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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: 2023 LessWrong Community Census, Request for Comments, published by Screwtape on November 1, 2023 on LessWrong.

Overview

I would like there to be a LessWrong Community Census, because I had fun playing with the data from last year and there's some questions I'm curious about. It's also an entertaining site tradition. Since nobody else has stepped forward to make the community census happen, I'm getting the ball rolling. This is a request for comments, constructive criticism, careful consideration, and silly jokes on the census.

Here's the draft.

I'm posting this request for comments on November 1st. I'm planning to incorporate feedback throughout November, then on December 1st I'll update the census to remove the "DO NOT TAKE" warning at the top, and make a new post asking people to take the census. I plan to let it run throughout all December, close it in the first few days of January, and then get the public data and analysis out sometime in mid to late January.

How Was The Draft Composed?

I coped the question set from 2022, which itself took extremely heavy inspiration from previous years. I then added a section sourced from the questions Ben Pace of the LessWrong team had been considering in 2022, and another section of questions I'd be asking on a user survey if I worked for LessWrong. (I do not work for LessWrong.) Next I fixed some obvious mistakes from last year (in particular allowing free responses on the early politics questions) as well as changed some things that change every year like the Calibration question, and swapped around the questions in the Indulging My Curiosity section.

Changes I'm Interested In

In general, I want to reduce the number of questions. Last year I asked about the length and overall people thought it was a little too long. Then I added more questions. (The LW Team Questions and the Questions The LW Team Should Have Asked section.) I'm inclined to think those sections aren't pulling their weight right now, but I do think it's worth asking good questions about how people use the website on the census.

I'm likely to shrink down the religion responses, as I don't think checking the different variations of e.g. Buddhism or Judaism revealed anything interesting. I'd probably put them back to the divisions used in earlier versions of the survey.

I'm sort of tempted to remove the Numbers That Purport To Measure Your Intelligence section entirely. I believe it was part of Scott trying to answer a particular question about the readership, and while I love his old analyses they could make space for current questions. The main arguments in favour of keeping them is that they don't take up much space, and they've been around for a while.

The Detailed Questions From Previous Surveys and Further Politics sections would be where I'd personally start making some cuts, though I admit I just don't care about politics very much. Some people care a lot about politics and if anyone wants to champion those sections that seems potentially fun. This may also be the year that some of the "Detailed Questions From Previous Surveys" get questions can get moved into the survey proper or dropped.

I'd be excited to add some questions that would help adjacent or subset communities. If you're with CFAR, The Guild of the Rose, Glowfic, or an organization like that I'm cheerful about having some questions you're interested in, especially if the questions would be generally useful or fun to discuss. I've already offered to the LessWrong team directly, but I'll say again that I'd be excited to try and ask questions that would be useful for you all.

You don't actually have to be associated with an organization either. If there's a burning question you have about the general shape of the readership, I'm interested in sating other people's curiosity and I'd like to encou...