My thinking about EAforum over the years has typically been “Jesus, why on earth would they people deliberately set things like that” and then maybe a couple months later, maybe a couple years later, I start to notice a possible explanation, and I’m like “oooooooooooohhhhhh, actually, that might make a lot of sense, I wish I had noticed that immediately”.
Large multi-human systems tend to be pretty complicated and counterintuitive, but it becomes way, way more so when most of the people are extremely thoughtful. Plus, the system changes in complicated and unprecedented ways as the world changes around it, or as someone here or there discovered a game-changing detail about the world, meaning that EAforum is entering uncharted territory and tearing down Schelling fences rather frequently.
The direct consequence is reducing the net quality of content on EAforum, but it also allows it to steer people towards events as they get more interested in various EA topics, where they can talk more freely without worrying about saying things controversial, or get involved directly with people working on those areas via face-to-face interaction. And it doesn’t stop EAforum from remaining a great bulletin board for orgs to publish papers and updates and get feedback.
But at first glance, catering towards marginal users normally makes you think that they’re just trying to do classic user retention. That’s not what’s happening; this is not a normal forum and that’s the wrong way to think about it.
My thinking about EAforum over the years has typically been “Jesus, why on earth would they people deliberately set things like that” and then maybe a couple months later, maybe a couple years later, I start to notice a possible explanation, and I’m like “oooooooooooohhhhhh, actually, that might make a lot of sense, I wish I had noticed that immediately”.
Large multi-human systems tend to be pretty complicated and counterintuitive, but it becomes way, way more so when most of the people are extremely thoughtful. Plus, the system changes in complicated and unprecedented ways as the world changes around it, or as someone here or there discovered a game-changing detail about the world, meaning that EAforum is entering uncharted territory and tearing down Schelling fences rather frequently.
I’m interested in examples of this if you have them.
Yeah, a lot of them are not openly advertised for good reasons. One example that’s probably fine to talk about is NunoSempere’s claim that EAforum is shifting towards catering to new or marginal users.
The direct consequence is reducing the net quality of content on EAforum, but it also allows it to steer people towards events as they get more interested in various EA topics, where they can talk more freely without worrying about saying things controversial, or get involved directly with people working on those areas via face-to-face interaction. And it doesn’t stop EAforum from remaining a great bulletin board for orgs to publish papers and updates and get feedback.
But at first glance, catering towards marginal users normally makes you think that they’re just trying to do classic user retention. That’s not what’s happening; this is not a normal forum and that’s the wrong way to think about it.