Does this prize draw a distinction between a website versus a blog? As an example of something that’s more “website” than “blog”, think of Gwern’s website or imagine a scaled-down individually-run version of 80,000 Hours .
Why websites?
I. Emphasis on structure
The reason I ask is that it seems to me that there are many benefits to creating content that’s a little more formal and a little more data-oriented. Blogs tend to treat individual posts as one-offs, even if they’re arranged into a sequence. By contrast, websites can break local arguments off into chunks, without requiring that each one be individually fascinating.
II. Emphasis on tight, interconnected argument across posts
For example, I’ve appreciated (and disagreed with) 80k’s writings on researcher productivity power laws. Although I have written quite a few reviews of LW blog posts for the annual review, I don’t really perceive most blog posts there as making tight, specific arguments about particular topics. They are more about exploring a set of ideas than arguing for a specific conclusion. This is OK, but it means that it’s hard to really falsify them. By contrast, it feels potentially productive to do an epistemic spot check or counterargument against an 80k article, or, say, GiveWell analysis.
III. Timelessness
Blog posts seem to be about setting a conversational agenda, outlining a rough heuristic, or sometimes about assigning a label to a widely useful framework (i.e. Elizabeth’s “epistemic legibility”). There’s an immediacy to them that is also ephemeral. By contrast, when I read a website, I am usually there for my own purposes, and am interested in scrutinizing in a relatively timeless argument itself, rather than in participating in a conversation. Since the maintainers of the website are generally, at least in theory, equally invested in the quality of the entire website, rather than in steering the conversation the latest post, it feels potentially productive to contact them with alternative views.
IV. Potential to scale
In addition, websites don’t have the same expectation of a single authorial voice that a blog has. If I was running a website, and received a cogent rebuttal of one of my articles, then I could potentially, with the author’s permission, host it with their byline. Scott’s done that for his reader-sourced essay contests and book reviews. But there’s still a sense that he’s giving these authors a spotlight, rather than taking some sort of personal responsibility for the quality of their offerings. And although some blogs have more than one writer, websites are focused on a theme rather than a personal, and seem to have greater potential to scale up the writing team if it proves useful.
Why not websites?
One major advantage of blogs over websites is that blogs do a great job of starting a conversation. They serve a similar function to a daily newspaper. This stands in contrast to a website like 80,000 Hours. If they update their web pages or add new articles, I don’t expect that this will draw immediate, concentrated focus in the way that a new post on somebody’s blog will.
Another is that blogs are convenient for the author to start. No need to buy a domain name or think in any sort of depth about how to structure the website overall. You can just write down whatever’s on your mind on a given day and hit “publish.” One reason potentially to exclude website-building from this contest would be to ensure that you want to send a message that this activity, specifically, is what you’re interested in. But it seems more like you’re trying to foster information-generating talent than to ensure that talent is expressed in a certain form.
It may look like this argument is weaker because it’s only two paragraphs long. But I think that the ability to set the daily conversation is a form of immense power. I think the daily drip of content does more to create a sense of personal identity than any website ever can. If the goal is to shapethe conversation, rather than to provide information and arguments, I think a blog (or its scaled-up version, the newspaper and magazine) is the right choice.
Who cares?
People can do whatever they want with blogs and websites. But I think there’s value in coming to some kind of tentative model for what our common goals are, and how our production of content contributes to those goals. “Best blogs” implies “best for some purpose,” and suggests that the prizerunners have at least some notion of a strategic goal here.
Not only do I think that the purposes of websites vs. blogs is an interesting topic in its own right, but I also think that making the prizerunner’s intuitions about what our goals should be is valuable both for potential writers and as a form of transparency for this community. I don’t demand that transparency (such calls for transparency are often framed as a demand). I am simply inviting it!
I strongly agree with you, and would add that long content like Gwern’s (or Essays on Reducing Suffering or PredictionBook or Wikipedia etc.) are important as epistemic infrastructure: they have the added value of constant maintenance, which allows them to achieve depth and scope that is usually not found in blogs. I think this kind of maintenance is reallyreally important, especially when considering long-term content.
I mourn the times when people would put a serious effort into putting together an FAQ for things—truly weapons from a more civilized age.
I have read blogs for many years and most blog posts are the triumph of the hare over the tortoise. They are meant to be read by a few people on a weekday in 2004 and never again, and are quickly abandoned—and perhaps as Assange says, not a moment too soon. (But isn’t that sad? Isn’t it a terrible ROI for one’s time?) On the other hand, the best blogs always seem to be building something: they are rough drafts—works in progress.
On the other hand, most blogs to me seem to be epistemic fireworks (or, maybe more nicely, epistemic tinder that sparks a conversation): read mostly when released, and then slowly bit-rotting away until the link falls stale. (Why don’t people care more about their content when they put so much effort intro producing it‽).
I find it ironic that the FTX Long Term Future Fund is giving out a price to a medium that is so often so ephemeral, so much not long-term, as blogs (what value can I gain from reading the whole archive of Marginal Revolution? A lot, probably, but extremely little value per post, I’m likely better off reading Wikipedia.). What’s next? The $10k price for the best discord message about longtermism? The best tweet? (”It’s about the outreach! Many more people read tweets and discord messages!”)
We strongly recommend that your blog has some form of RSS/newsletter. This makes it easier for people to find and read (and much easier for us to judge).
At the same time, I love and generally encourage the idea of building a website around the content along the lines you describe, for the reasons you enumerate. This is the big downside of Substack.
