Most Rationalists Are Elsewhere

A year and half later, I see very few LW posts that follow the advice offered in this post. Do people think it's a problem that we rarely respond to posts at other rationalist blogs? Should we try to do it more often?

Various people on our blogs have talked about how useful a whuffie concept would be (see especially Vassar on reputation markets. I agree that Less Wrong's karma scores encourage an inward focus; however, the general concept seems so useful that we ought to consider finding a way to expand Karma scores beyond just this site, as opposed to shelving the idea. Whether that is best implemented through facebook or some other means is unclear to me. Can anyone link to any analysis on this?

Rob Zahra

So on a related point that may or may not be worth its own post. Looking at the new Less Wrong facebook group one rapidly becomes aware that basically everyone here is demographically identical. The vast majority are white men in their twenties- and among those who volunteered the information, most had degrees in math, science or philosophy. There did appear to be a large international presence (and by international I mean European).

So my question is 1) why? What about the Less Wrong project selects YWM and 2) is it a problem? I tend to think that someone biography influences their perspective to such an extent that its useful to talk to and read people with different biographical backgrounds. So maybe its just a matter of reading different blogs... on the other hand if you're trying to build a broad rationalist movement then we're doing something wrong, no?

Robin's point about karma is worth exploring. Yes, votes help to filter comments and the modest score required to post makes sense. But what is the purpose of tracking very large totals? (Eliezer's doesn't even fit inside his little green circle!) This creates a competition and plays to emotional reinforcement mechanisms. It also can be intimidating to see for passers-by or would-be LW contributors.

I worry a little that Less Wrong karma score incentives may encourage an inward focus, since karma is so far only scored for internal site activity.

We could incorporate a reddit-like system for rating relevant off-site posts and linking to them. This would also encourage people to respond to LW, as they'd get a link + traffic if they wrote a good post.

An insular and hidebound community falls into the class of problems a young site hopes it's lucky enough to be faced with. I'm a ~1 year OB reader, and while I never claim to represent these sites, I do correct unambiguous biases where the readership seems receptive, and direct people here who seem particularly ready (the last was a Randi conference-goer; another young white male working on a postgrad law degree--but I'm good at bringing girls to my martial arts class, so I'll try that here).

I think OB has improved since LW started up. OB now feels calmer and it' better paced.

How much has the traffic at OB changed since the establishment of Less Wrong?

As a regular reader of overcomingbias.com (through RSS) I honestly had never really noticed lesswrong.com yet, until Eliezer repeatedly posted about it recently. I do remember talk about reducing the number of posts on overcomingbias.

Overcomingbias.com is wonderful, because it is unique, perhaps, and because the contributors have lots of interesting stuff to say. Apart from that and in spite of the unambiguous title, it`s identity doesn't seem overly clear. It doesn't always seem overly focused on actually, practically overcoming bias.

That's perhaps where lesswrong has a role to play: as an exercise by an actual community in overcoming biases, being less wrong, in "real life". For now though it isn't clear to me yet where this new site is headed. The people involved are obviously interested in the same issue that are discussed on overcomingbias, especially those of the Eliezer variety, so is my first impression.

Karma scores are doubtless a powerful force, and I have no doubt that they will do exactly what Robin suggests that they will. I don't think you can have one without the other, unless you find a way to reward karma for external activity. However I strongly agree with khafra that it is very much a happy problem at this stage to have some people a little too concerned with their karma scores. The bias towards doing what can be scored seems likely to work for us in at least the medium term.

There's a similar idea in web design (which, I think, is not merely a coincidence) - users spend most of their time on other people's websites. This entails that one must design one's site in a way that is intuitive relative to the designs of other people's sites.

Similarly, the use of closed-garden techniques, like an internal karma score and excessive jargon and internal references, will alienate folks who don't want to specifically 'be a member of this community' - which should not be all that this site is about.

I think OB has improved since LW started up. OB now feels calmer and it' better paced.