The first Overcoming Bias post was one year ago today. Since then we have had a half million distinct reader visits, over twelve thousand comments, and a bit over two posts per day. Technorati puts us at rank 7,946 among all blogs with 2,281 blog reactions.
Happy Birthday, belatedly, and thanks to EY and BH. Yes your creativity is appreciated, at whatever rhythm suits you. Intelligence is a wonderful thing, not many natural phenomena are self correcting.
I have just spent the past hour or so reading the input on this Blog, 1) I find it all, for the most part, extremely interesting and intellectually stimulating, I would hope that actually there was a mechanism to expand it and add contributors--as I am sure there is a large pool of academics and others interested in the subjects presented..as you may see from some of the more active ( financially realted blog sites) there is a mechanism for a "tip" that might allow more time, not less to this blog's sponsors and others to contribute---this meaningful discourse and hope it can be expanded, nationally and globally as the topics are of considerable import to a wide field of us seeking insights into intrinsic human behavioral traits...more not less!
I also am a frequent lurker but have never added comments. I find many of the posts insightful, a few idealistic, but all very thought-provoking. I have missed many posts and will now systematically go back and start from the beginning as suggested by the last commenter. Since you are requesting more comments as well I will try to add my humble contributions - at the rate you are posting and the rate I am reading this means of course that I will never catch up to the most recent post.
Another commenter suggested a wiki of some sort related specifically to this blog - this might be very useful to allow us to organize the chronological postings into logical groupings, which would help us see categories of bias that had not been covered in much detail yet, as well as those that had received an abundance of coverage. This may stimulate Robin, Eliezer, and/or the other several dozen contributors to add postings filling in any missing gaps across the range of possible biases and self-deceptions.
John, I would recommend what I did when I discovered this blog... go back to the post "How to Join" and read all the way through the archives until reaching the present. I was reluctant to do this because I always felt inclined to read today's post; but this is a bias to be overcome, since the date of the post should not make any particular objective difference to the reader.
In the end I found this a very profitable way to spend my time.
Sullivan: Far better to say it clearly and well than to merely meet a deadline, though I understand that deadlines help to focus.
I'm a slow writer. If I broke my rule of one post per day, you'd be getting one post per month.
John: Eliezer's current way of referring to "follow-up" posts and linking to old posts in the middle of the text is annoying for two reasons...
No, it's your fault for not reading Overcoming Bias since the start of the year.
Just kidding. Believe me, I understand the problem.
Right now, though, it feels like I'm writing so hard, probably higher than my maximum sustainable output, that I don't have any spare energy left to collect my posts into an organized list of surveys or a guide to the dependencies.
I'm not sure the basic task is avoidable - all these ideas are linked, and the best I can do is write in an order that respects their dependencies.
John: I just wish Eliezer could write a book or something.
See this post. (Yes, I'm being deliberately ironic here.)
As a blog reader, comments often feel like a duty to read. As a contributor, you probably love reading comments on what you've written. (That's how I am, heh.)
I just wish Eliezer could write a book or something. That way I'd have a more structured way of learning this stuff. kc mentioned that the marginal utility of each post was decreasing. A book could easily solve this problem. The trouble with blogs is that everything has to be short-form.
Eliezer's current way of referring to "follow-up" posts and linking to old posts in the middle of the text is annoying for two reasons. First of all, sometimes he'll write something with a really intriguing title, and then say it's a followup to something that looks boring that I haven't read. Then I go to the thing I haven't read and it's a followup to something else I haven't read. I got to that thing and start reading it, and there are a bunch of text links referring to older posts. I don't really know whether I'm supposed to be reading those or not; the only thing I'm sure of is that I won't be reading the post with the really intriguing title any time soon.
I think it's pretty difficult to tell how much you are affecting the meme pool in a year. The sea changes in thought on a topic usually take more like decades.
That said, if your goal is active conversations and that isn't being met, that is something you've gotten immediate feedback on.
Presumably you'll be dropping the lowest utility posts, so 3x / week is still pretty great :).
I have been reading this blog for about four months now. I look forward to how ever many posts and comments there may be in the future.Thank you all for your efforts, now, then and before.
I really admire the productivity of the contributors here. How can they write so much every day and keep their jobs? I think that 3 post a week is still a very decent production.
To make a less than sign in appear in an HTML comment, like this - < - you need to type "& l t " without the spaces or quotes. A greater than sign is "& g t ".
Nothing much to add except 'congrats' to all those involved in making this blog happen. It's truly a great resource and one of my favorite corner of the 'net.
There's a potential source of bias. Why is it that it took the one year anniversary for you to re-examine the outcome of your blogging. At the margin shouldn't the impetus to change habits be the same yesterday as it is today, even if today does mark a "momentous occasion"?
