LessWrong seems to have two main topics for discussion; rationality and AI. This, of course, is caused by Eliezer Yudkowsky's sequences (and interests), which are mostly about rationality, but also include a lot of writing about AI. LessWrong currently has two sections, Main and Discussion. This is meant to separate the purpose and quality of the post. I think usability of the site has improved greatly since adding the Discussion section. Should split the discussion section, and have one for rationality and one for AI?
Advantages
- It would make LW more pleasant for rationality enthusiasts who don't want to sort through lots of AI discussions.
- It would make LW more pleasant for AI enthusiasts who don't want to sort through lots of rationality discussions.
- It would not split up the community as much as a new AI community site would.
- It would increase LW's capacity for discussion.
- Newcomers could learn about rationality, while people who want higher quality of discussion on AI topics could have it.
Disadvantages
- Many posts about both subjects are highly relevant about both subjects
- It would make LW less pleasant for enthusiasts of both subjects.
- It would split up the community more than doing nothing.
- Everybody has their ideas for separate sections, and we can't do them all.
I think we need a separate section for something; but I am not sure whether it should be only "AI" or something wider like "AI + game theory" or in general "scientifically-looking articles".
What makes me interested in the separation is that AI and decision theory articles occasionally have explicit, new mathematics as opposed to being largely expository or having links to other places--I read these articles (or, in practice, don't read them) in a very different way than I read a series of anecdotes summarizing some new study or whatever.
For example, the recent game theory sequence would be something I would want on the main site, since it's about introducing people to rationality tools.
Now that I'm thinking about it for more than five seconds, I'm realizing that it is really not obvious how to slice the site up in this way, and so it is probably a bad idea.