Some of us enjoy being sidekicks. 

Some of us would like to meet sidekicks in potential, see how the interaction goes, and have sidekicks. 

Last time I tried posting about sidekick matchmaking here, it turned out to be very valuable for me, but not for many people (I think only two pairs of sidekick were created as a result). Now, once again I'd like to find someone who enjoys that role to help me out with many projects. 

I'm looking for suggestions on how to get people together to do that. For the time being, if someone needs a sidekick or wants to be one, post about it in the comment section. I'd love to see a permanent solution for this information spreading problem. 

My experience with Sidekicks

I'm not sure what Anna and Nick thought of their sidekicks, but my experience was undeniably positive. Having a sidekick was motivating, saved me great time, and, most importantly, felt like I got a surge of muscle strength specifically in the types of tasks I'm particularly inept at. 

By contrast, my experience with people hired to help was mixed (virtual assistants) or negative (personal assistant). 

Use the comment section to either offer or request sidekicks, explaining a little more about you and what you'd like this partnership to mean

My post on the fact that incentive structures are eating the central place to be for rationalists has generated 140 comments which I have generated no clear action in the horizon. 

I post here again to incentivize that it also generates some attempts to shake the ground a bit. Arguing and discussing are fun, and beware of things that are fun to argue. 

Is anyone actually doing anything to mitigate the problem? To solve it? To have a stable end state in the long run where online discussions still preserve what needs being preserved?

Intelligent commentary is valuable, pools are interesting. Yet, at the end of the day, it is the people who show up to do something who will determine the course of everything. 

If you care about this problem, act on it. I care enough to write these two posts. 

Cross Posted at the EA Forum

At Event Horizon (a Rationalist/Effective Altruist house in Berkeley) my roommates yesterday were worried about Slate Star Codex. Their worries also apply to the Effective Altruism Forum, so I'll extend them. 

The Problem:

Lesswrong was for many years the gravitational center for young rationalists worldwide, and it permits posting by new users, so good new ideas had a strong incentive to emerge.

With the rise of Slate Star Codex, the incentive for new users to post content on Lesswrong went down. Posting at Slate Star Codex is not open, so potentially great bloggers are not incentivized to come up with their ideas, but only to comment on the ones there. 

The Effective Altruism forum doesn't have that particular problem. It is however more constrained in terms of what can be posted there. It is after all supposed to be about Effective Altruism. 

We thus have three different strong attractors for the large community of people who enjoy reading blog posts online and are nearby in idea space. 

Possible Solutions: 

(EDIT: By possible solutions I merely mean to say "these are some bad solutions I came up with in 5 minutes, and the reason I'm posting them here is because if I post bad solutions, other people will be incentivized to post better solutions)

If Slate Star Codex became an open blog like Lesswrong, more people would consider transitioning from passive lurkers to actual posters. 

If the Effective Altruism Forum got as many readers as Lesswrong, there could be two gravity centers at the same time. 

If the moderation and self selection of Main was changed into something that attracts those who have been on LW for a long time, and discussion was changed to something like Newcomers discussion, LW could go back to being the main space, with a two tier system (maybe one modulated by karma as well). 

The Past:

In the past there was Overcoming Bias, and Lesswrong in part became a stronger attractor because it was more open. Eventually lesswrongers migrated from Main to Discussion, and from there to Slate Star Codex, 80k blog, Effective Altruism forum, back to Overcoming Bias, and Wait But Why. 

It is possible that Lesswrong had simply exerted it's capacity. 

It is possible that a new higher tier league was needed to keep post quality high.

A Suggestion: 

I suggest two things should be preserved:

Interesting content being created by those with more experience and knowledge who have interacted in this memespace for longer (part of why Slate Star Codex is powerful), and 

The opportunity (and total absence of trivial inconveniences) for new people to try creating their own new posts. 

If these two properties are kept, there is a lot of value to be gained by everyone. 

The Status Quo: 

I feel like we are living in a very suboptimal blogosphere. On LW, Discussion is more read than Main, which means what is being promoted to Main is not attractive to the people who are actually reading Lesswrong. The top tier quality for actually read posting is dominated by one individual (a great one, but still), disincentivizing high quality posts by other high quality people. The EA Forum has high quality posts that go unread because it isn't the center of attention.