Happy Birthday, belatedly, and thanks to EY and BH. Yes your creativity is appreciated, at whatever rhythm suits you. Intelligence is a wonderful thing, not many natural phenomena are self correcting.
I have just spent the past hour or so reading the input on this Blog, 1) I find it all, for the most part, extremely interesting and intellectually stimulating, I would hope that actually there was a mechanism to expand it and add contributors--as I am sure there is a large pool of academics and others interested in the subjects presented..as you may see from some of the more active ( financially realted blog sites) there is a mechanism for a "tip" that might allow more time, not less to this blog's sponsors and others to contribute---this meaningful discourse and hope it can be expanded, nationally and globally as the topics are of considerable import to a wide field of us seeking insights into intrinsic human behavioral traits...more not less!
I also am a frequent lurker but have never added comments. I find many of the posts insightful, a few idealistic, but all very thought-provoking. I have missed many posts and will now systematically go back and start from the beginning as suggested by the last commenter. Since you are requesting more comments as well I will try to add my humble contributions - at the rate you are posting and the rate I am reading this means of course that I will never catch up to the most recent post.
Another commenter suggested a wiki of some sort related specifically to this blog - this might be very useful to allow us to organize the chronological postings into logical groupings, which would help us see categories of bias that had not been covered in much detail yet, as well as those that had received an abundance of coverage. This may stimulate Robin, Eliezer, and/or the other several dozen contributors to add postings filling in any missing gaps across the range of possible biases and self-deceptions.
John, I would recommend what I did when I discovered this blog... go back to the post "How to Join" and read all the way through the archives until reaching the present. I was reluctant to do this because I always felt inclined to read today's post; but this is a bias to be overcome, since the date of the post should not make any particular objective difference to the reader.
In the end I found this a very profitable way to spend my time.
Sullivan: Far better to say it clearly and well than to merely meet a deadline, though I understand that deadlines help to focus.
I'm a slow writer. If I broke my rule of one post per day, you'd be getting one post per month.
John: Eliezer's current way of referring to "follow-up" posts and linking to old posts in the middle of the text is annoying for two reasons...
No, it's your fault for not reading Overcoming Bias since the start of the year.
Just kidding. Believe me, I understand the problem.
Right now, though, it feels like I'm writing so hard, probably higher than my maximum sustainable output, that I don't have any spare energy left to collect my posts into an organized list of surveys or a guide to the dependencies.
I'm not sure the basic task is avoidable - all these ideas are linked, and the best I can do is write in an order that respects their dependencies.
John: I just wish Eliezer could write a book or something.
See this post. (Yes, I'm being deliberately ironic here.)
By the way, I second Andrew's comment.
As a blog reader, comments often feel like a duty to read. As a contributor, you probably love reading comments on what you've written. (That's how I am, heh.)
I just wish Eliezer could write a book or something. That way I'd have a more structured way of learning this stuff. kc mentioned that the marginal utility of each post was decreasing. A book could easily solve this problem. The trouble with blogs is that everything has to be short-form.
Eliezer's current way of referring to "follow-up" posts and linking to old posts in the middle of the text is annoying for two reasons. First of all, sometimes he'll write something with a really intriguing title, and then say it's a followup to something that looks boring that I haven't read. Then I go to the thing I haven't read and it's a followup to something else I haven't read. I got to that thing and start reading it, and there are a bunch of text links referring to older posts. I don't really know whether I'm supposed to be reading those or not; the only thing I'm sure of is that I won't be reading the post with the really intriguing title any time soon.
Congratulations on a successful first year!
I think it's pretty difficult to tell how much you are affecting the meme pool in a year. The sea changes in thought on a topic usually take more like decades.
That said, if your goal is active conversations and that isn't being met, that is something you've gotten immediate feedback on.
Presumably you'll be dropping the lowest utility posts, so 3x / week is still pretty great :).
I have been reading this blog for about four months now. I look forward to how ever many posts and comments there may be in the future.Thank you all for your efforts, now, then and before.
I'd wanted to say all the really important things, the thoughts that have been festering in my head for years, by the end of 2007
Far better to say it clearly and well than to merely meet a deadline, though I understand that deadlines help to focus.
I really admire the productivity of the contributors here. How can they write so much every day and keep their jobs? I think that 3 post a week is still a very decent production.
Happy Birthday!
To make a less than sign in appear in an HTML comment, like this - < - you need to type "& l t " without the spaces or quotes. A greater than sign is "& g t ".
Nothing much to add except 'congrats' to all those involved in making this blog happen. It's truly a great resource and one of my favorite corner of the 'net.
Robin, have you considered augmenting this blog with a wiki to be used for collaborative research? It sounds like that's more of what you had in mind.
Robin,
There's a potential source of bias. Why is it that it took the one year anniversary for you to re-examine the outcome of your blogging. At the margin shouldn't the impetus to change habits be the same yesterday as it is today, even if today does mark a "momentous occasion"?