Some thoughts on the upcoming _Broken Money book club, part 5

Hey stackers, I have a book club-related idea for part 5 of Broken Money (part 4 here, and you can follow links to the others if you want), which you might consider "the actually bitcoin part of the book."

Up till now, the process for doing one of these sessions has been basically:

read the relevant chapters
create some discussion prompts
on the appointed day, make a post that contains the prompts, sprinkled over the course of that day, and tend to it

The results have been fun; but based on some of my other posts, I think the prompts themselves, and the ensuing discussion, get way less engagement than they otherwise would if they were full posts. I hypothesize that this is mainly because people are overwhelmed -- it's hard to attend to so many different things in the comment tree of one post; and if you're following one or two of the prompts, you may not have time / desire to follow ten.

(Alternate hypotheses: those prompts aren't very good, or people just don't care about that topic.)

I'm very taken with the capital accumulation model of online social production, where increasingly complex things are built out of simpler things in an organic fashion, via composition, interlinking, etc. So I'm considering something like this for part 5 of the book club:

read the relevant chapter
next Wed (a week earlier, by previous standards) and in something akin to real-time, post slightly elaborated prompts, with slightly more context, as full posts, maybe a couple per day
on the appointed day, make Book Club part 5 post that knits together the individual prompt posts, with some overarching synthesis and discussion of the overall sweep of things

I have three hypotheses:

Partly because of the logistics of this method, and partly because of the focus of part 5, the content will be more approachable to stackers, even those who haven't read the book.
The total interesting discussion provoked by this method will be greater.
Discussion will occur across more levels of abstraction, e.g., there will be discussion at the level of the prompt; but there will also be meta discussion at the level of the total theme of part 5

Obviously most people on SN don't care about this book club, based on general participation. But the idea of how to create cultural capital on SN is presumably of interest to a wider set, so if you have thoughts on this particular proposal, the capital accumulation model in general, or other models for growing the interesting things on SN or on any other online platform, it would be cool to hear your thoughts.

754 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 18 Nov 2023

I think this is a good idea. For my part, when I don't get to all the prompts on your posts it is definitely because I fell behind and not because I wasn't interested. I will almost certainly be more engaged overall with the new format you described.

279 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 18 Nov 2023

For me,

it's hard to attend to so many different things in the comment tree of one post; and if you're following one or two of the prompts, you may not have time / desire to follow ten.

The above applies. I find a prompt I'm interested in, start thinking about it, and stay focused on that thought. Of course, there are other things going on in real life and SN, so I tend to get distracted. I will say, though, that I do enjoy wandering back in hours later when my enthusiasm is renewed.

So, I like your new idea.

269 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 18 Nov 2023

The Agile framework is often used in software development, but I think there are elements of this framework that you apply here: intentional experimentation, fast iteration. I will be keen to see how the new format goes.

I think for me, by the time I find a prompt I can relate to and rack my brains responding to, I run out of brain space to read and digest the rest of the prompts. Also, it will be quite hard to follow the chats that are ensuing in the more popular prompts. So I think one prompt = one post is something worth trying out!