It sounds like you’re interested both in the quality of the content and in its convenience, visibility, and readership. But it doesn’t necessarily need to have the journal-like structure of a blog. The RSS/newsletter would be a way to keep regular readers apprised of new content. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be primarily meant to be ingested in chronological (or reverse-chronological) order.
Does this prize draw a distinction between a website versus a blog? As an example of something that’s more “website” than “blog”, think of Gwern’s website or imagine a scaled-down individually-run version of 80,000 Hours .
Why websites?
I. Emphasis on structure
The reason I ask is that it seems to me that there are many benefits to creating content that’s a little more formal and a little more data-oriented. Blogs tend to treat individual posts as one-offs, even if they’re arranged into a sequence. By contrast, websites can break local arguments off into chunks, without requiring that each one be individually fascinating.
II. Emphasis on tight, interconnected argument across posts
For example, I’ve appreciated (and disagreed with) 80k’s writings on researcher productivity power laws. Although I have written quite a few reviews of LW blog posts for the annual review, I don’t really perceive most blog posts there as making tight, specific arguments about particular topics. They are more about exploring a set of ideas than arguing for a specific conclusion. This is OK, but it means that it’s hard to really falsify them. By contrast, it feels potentially productive to do an epistemic spot check or counterargument against an 80k article, or, say, GiveWell analysis.
III. Timelessness
Blog posts seem to be about setting a conversational agenda, outlining a rough heuristic, or sometimes about assigning a label to a widely useful framework (i.e. Elizabeth’s “epistemic legibility”). There’s an immediacy to them that is also ephemeral. By contrast, when I read a website, I am usually there for my own purposes, and am interested in scrutinizing in a relatively timeless argument itself, rather than in participating in a conversation. Since the maintainers of the website are generally, at least in theory, equally invested in the quality of the entire website, rather than in steering the conversation the latest post, it feels potentially productive to contact them with alternative views.
IV. Potential to scale
In addition, websites don’t have the same expectation of a single authorial voice that a blog has. If I was running a website, and received a cogent rebuttal of one of my articles, then I could potentially, with the author’s permission, host it with their byline. Scott’s done that for his reader-sourced essay contests and book reviews. But there’s still a sense that he’s giving these authors a spotlight, rather than taking some sort of personal responsibility for the quality of their offerings. And although some blogs have more than one writer, websites are focused on a theme rather than a personal, and seem to have greater potential to scale up the writing team if it proves useful.
Why not websites?
One major advantage of blogs over websites is that blogs do a great job of starting a conversation. They serve a similar function to a daily newspaper. This stands in contrast to a website like 80,000 Hours. If they update their web pages or add new articles, I don’t expect that this will draw immediate, concentrated focus in the way that a new post on somebody’s blog will.
Another is that blogs are convenient for the author to start. No need to buy a domain name or think in any sort of depth about how to structure the website overall. You can just write down whatever’s on your mind on a given day and hit “publish.” One reason potentially to exclude website-building from this contest would be to ensure that you want to send a message that this activity, specifically, is what you’re interested in. But it seems more like you’re trying to foster information-generating talent than to ensure that talent is expressed in a certain form.
It may look like this argument is weaker because it’s only two paragraphs long. But I think that the ability to set the daily conversation is a form of immense power. I think the daily drip of content does more to create a sense of personal identity than any website ever can. If the goal is to shape the conversation, rather than to provide information and arguments, I think a blog (or its scaled-up version, the newspaper and magazine) is the right choice.
Who cares?
People can do whatever they want with blogs and websites. But I think there’s value in coming to some kind of tentative model for what our common goals are, and how our production of content contributes to those goals. “Best blogs” implies “best for some purpose,” and suggests that the prizerunners have at least some notion of a strategic goal here.
Not only do I think that the purposes of websites vs. blogs is an interesting topic in its own right, but I also think that making the prizerunner’s intuitions about what our goals should be is valuable both for potential writers and as a form of transparency for this community. I don’t demand that transparency (such calls for transparency are often framed as a demand). I am simply inviting it!
I strongly agree with you, and would add that long content like Gwern’s (or Essays on Reducing Suffering or PredictionBook or Wikipedia etc.) are important as epistemic infrastructure: they have the added value of constant maintenance, which allows them to achieve depth and scope that is usually not found in blogs. I think this kind of maintenance is really really important, especially when considering long-term content. I mourn the times when people would put a serious effort into putting together an FAQ for things—truly weapons from a more civilized age.
—Gwern, “About This Website”, 2021
On the other hand, most blogs to me seem to be epistemic fireworks (or, maybe more nicely, epistemic tinder that sparks a conversation): read mostly when released, and then slowly bit-rotting away until the link falls stale. (Why don’t people care more about their content when they put so much effort intro producing it‽).
I find it ironic that the FTX Long Term Future Fund is giving out a price to a medium that is so often so ephemeral, so much not long-term, as blogs (what value can I gain from reading the whole archive of Marginal Revolution? A lot, probably, but extremely little value per post, I’m likely better off reading Wikipedia.). What’s next? The $10k price for the best discord message about longtermism? The best tweet? (”It’s about the outreach! Many more people read tweets and discord messages!”)
We strongly recommend that your blog has some form of RSS/newsletter. This makes it easier for people to find and read (and much easier for us to judge).
At the same time, I love and generally encourage the idea of building a website around the content along the lines you describe, for the reasons you enumerate. This is the big downside of Substack.
Thanks very much for the response!
It sounds like you’re interested both in the quality of the content and in its convenience, visibility, and readership. But it doesn’t necessarily need to have the journal-like structure of a blog. The RSS/newsletter would be a way to keep regular readers apprised of new content. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be primarily meant to be ingested in chronological (or reverse-chronological) order.