I've been here since OB. I found OB by accident, I think, when I was procrastinating instead of writing my thesis. My memory is fuzzy and, I think, has possibly been overwritten when I tried to reconstruct it, but as I recall my first article was The Parable of the Dagger. I remember that at the time I was pleased with the neat logic puzzle involved in the article, and shared the puzzle with some friends. Unfortunately I don't remember how I came upon OB in the first place.
After solving the angry frog puzzle I discovered a whole pile of rather excellent po...
Update- I will most likely be closing the poll sometime tonight, so if you haven't submitted yet, please do so today. I'll write up a report on the results, and make the data public probably within a day or two.
As of right now, 16% of the responders have been female readers, the majority of which were lurkers or only occasional commenters, who I don't think would have replied if not specifically asked to. So I would like to thank the vast majority of you who understood my reasoning for asking specifically for responses by female people.
I came via MoR which was posted in an IRC chat by [random internet person] for [random unrelated activity]. I've since gotten at least three others (two females, one male) to read MoR, of whom one female (my SO) has come to an LW meetup but doesn't read LW itself much, and one other may start reading the Sequences in the somewhat near future.
Discovered OB through Ben Casnocha's blog. I'm not sure how I found Ben.
Discovered HPMOR separately, through a link on Hacker News. With no context about what it was or who had written it, I got through the first two chapters before suddenly going, "Wait. Why does this person's writing style feel so familiar?"
Random Wikipedia browsing -> Wikipedia article for Technological Singularity -> saying "hey hey this thing seems pretty neat" on IRC -> referred to the IRC channel of the Finnish Transhumanist Association -> finding their website -> finding SL4 -> eventually hearing about Overcoming Bias -> LW.
I found HPMoR from this thread on the message board ReadAndFindOut.
I read a lot of fanfiction, so I likely would have found it eventually if that thread hadn't been posted.
Found Less Wrong through MoR, found MoR through TV-Tropes, found TV-Tropes via XKCD. I don't remember how I found XKCD.
I've been here since OB, and I came to OB through someone's blogroll, but I don't remember whose.
Note: of users who are now known as "Account: Deleted", two are women. The other is Roko. I do not know if this is of any relevance.
I've been here since OB and I found OB thanks to it being linked on some forum a long time ago-- I think maybe the Dresden Codak forums, back when those still existed. Does anyone else come from the same source?
I've been here since sometime in 2009, although I lurked until late 2010. I honestly don't remember where I followed the link from; most likely some blog that's anonymous in my memory. My impressions were later reinforced by links from tvtropes, among other places, but I'm about 90% confident that I discovered LW independently, such as that is.
MoR came later, as did OB.
What is the end goal here ? Just idle curiosity, or are you trying to develop some sort of a subtle social networking strategy to attract more women to the site, or is it something else ?
There was another thread about this. I answered the poll, but see what you can do about extracting useful information from that post (without double counting, if at all possible).
Please answer! Even if you are a lurker; ESPECIALLY if you are a female!
I dislike this.
I personally find calling people "a female" or "a male" (adjectives used as nouns) to come across as somewhat depersonalizing, as if implying that this were the only significant fact about the person. I would say the same goes for these examples:
The choice of "female" vs. "woman" (and "male" vs. "man") also seems significant to me. "Female" and "male" sound more clinical and biological — the sort of thing one would expect on a lab report or an autopsy — while "woman" and "man" sound more social or casual. As a male, I have testicles; as a man, I am often expected to be interested in football, porno, and books about war.
My point is that we need to find a way to outreach to women given their small representation here
Why does group X being under-represented somewhere automatically warrant efforts to increase their representation?
In another thread, we have been discussing how people (especially female people) have come to find out about LessWrong. Instead of just guessing, I figured I would make a poll.
I remember in recent history there was a thread on the subject, but the answers were mainly "I got here from HPMoR" or "I've been here since OB". However, the question I want answered is:
How did you find HPMoR or OB in the first place?
Were you referred by a friend? Were you searching the internet for keywords like "rationality"? Were you linked from some other site you read?
Please answer! Even if you are a lurker; ESPECIALLY if you are a female reader! (There is a question where you can say you are a lurker, if you like!)
ETA- female *reader* and female *people*