I don't think debates really fit the ethos of LessWrong. Every time I write a comment it tells me to explain not persuade, after all. Debates have an effect of splitting people into camps, which is not great. And they put people in the frame of mind of winning, rather than truth-seeking. Additionally, people end up conflating "winning the debate" (which in people's minds is not necessarily even about who has the best arguments) with being correct. There was an old post here on LessWrong a while ago I remember reading where people were talking about the problems with debates as a truth-seeking mechanism, but I can't seem to find it now.
It strikes me that anything that could be a debate would be better as a comment thread for these reasons. I think LessWrong moving in a more debate direction would be a mistake. (My point here is not that people shouldn't have debates, but that making debate a part of LessWrong specifically seems questionable.)
So given that I figured it was a joke, because it just doesn't quite fit. But I now see the prediction market, and I don't think I can guess better here. And the community response seems very positive, which I'm pretty sure isn't a joke. I feel like this always happens though. Someone comes up with a new idea to change something and people get excited and want it, but fail to consider what it will be like when it is no longer new and exciting, but rather just one other extra thing. Will the conversations had through the debate format really be better than if they had been had through a different, less adversarial method?
We were not on the same page. I thought you were suggesting changes to the new re-hosted version of hpmor.com. Thanks for clarifying.
I am not mad at the LessWrong team. The reason I framed the title as an accusation was because I figured it was likely since I was sent to your website that you were responsible in some way, or at least were aware of what was going on. I now understand I was mistaken.
As for "improvements" if/when hpmor.com comes back up, I would like to note that I am against them, for the same reasons described in the post. I don't think it's obvious at all that some change to the old site would not be bad, at least from the perspective of people who prefer the old site.
Yes! It's just that the feel of the two websites are so different. And part of it may be my imagination. But it feels like the old HPMOR site is a simple elegant wrapper around the book, while on here it is the book is dumped into a website that wasn't made for it. Like the difference between a person wearing clothes, and someone inside of a giant human shaped suit that mimicked their motions.
Upon reflection, it seems I was focused on the framing rather than the mechanism, which in of itself doesn't necessarily do all the bad things I described. The framing is important though. I definitely think you should change the name.
FiveThirtyEight has done something similar in the past they called a chat.