Thanks for making this question, and last year’s version! I think this is a great idea.
In last year’s one, you wrote:
We think this will accomplish a few things:
1. Encourage people to publish the posts
2. Help them prioritize between post ideas based on community feedback
3. Get directed to useful readings/resources
4. (For everyone) Get a sense of what the community is working on
I think there’s another benefit, related to (or perhaps meant as implicit) in the 4th item you list: Having this public record of what people are planning on writing can help people discover whether other people are planning on writing similar things to them. This could lead to:
them collaborating
one person just passing their notes/drafts/thoughts to the other and then moving on to other things
one person just dropping that plan and move onto other things (this seems less good, but still maybe better than doubled-up-effort)
It seems like it’s relatively rare for two people to have very similar planned posts, but I’ve seen it happen at least occasionally. And there’s of course no harm in two posts on a similar idea, and each person probably has a somewhat different angle. But it still seems better for the people to be made aware of each other, so they can collaborate and/or make informed decisions about whether pursuing their plan should still be their top priority.
Which suggests also a sixth, somewhat more speculative benefit: It seems possible that some people have good ideas worth writing up, but they’re worried that maybe someone else has written them already or will do so soon. So they don’t want to waste their effort. But if publicising one’s planned posts here (or somewhere like it) becomes common practice, then these people could check here, see that no one’s mentioned a similar idea, and feel more confident to invest time into the post. And if they post here, others could let them know if similar things have already been written about in the past (related to your 3rd item).
I’m planning to probably post about a lot of my planned posts here, primarily for those two extra benefits, as well as the 3rd item you mention.
Thanks for making this question, and last year’s version! I think this is a great idea.
In last year’s one, you wrote:
I think there’s another benefit, related to (or perhaps meant as implicit) in the 4th item you list: Having this public record of what people are planning on writing can help people discover whether other people are planning on writing similar things to them. This could lead to:
them collaborating
one person just passing their notes/drafts/thoughts to the other and then moving on to other things
one person just dropping that plan and move onto other things (this seems less good, but still maybe better than doubled-up-effort)
It seems like it’s relatively rare for two people to have very similar planned posts, but I’ve seen it happen at least occasionally. And there’s of course no harm in two posts on a similar idea, and each person probably has a somewhat different angle. But it still seems better for the people to be made aware of each other, so they can collaborate and/or make informed decisions about whether pursuing their plan should still be their top priority.
Which suggests also a sixth, somewhat more speculative benefit: It seems possible that some people have good ideas worth writing up, but they’re worried that maybe someone else has written them already or will do so soon. So they don’t want to waste their effort. But if publicising one’s planned posts here (or somewhere like it) becomes common practice, then these people could check here, see that no one’s mentioned a similar idea, and feel more confident to invest time into the post. And if they post here, others could let them know if similar things have already been written about in the past (related to your 3rd item).
I’m planning to probably post about a lot of my planned posts here, primarily for those two extra benefits, as well as the 3rd item you mention.