P.S. #2: There are three questions I have about how one should do the ācollectionsā, which didnāt seem necessary to include in the above post itself, but which Iād be interested in peopleās thoughts on.
1. Should the collections be full posts on shortform comments?
So far, Iāve posted all my collections as āshortformā comments, rather than full posts, except one (Quotes about the long reflection). This is because most have been quite short, and pretty much just lists, so they didnāt feel substantial or refined enough to be full posts.
But shortform comments arenāt displayed as prominently upon posting or when using the search function (the search function will show the userās name but not any snippet of the comment). So thereās a higher chance that people who wouldāve been interested in the collection will miss it.
That might make sense, as people have limited attention, and these collections are arguably not especially important. But Iām unsure precisely where to draw the line. And I think itād be nice if they were easier to find through the search function, at least (e.g., if the first few words of shortform comments were displayed when searching, or something like that).
2. Is my approach to collecting sources actually useful, given the fact that relevant papers will have reference lists?
I think the answer is āYesā, given that:
relevant papersā reference lists will contain many not especially relevant sources
relevant papersā reference lists will typically not contain āinformal sourcesā like blog posts or podcasts, despite these often being quite useful, especially for topics neglected thus far by mainstream academia
Iām collecting sources on relatively neglected topics (e.g., the unilateralistās curse), or topics where the work so far may be scattered, use different keywords, and/āor be hard to spot among lots of other somewhat related work that isnāt quite what I/āEAs are after (e.g., for civilizational collapse, arguably)
EAs might not necessarily even think to look into the topic (i.e., the collection might help EAs learn of or come to care about the topic), or might miss the relevant papers in the first place
But Iām not sure about this. Maybe it actually wouldnāt be worth peopleās time to make collections of sources in particular. (Although, again, the time investment can be pretty small when youāre learning about a topic anyway.)
EDIT: Iām now more convinced that collecting sources is useful, and upvotes of my collections seem to provide weak evidence in support of that.
3. Would it be better to spend the same amount of time producing a lower number of more sophisticated collections, as proper databases or something (e.g., using Mendeley?)?
Somehow I didnāt learn about these more sophisticated approaches at all during my university studies or when writing a paper, so I donāt know how those approaches work or how valuable they are, and thus I canāt really answer this. But maybe this is the approach I and/āor others should be taking, either when posting these collections or just when doing research in general.
P.S. #2: There are three questions I have about how one should do the ācollectionsā, which didnāt seem necessary to include in the above post itself, but which Iād be interested in peopleās thoughts on.
1. Should the collections be full posts on shortform comments?
So far, Iāve posted all my collections as āshortformā comments, rather than full posts, except one (Quotes about the long reflection). This is because most have been quite short, and pretty much just lists, so they didnāt feel substantial or refined enough to be full posts.
But shortform comments arenāt displayed as prominently upon posting or when using the search function (the search function will show the userās name but not any snippet of the comment). So thereās a higher chance that people who wouldāve been interested in the collection will miss it.
That might make sense, as people have limited attention, and these collections are arguably not especially important. But Iām unsure precisely where to draw the line. And I think itād be nice if they were easier to find through the search function, at least (e.g., if the first few words of shortform comments were displayed when searching, or something like that).
2. Is my approach to collecting sources actually useful, given the fact that relevant papers will have reference lists?
I think the answer is āYesā, given that:
relevant papersā reference lists will contain many not especially relevant sources
relevant papersā reference lists will typically not contain āinformal sourcesā like blog posts or podcasts, despite these often being quite useful, especially for topics neglected thus far by mainstream academia
Iām collecting sources on relatively neglected topics (e.g., the unilateralistās curse), or topics where the work so far may be scattered, use different keywords, and/āor be hard to spot among lots of other somewhat related work that isnāt quite what I/āEAs are after (e.g., for civilizational collapse, arguably)
EAs might not necessarily even think to look into the topic (i.e., the collection might help EAs learn of or come to care about the topic), or might miss the relevant papers in the first place
But Iām not sure about this. Maybe it actually wouldnāt be worth peopleās time to make collections of sources in particular. (Although, again, the time investment can be pretty small when youāre learning about a topic anyway.)
EDIT: Iām now more convinced that collecting sources is useful, and upvotes of my collections seem to provide weak evidence in support of that.
3. Would it be better to spend the same amount of time producing a lower number of more sophisticated collections, as proper databases or something (e.g., using Mendeley?)?
Somehow I didnāt learn about these more sophisticated approaches at all during my university studies or when writing a paper, so I donāt know how those approaches work or how valuable they are, and thus I canāt really answer this. But maybe this is the approach I and/āor others should be taking, either when posting these collections or just when doing research in general.