Like many Less Wrong readers, I greatly enjoy Slate Star Codex; there's a large overlap in readership. However, the comments there are far worse, not worth reading for me. I think this is in part due to the lack of LW-style up and downvotes. Have there ever been discussion threads about SSC posts here on LW? What do people think of the idea occasionally having them? Does Scott himself have any views on this, and would he be OK with it?
Update:
The latest from Scott:
I'm fine with anyone who wants reposting things for comments on LW, except for posts where I specifically say otherwise or tag them with "things i will regret writing"
In this thread some have also argued for not posting the most hot-button political writings.
Would anyone be up for doing this? Ataxerxes started with "Extremism in Thought Experiments is No Vice"
Hey Tom, thanks for volunteering to do this.
Personally, I expect this would worsen my experience because it would fragment comments. I'm not going to go to LW to read comments for SSC. I prefer to read comments, if any, on SSC itself.
In general, for most of the people, all they are going to notice (if anything) is a slight decrease in quality of on-site comments, so just a handful of people desiring this does not mean that it's net positive for Scott's readership at large.
Split comment-threads would also reduce cross-pollination of ideas. It's good that LessWrong readers currently bring their ideas in contact with some people who only have vague background awareness of LW at SSC. It's a challenge in practising explaining things well, provides feedback, and spreads useful ways of thinking.
So this would be personally undesirable for me and also has some clear negative externalities on others.
One possibility to avoid fragmenting the conversation would be to wait to link to link to a post at SSC until the comments have died down over there.