I think it’d be cool to do this again in a few months. February or April, perhaps.

Added my vote for October 27/28.

Although, if I'm the only non-native German speaker then I'll bow out. I can speak German, but not to the standard required for these kinds of conversations. And I'm uncomfortable with others speaking English only on my account.

Sigh. We could make another one on the 20th/21th or one week later.

I will attend if there are at least two other people, and I’ll bring my slackline, just in case.

Can you elaborate on the calculation for S? I think it should be this, but I'm not confident in my math.

If one does not speak much English at all,
then one should probably play in a different sandbox.

I would not discuss philosophy in Chinese, because I do not know the language. If there was a sufficiently awesome website in Chinese, then perhaps I could be inspired to learn the language. Perhaps I could return, and participate later.

Less Wrong has lower tolerance for sloppy thinking and sloppy writing than most other playgrounds on the Internet. This is great for at least two reasons. A high bar for entry helps weed out trolls. A high bar for entry gives one an incentive to improve.

The allergy to sloppiness likely harkens back to the unique and interesting moderation policy of Eliezer Yudkowsky's SL4.org, and its mailing list. Compared to SL4, Less Wrong is a welcoming and friendly place.

Because SL4 is liable to die quite soon, because many readers will not be familiar with it, and because the moderation policy includes some good writing advice, I find it pertinent to quote an excerpt here:

Our high standards:

It is the explicit policy of this list not to rehash the basics. SL4 is for advanced topics in futurism and technology. If we've discussed it once before, or if it's something we think posters should already know, you may be courteously referred to the archives, or to another list.

Check your spelling. Check your grammar. Check your punctuation and capitalization. Use apostrophes and commas. Don't quote entire messages in your reply. Don't use HTML. Don't post one-line replies. (If it's not worth a well-written paragraph, is it really worth posting?) Don't send attachments to the list. Around 200 people read this (as of September '02), so if it takes you one minute to save each reader two seconds, you've saved well over six minutes total.

Lurk for a week or read a few archived messages before you begin posting.

This is a science-literate mailing list. If you're still unclear about whether humans evolved or were planted on Earth by flying saucers, you're welcome to read SL4, but you probably won't like what you read, and your first post will probably be your last. There could be an exception to this rule. We just haven't encountered it yet.

Sniper-based moderation

"I had assumed that the function of a moderator was more akin to a sheepdog herding the outlying members than a sniper picking off the fringe." -- Mike Deering inadvertantly sums up SL4's exact philosophy of moderation.

English is not my mother tongue. As a non-native English user, I feel that my English mastery is good enough for most everywhere on the Internet other than Less Wrong.

It is frustrating to be called out on silly mistakes you would never make in your native language. Seize the opportunity to level up in English, be hard on yourself, use reference tools, and your fluency will slowly increase. Near-fluency will give way to fluency, you will be better off from the effort.

SUGGESTION: For speakers of foreign tongues who want to improve, maybe add an "editorial input solicited" - tag. As a signal that you welcome the picking of nits and other improvements. A "Crocker's Rules" of wordcraft? If there was one I would happily apply it to this reply.

"Editorial input solicited" is perhaps not a super catchy term. Better suggestions are welcome.

Thanks, everybody! I don't think anyone is going to make any further edits at this point. As soon as I can I will look through the changes just to make sure that there have not been any accidents and then send it to lukeprog.

Hi everybody! More than half a year ago, I came across LessWrong via Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, and have since read around half of the sequences. I'm so glad I found this site. I had a sense that more is possible, but I didn't even know the word "philantrophy" existed before I got here, although that might be because that word is less common in German (which is my first language). At the few meetups I've been to, I've met some very awesome folks – I can't remeber feeling so comparatively uninteresting ever before. I hope my experience with this site continues to be this eye-opening.

I am willing to at least proofread or even collaborate sometimes on hard passages. Multiple indepent translations do not seem timeeffective at all.

Edit:@lukeprog, the only other language the singularity-FAQ is available in links to a downloadable word-document- why not have a regular HTML-site?

I am willing to translate the FAQ to German, but I'm not sure I can do it on my own, especially concerning the technical terms. Someone competent would have to independently translate the document or at least proofread my translation. Who wants to help?