reading and replying to this post.  Please disregard it.

I've been feeling non-awesome for a long time.  I don't know if anyone else here feels the same way, but I'm going to assume that at least a few people do.  I want to correct this horrible deficiency.

We already have the LW meetups in a lot of places, monthly in some places and weekly in others.  I've gone to a few, and they're interesting and I get to meet a lot of very smart people (and get intimidated by them)... but mostly all we've done is talk and sometimes go and eat at a restaurant.  I want more than this!

We already talk, we need an action-based meetup.  I want to propose another kind of meetup, the Insufficiently Awesome meetup.  It should aim to make us good at baseline things like fitness, social skills, strategy, and reflexes, and to make us very good at specialized awesome things like master-level chess/go/shogi, public speaking, various sports, dancing, making music, making art.

I think this meetup should be daily, though not everyone would want to go every day.  Nonetheless, we should have something happening every day that we're not spending talking.  The goal shouldn't be just to be fit in different situations, but to instead become totally awesome.

Is there anyone else that feels the same?  If so, what things do you think we need to learn for the baseline, and what things should we get very good at?