I share Habryka’s concern for the complexity of the project; each step clearly has a useful purpose, but it’s still the case that adding more steps to a process will tend to make it harder to finish that process in a reasonable amount of time. I think this system could work, but I also like the idea of running a quick, informal test of a simpler system to see what happens.
Habryka, if you create the “discussion thread” you’ve referenced here, I will commit to leaving at least one comment on every project idea; this seems like a really good way to test the capabilities of the Forum as a place where projects can be evaluated.
(It would be nice if participants shared a Google Doc or something similar for each of their ideas, since leaving in-line comments is much better than writing a long comment with many different points, but I’m not sure about the best way to turn “comments on a doc” into something that’s also visible on the Forum.)
I am currently quite busy, so only 50% on me finding the time to do it, but I will seriously look into making the time for this. I am also happy to chat to anyone else who wants to do this, and help out both with setting it up, and to participate in the thread.
1. there may be projects, mostly in long-term, x-risk, meta- and outreach spaces, which are very negative, but not in an obvious way
2. there may be ideas, mostly in long-term and x-risk, which are infohazard
The problem with 1. is most of the EV can be caused by just one project, with large negative impact, where the downside is not obvious to notice.
It seems to me standard startup thinking does not apply here, because startups generally can not go way bellow zero.
I also do not trust arbitrary set of forum users to handle this well.
Overall I believe the very lightweight unstructured processes are trading some gain in speed and convenience in most cases for some decreased robustness in worst cases.
In general I would feel much better if the simple system you want to try would avoid projects in long-term, x-risk, meta-, outreach, localization, and “searching for cause X” areas.
I share Habryka’s concern for the complexity of the project; each step clearly has a useful purpose, but it’s still the case that adding more steps to a process will tend to make it harder to finish that process in a reasonable amount of time. I think this system could work, but I also like the idea of running a quick, informal test of a simpler system to see what happens.
Habryka, if you create the “discussion thread” you’ve referenced here, I will commit to leaving at least one comment on every project idea; this seems like a really good way to test the capabilities of the Forum as a place where projects can be evaluated.
(It would be nice if participants shared a Google Doc or something similar for each of their ideas, since leaving in-line comments is much better than writing a long comment with many different points, but I’m not sure about the best way to turn “comments on a doc” into something that’s also visible on the Forum.)
I am currently quite busy, so only 50% on me finding the time to do it, but I will seriously look into making the time for this. I am also happy to chat to anyone else who wants to do this, and help out both with setting it up, and to participate in the thread.
FWIW, part of my motivation for the design, was
1. there may be projects, mostly in long-term, x-risk, meta- and outreach spaces, which are very negative, but not in an obvious way
2. there may be ideas, mostly in long-term and x-risk, which are infohazard
The problem with 1. is most of the EV can be caused by just one project, with large negative impact, where the downside is not obvious to notice.
It seems to me standard startup thinking does not apply here, because startups generally can not go way bellow zero.
I also do not trust arbitrary set of forum users to handle this well.
Overall I believe the very lightweight unstructured processes are trading some gain in speed and convenience in most cases for some decreased robustness in worst cases.
In general I would feel much better if the simple system you want to try would avoid projects in long-term, x-risk, meta-, outreach, localization, and “searching for cause X” areas.