Said and Duncan are both among the two single-most complained about users since LW2.0 started (probably both in top 5, possibly literally top 2).
Complaints by whom? And why are these complaints significant?
Are you taking the stance that all or most of these complaints are valid, i.e. that the things being complained about are clearly bad (and not merely dispreferred by this or that individual LW member)?
(See also this recent comment, where I argue that at least one particular characterization of my commenting activity is just demonstrably inconsistent with reality.)
Here’s a bit of metadata on this: I can recall offhand 7 complaints from users with 2000+ karma who aren’t on the mod team (most of whom had significantly more than 2000 karma, and all of them had some highly upvoted comments and/or posts that are upvoted in the annual review). One of them cites you as being the reason they left LessWrong a few years ago, and ~3-4 others cite you as being a central instance of a pattern that means they participate less on LessWrong, or can’t have particularly important types of conversations here.
I also think most of the mod team (at least 4 of them? maybe more) of them have had such complaints (as users, rather than as moderators)
I think there’s probably at least 5 more people who complained about you by name who I don’t think have particularly legible credibility beyond “being some LessWrong users.”
I’m thinking about my reply to “are the complaints valid tho?”. I have a different ontology here.
There are some problems with this as pointing in a particular direction. There is little opportunity for people to be prompted to express opposite-sounding opinions, and so only the above opinions are available to you.
I have a concern that Said and Zack are an endangered species that I want there to be more of on LW and I’m sad they are not more prevalent. I have some issues with how they participate, mostly about tendencies towards cultivating infinite threads instead of quickly de-escalating and reframing, but this in my mind is a less important concern than the fact that there are not enough of them. Discouraging or even outlawing Said cuts that significantly, and will discourage others.
Ray pointing out the level of complaints is informative even without (far more effort) judgement on the merits of each complaint. There being a lot of complaints is evidence (to both the moderation team and the site users) that it’s worth putting in effort here to figure out if things could be better.
There being a lot of complaints is evidence [...] that it’s worth putting in effort here to figure out if things could be better.
It is evidence that there is some sort of problem. It’s not clear evidence about what should be done about it, about what “better” means specifically. Instituting ways of not talking about the problem anymore doesn’t help with addressing it.
It didn’t seem like Said was complaining about the reports being seen as evidence that it is worth figuring out whether thing could be better. Rather, he was complaining about them being used as evidence that things could be better.
If we speak precisely… in what way would they be the former without being the latter? Like, if I now think it’s more worth figuring out whether things could be better, presumably that’s because I now think it’s more likely that things could be better?
(I suppose I could also now think the amount-they-could-be-better, conditional on them being able to be better, is higher; but the probability that they could be better is unchanged. Or I could think that we’re currently acting under the assumption that things could be better, I now think that’s less likely so more worth figuring out whether the assumption is wrong. Neither seems like they fit in this case.)
Separately, I think my model of Said would say that he was not complaining, he was merely asking questions (perhaps to try to decide whether there was something to complain about, though “complain” has connotations there that my model of Said would object to).
So, if you think the mods are doing something that you think they shouldn’t be, you should probably feel free to say that (though I think there are better and worse ways to do so).
But if you think Said thinks the mods are doing something that Said thinks they shouldn’t be… idk, it feels against-the-spirit-of-Said to try to infer that from his comment? Like you’re doing the interpretive labor that he specifically wants people not to do.
My comment wasn’t well written, I shouldn’t have used the word “complaining” in reference to what Said was doing. To clarify:
As I see it, there are two separate claims:
That the complaints prove that Said has misbehaved (at least a little bit)
That the complaints increase the probability that Said has misbehaved
Said was just asking questions—but baked into his questions is the idea of the significance of the complaints, and this significance seems to be tied to claim 1.
Jefftk seems to be speaking about claim 2. So, his comment doesn’t seem like a direct response to Said’s comment, although the point is still a relevant one.
Complaints by whom? And why are these complaints significant?
Are you taking the stance that all or most of these complaints are valid, i.e. that the things being complained about are clearly bad (and not merely dispreferred by this or that individual LW member)?
(See also this recent comment, where I argue that at least one particular characterization of my commenting activity is just demonstrably inconsistent with reality.)
Here’s a bit of metadata on this: I can recall offhand 7 complaints from users with 2000+ karma who aren’t on the mod team (most of whom had significantly more than 2000 karma, and all of them had some highly upvoted comments and/or posts that are upvoted in the annual review). One of them cites you as being the reason they left LessWrong a few years ago, and ~3-4 others cite you as being a central instance of a pattern that means they participate less on LessWrong, or can’t have particularly important types of conversations here.
I also think most of the mod team (at least 4 of them? maybe more) of them have had such complaints (as users, rather than as moderators)
I think there’s probably at least 5 more people who complained about you by name who I don’t think have particularly legible credibility beyond “being some LessWrong users.”
I’m thinking about my reply to “are the complaints valid tho?”. I have a different ontology here.
There are some problems with this as pointing in a particular direction. There is little opportunity for people to be prompted to express opposite-sounding opinions, and so only the above opinions are available to you.
I have a concern that Said and Zack are an endangered species that I want there to be more of on LW and I’m sad they are not more prevalent. I have some issues with how they participate, mostly about tendencies towards cultivating infinite threads instead of quickly de-escalating and reframing, but this in my mind is a less important concern than the fact that there are not enough of them. Discouraging or even outlawing Said cuts that significantly, and will discourage others.
Ray pointing out the level of complaints is informative even without (far more effort) judgement on the merits of each complaint. There being a lot of complaints is evidence (to both the moderation team and the site users) that it’s worth putting in effort here to figure out if things could be better.
It is evidence that there is some sort of problem. It’s not clear evidence about what should be done about it, about what “better” means specifically. Instituting ways of not talking about the problem anymore doesn’t help with addressing it.
It didn’t seem like Said was complaining about the reports being seen as evidence that it is worth figuring out whether thing could be better. Rather, he was complaining about them being used as evidence that things could be better.
If we speak precisely… in what way would they be the former without being the latter? Like, if I now think it’s more worth figuring out whether things could be better, presumably that’s because I now think it’s more likely that things could be better?
(I suppose I could also now think the amount-they-could-be-better, conditional on them being able to be better, is higher; but the probability that they could be better is unchanged. Or I could think that we’re currently acting under the assumption that things could be better, I now think that’s less likely so more worth figuring out whether the assumption is wrong. Neither seems like they fit in this case.)
Separately, I think my model of Said would say that he was not complaining, he was merely asking questions (perhaps to try to decide whether there was something to complain about, though “complain” has connotations there that my model of Said would object to).
So, if you think the mods are doing something that you think they shouldn’t be, you should probably feel free to say that (though I think there are better and worse ways to do so).
But if you think Said thinks the mods are doing something that Said thinks they shouldn’t be… idk, it feels against-the-spirit-of-Said to try to infer that from his comment? Like you’re doing the interpretive labor that he specifically wants people not to do.
My comment wasn’t well written, I shouldn’t have used the word “complaining” in reference to what Said was doing. To clarify:
As I see it, there are two separate claims:
That the complaints prove that Said has misbehaved (at least a little bit)
That the complaints increase the probability that Said has misbehaved
Said was just asking questions—but baked into his questions is the idea of the significance of the complaints, and this significance seems to be tied to claim 1.
Jefftk seems to be speaking about claim 2. So, his comment doesn’t seem like a direct response to Said’s comment, although the point is still a relevant one.
(fyi I do plan to respond to this, although don’t know how satisfying it’ll be when I do)