# Announcing Dialogues

As of today, everyone is able to create a new type of content on LessWrong: *Dialogues*.

In contrast with posts, which are for monologues, and comment sections, which are spaces for everyone to talk to everyone, a dialogue is a space for a few invited people to *speak with each other*. 

I'm personally very excited about this as a way for people to produce lots of in-depth explanations of their world-models in public. 

I think dialogues enable this in a way that feels easier — instead of writing an explanation for *anyone who reads*, you're communicating with the *particular person you're talking with* — and giving the readers a lot of rich nuance I normally only find when I overhear people talk in person.

In the rest of this post I'll explain the feature, and then encourage you to find a partner in the comments to try it out with.

What do dialogues look like?
============================

Here is a screenshot of a dialogue with 3 users.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/45abeb28cc0b9b9a165357c430571fbc26802aad32a807c8.png)

Behind the scenes, the editor interface is a bit different from other editors we've seen on the internet. It's inspired by collaborating in google docs, where you're all editing a document simultaneously, and you can see the other person's writing in-progress.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/animations/68103a4f61f6fd6f74fb5ecbd6db722b7fb92b4b19781282.gif)

You can also submit a response with Cmd-Enter / Ctrl-Enter.

This also allows all participants to draft thoughtful replies simultaneously, and be able to see what the other person is planning to talk about next.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/animations/3e7fee0c5d46fc66732242a6b0b468b398f5d1429d36bea2.gif)

How do I create a dialogue?
===========================

First, hit the "New Dialogue" button in the menu in the top-right of the website.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/334362cc635ba85d83cffb76dd993a4bbb78aababb47874b.png)

This pops up a box where you are invited to give your dialogue a title and invite some people.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/d2efe54b5ddf1f94e65c106e036a5918196381af7538900c.png)

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/8e08207d088194c94808db78b637438aa7101065d18bbc16.png)

Then you'll be taken to the editor page!

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/d389c4b25418f1850f4659eff988a649fdf31207824d790d.png)

Now you can start writing. The other dialogue participants will receive a notification and the dialogue will appear in their drafts. (Only invite people to dialogues with their consent!)

What are some already published dialogues?
==========================================

Here are some links to published dialogues that have been using this feature.

*   [Thomas Kwa's MIRI research experience](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qbcuk8WwFnTZcXTd6/thomas-kwa-s-miri-research-experience) (by Thomas Kwa, peterbarnett, Vivek Hebbar, Jeremy Gillen, jacobjacob & Raemon)
*   [Navigating an ecosystem that might or might not be bad for the world](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iNYdKoGsh4ffxbQ5t/navigating-an-ecosystem-that-might-or-might-not-be-bad-for) (by habryka & kave)
*   [Joseph Bloom on choosing AI Alignment over bio, what many aspiring researchers get wrong, and more (interview)](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zRuTHhmdvcfRytMAJ/joseph-bloom-on-choosing-ai-alignment-over-bio-what-many) (by Ruby & Joseph Bloom)
*   [What is the optimal frontier for due diligence?](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vJagsfKmQKeaW5oG3/what-is-the-optimal-frontier-for-due-diligence) (by RobertM & Ruby)
*   [Feedback-loops, Deliberate Practice, and Transfer Learning](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/baKauxzSqunE6Aakm/feedback-loops-deliberate-practice-and-transfer-learning) (jacobjacob & Raemon)

Do you have any suggestions about how I can find dialogue partners and topics?
==============================================================================

This is a new format for LessWrong, and we don't have much experience of people using it yet to learn from. 

Nonetheless, I asked Oliver Habryka for his thoughts on the question, and he wrote the following answer.

> My current best-guess recommendation for someone hoping to write their own dialogue would be: 
> 
> 1.  **Think about some topics** you are currently actively curious about (could be anything from some specific piece of media that you've recently been affected by to some AI Alignment proposal that seems maybe promising)
> 2.  **Think about some friends** or colleagues or authors you know who you would be excited to talk about this topic with
> 3.  **Ask them** (e.g. via DM) whether they would be up for a dialogue, ideally one that can be published at the end (for at least a decent chunk of people having things be published at the end is a thing that makes it worth their time, when a long private conversation would have too little payoff)
> 4.  If they are excited, **click the "New Dialogue" button** in your user menu in the top right of the page and invite them to the dialogue. If it's someone you know well I would probably **recommend starting with a summary of some disagreement you've had with them, or some past thinking you've done** on the topic. If it's someone you know less well I would **start by asking them some questions** about the topic that you are curious about.
> 5.  You can have the dialogue asynchronously, though **I've had the best experiences with both people typing into the dialogue UI together and seeing live what the other person is typing**. This IMO enables much more natural conversations and makes people's responses a lot more responsive to your uncertainties and confusions.
> 6.  After 3-4 substantial back-and-forths, you can **publish the dialogue**, and then continue adding additional replies to it afterwards. This avoids the thing ballooning into something giant, and also enables you to see how much other people like it before investing more time and effort into it (people can subscribe to new dialogue replies and the dialogue will also show up in the "recent dialogues" section on the frontpage whenever a new response is published)
> 
> However, I also expect people will come up with new and interesting ways to use this feature to create new types of content. [Glowfic](https://glowfic.com/posts) feels kind of similar, and maybe people could write cool fiction using this. Or you could just use this for conversations you want to have with people that you never intend to publish, which I have been doing some amount of.

Is there any etiquette for writing dialogues with a partner?
============================================================

We've only run around 10 of these dialogues, so I'm sure we'll learn more as we go.

However, to give any guidance at all, I'll suggest the following things.

If you're talking synchronously, it's okay to be drafting a comment *while* the other person is doing the same. It's even okay to *draft* a reply to what they're currently writing, as long as you let them publish their reply first. 

(I think this gives all the advantages of interrupt culture — starting to reply as soon as you've understood the gist of the other person's response, or starting to reply as soon as an idea hits you — with none of the costs, as the other person still gets to take their time writing their response in full.)

It's fine to occasionally do a little meta conversation in the dialogue. ("I've got dinner soon" "It seems like you're thinking, do you want time to reflect?" "Do you have more on this thread you want to discuss, or can I change topics?"). If you want to, at the end, you can also cut some of this out, as the post is still editable. However, if you want to make an edit to or cut anything that your partner writes, this will become a *suggestion* in the editor, for your partner to accept or reject.

If you start a dialogue with someone, it helps to open with either your position, or with some questions for them.

Don't leave the dialogue hanging for more than a day without letting your interlocutor know what time-scale to expect to get back to you on. Or let them know that you're no longer interested in finishing the dialogue.

How can I find a partner today to try out this new feature with?
================================================================

One way is to use this comment section! 

Reply to this comment with questions you're interested in having a dialogue about. 

Then you can DM people who leave comments that you'd like talk with.

You can also reach out to friends and other people you know as well :-)