Collaboration Style (2011)
gwern.net
gwern.net
I do agree he goes too far in discounting styles of contribution that are not to his preference. I think both styles are important, someone needs to contribute the components for synthesis after all, and that requires lots of exploration. Which comes by people playing with ideas for themselves. It's understandable though, that one would write a biased defense of an important and personally favored but less visible contribution style.
Not a value judgement, just the feeling I get.
To use the music analogy, isn't Gwern's point that since most people won't be able to come up with "noteworthy" music on their own (many think they can, due to overconfidence), the better thing to do for the world is to (help) realize, promote and refine the noteworthy music other people did, even though you are unlikely to get any credit that way?
This (de-analogised) would, I think, have made a very good post. Instead of urging others to find their ways to contribute, even if those ways were little recognised or rewarded, the post seemed more about the authors' wanting recognition both for doing this, and, curiously, recognition for not getting recognition—both of which are probably OK, except that the author then seems to proceed to devalue other sorts of contribution. (I think that the reference to wankery was particularly uncalled for.)