ClaimsScott Alexander

“I deleted my blog of 1,557 posts.”

Scott Alexander, blogger, in his own post 21 January 2021 [Link] Still Alive - Astral Codex Ten (LessWrong) archived copy

Factual Their own work or organisation

Scott Alexander deleted his blog, which had 1,557 posts.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

This is judged as of 2021-01-21. True: Scott Alexander took down (deleted or removed from public view) his blog Slate Star Codex, which the record shows contained about 1,557 posts at the time. Mostly true: the takedown happened, but the post count differs slightly (within about 2%), or the content was archived or hidden rather than permanently erased. Mostly false: the blog was only partly taken down, or the post count is badly wrong (more than 10% off). False: the blog was never taken down.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (9)

  1. E1 NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) · 22 June 2020 Own record

    “So, I kind of deleted the blog. Sorry. Here’s my explanation.”

  2. E2 NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) · 22 June 2020 Own record

    “Then I put the blog back up (of course I backed it up! I’m not a monster!) and we forget this ever happened.”

  3. E3 Update On My Situation | Slate Star Codex Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) · 11 September 2020 Own record

    “It’s been two and a half months since I deleted the blog, so I owe all of you an update on recent events.”

  4. E4 Update On My Situation Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) Own record

    “It’s been two and a half months since I deleted the blog, so I owe all of you an update on recent events.”

  5. E5 Update On My Situation Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander's blog) Own record

    “I ask because since the site was taken down and put back it appears to have a very stripped-down view with no useful browsing”

  6. E6 Silicon Valley’s Safe Space - pdf.stafforini.com The New York Times (Cade Metz); copy hosted at pdf.stafforini.com · 13 February 2021

    “Mr. Siskind said in a late-night post on Slate Star Codex that he was going to remove his blog from the internet because The Times threatened to reveal his full name.”

  7. E7 Silicon Valley’s Safe Space - pdf.stafforini.com The New York Times (Cade Metz); copy hosted at pdf.stafforini.com · 13 February 2021

    “In August, Mr. Siskind restored his old blog posts to the internet.”

  8. E8 Slate Star Codex Wikipedia

    “In June 2020, he deleted all entries on Slate Star Codex, stating that a technology reporter from The New York Times (NYT) intended to publish an article about the blog using his full name.”

  9. E9 Slate Star Codex Wikipedia

    “was temporarily discontinued on June 23, 2020. In July 2020 the blog was partially back online, with the content restored but commenting disabled.”

Reasoning

The evidence shows the blog was taken down in June 2020 and later restored [E1, E2, E7, E8, E9]. No evidence item gives how many posts the blog had, so it can't confirm the figure of 1,557 or tell the claim's 'mostly true' and 'mostly false' outcomes apart.

Cite this claim

Scott Alexander, “Scott Alexander deleted his blog, which had 1,557 posts.” (said 21 January 2021). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_ae86e6e77349, method 0.1.0+8bea457b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_ae86e6e77349

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Scott Alexander, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More factual claims by Scott Alexander

  1. Mostly true Factual 5 October 2026
    “Reader Nikita Sokolsky has completed his work getting some extra Fatima documents from Portugal and translating them into English.”

    Reader Nikita Sokolsky has finished obtaining extra Fatima documents from Portugal and translating them into English.

  2. Resolved true Factual 5 October 2026
    “Rob Ennals, who made this year’s book review contest site, has gathered the reviews from earlier years into epubs here.”

    Rob Ennals, who made this year's ACX book review contest site, has gathered reviews from earlier years into epubs.

  3. Resolved true Factual 10 December 2024
    “There’s a good interview with Skarbek in last month’s issue of Asterisk, I think it will be online shortly.”

    Last month's issue of Asterisk (November 2024) contains an interview with Skarbek, which Scott thinks will be online shortly.

  4. Resolved true Factual 20 February 2023
    “Things felt so fuzzy that I (partly) abandoned my usual clear-resolution probabilistic predictions for total guesses.”

    In 2018 Scott Alexander partly abandoned his usual clear-resolution probabilistic predictions for rough guesses in his five-year predictions.

  5. Resolved true Factual 14 March 2022
    “Also last month, I suggested Manifold Markets have a loan feature to help boost investment in long-term markets.”

    In February 2022 Scott Alexander suggested that Manifold Markets add a loan feature to boost investment in long-term markets.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.