this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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Machine Learning

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Technical discussions of new research seem to have mostly disappeared in this subreddit, because researchers became a small fraction of its immense readership of 3e6 members.

So I created a subreddit to host such discussions. A "safe space" for researchers, if you will, with strict standards for content^1 . I seeded it with posts about a few recent papers I thought were interesting and my own takes on them, to get the discussion started.

But then I said to myself: "You don't have time to manage a subreddit. WTF are you doing?" and deleted it all. Nevertheless, I'd like to see someone else, perhaps someone with more time, try to do it.


^1: Its main rule was: "No low-effort or low-expertise posts or comments: If your average ML PhD student, or someone with a higher level of expertise wouldn't have posted something, then it does not belong here." Other rules dealt with the format of the posts.

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[–] Smallpaul@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I believe that's the goal of /r/learningmachines .

You should contribute there.

[–] coffee869@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Hot damn, thanks for the link drop

[–] Terrible_Button_1763@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No idea whether the current atmosphere in /r/machinelearning is temporary or permanent.

It could be the case after a year or so the newer people will trickle out leaving it to the usual deep learning hype train with a good post once a month or so.

[–] Gurrako@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I'm fairly certain it is permanent. Same thing happened with WallStreetBets. Occasionally browsing that subreddit was a lot of fun before the GME madness (and even in the early part of). Now the sub has lost a lot of the character it had before.

I imagine the same thing will happen here. Changes in the atmosphere of the subreddit will slowly push pre-ChatGPT members to look elsewhere for research / project related discussion and even after the hype dies down, they likely won't come back here having founds / made communities elsewhere.

[–] currentscurrents@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

TBH this sub would be a lot better if they banned OpenAI news/rumors.

I don't even mind the "I'm a noob, why won't my model train" posts - at least those people have genuine interest in ML and are trying to learn. OpenAI news attracts people who have a more science-fiction idea of AI and are just interested in the hype.

[–] oldjar7@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

No it wouldn't. It would be far worse. OpenAI news is often the only news which I see is actually relevant on the front page.

[–] nPr26_26@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If the mods were strict like r/askhistorians and just banned all posts that dont lead to high level discussions, that would be great.

[–] gambs@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

most active mod left when reddit removed api access

[–] diegoquezadac21@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I’m interested

[–] thedabking123@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

So do engineering innovations make sense for discussions?

I would love for someone to do extensive experimentation on best practices for RAG- including implications on cost, latency and performance (precision), etc.

It's not the very latest per se, but knowing the differences and tricks to reduce wall time would be amazing.

[–] oldjar7@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's plenty of technical discussions. Join them and actually contribute something to them instead of starting these garbage posts.

[–] Successful-Western27@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

The premise of this post is so weird... we have TONS of technical convos in this sub

[–] Successful-Western27@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] we_are_mammals@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

here constantly.

Fortnightly. Finally got a chance to use this word :-) 4 links spanning 2 months.

But even in these picks, take a look at the first one, for example. 10 comments. Only one of them suggests that the commentator looked at the paper itself.

[–] Successful-Western27@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Those are just **four** links **I myself** have posted and they have ~75 comments on them. I pointed that out in the original comment but you skipped over that.

[–] we_are_mammals@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I myself have posted

But the point you were trying to prove was that the discussions were "constant". How does picking your own threads spanning 2 months support it at all?

The OP didn't say that the discussions were completely gone. Yes, there are some, but pretty thin and usually glib. I don't count "Wow! This is exciting. I'll have to take a look at this awesome new paper!" as discussion. A bot harvesting upvotes could post this.