Ray is owning stuff, so this is just me chiming in with some quick takes, but I think it is genuinely important for people to be able to raise hypotheses like “this person is trying to maintain a motte-and-bailey”, and to tell people if that is their current model.
I don’t currently think the above comment violated any moderation norms I would enforce, though navigating this part of conversational space is super hard and it’s quite possible there are some really important norms in the space that are super important and should be enforced, that I am missing. I have a model of a lot of norms in the space already, however the above comment does not violate any of them right now (mostly because it does prefix the statement with a “I suspect X”, and does not claim any broader social consensus beyond that).
I also think it’s good for you to chime in and say that it’s false (you are also correct in that it is uncharitable, but assuming that everyone is well-intentioned is IMO not true and not a required part of good discourse, so it not being charitable seems true but also not obviously bad and I am not sure what you pointing it out means. I think we should create justified knowledge of good intentions wherever possible, I just don’t think LW comment threads, especially threads about moderation, are a space where achieving such common knowledge is remotely feasible).
I am quite confused. The comment clearly says “I suspect”? That seems like one of the clearest prefixes I know for raising something as a hypothesis, and very clearly signals that something is not being asserted as a fact. Am I missing something?
The “I suspect” is attached to the “Duncan won’t like this idea.” I would bet $10 that if you polled 100 readers on whether it was meant to include “I suspect that Duncan wants, etc.” a majority would say no, the second part was taken as given.
It’s of the form “I suspect X, because Y.” Not “I suspect X because I suspect Y.”
Oh, sure, I would be happy to take that bet. I agree there is some linguistic ambiguity here, but I think my interpretation is more natural.
In any case, @clone of saturn can clarify here. I would currently bet this is just a sad case of linguistic ambiguity, not actually someone making a confident statement about you having ill-intent.
I can’t read Duncan’s mind and have no direct access to facts about his ultimate motivations. I can be much more confident that a person who is currently getting away with doing X has reason to dislike a rule that would prevent X. So the “I suspect” was much more about the second clause than the first. I find this so obvious that it never occurred to me that it could be read another way.
I don’t accept Duncan’s stand-in sentence “I suspect that Eric won’t like the zoo, because he wants to stay out of the sun.” as being properly analogous, because staying out of the sun is not something people typically need to hide or deny.
To be honest, I think I have to take this exchange as further evidence that Duncan is operating in bad faith. (Within this particular conflict, not necessarily in general.)
I would’ve preferred if you had proposed another alternative wording, so that poll could be run as well, instead of just identifying the feature you think is disanalogous. (If you supply the wording, after all, Duncan can’t have twisted it, and your interpretation gets fairly tested.)
Unfortunately, I don’t have quite the reach that Duncan has, but I think the result is still suggestive. (Subtract one from each vote, since I left one of each to start, as is usual.)
To be honest, I think I have to take this exchange as further evidence that Duncan is operating in bad faith. (Within this particular conflict, not necessarily in general.)
Oliver proposed an alternative wording and I affirmed that I’d still bet on his wording. I was figuring I shouldn’t try to run a second poll myself because of priming/poisoning the well but I’m happy for someone else to go and get data.
(It’s early yet, but so far it is unanimously in favor of my interpretation, with twenty reactions one way and zero the other, and one comment in between the two choices I gave but writing out that the epistemic status on the second clause seems stronger than “I suspect”.)
(Somewhat ironically, this makes me marginally more likely to interpret “well, I meant the more epistemically reserved thing” as being a fallback to a motte, if such a statement ever appears.)
Ray is owning stuff, so this is just me chiming in with some quick takes, but I think it is genuinely important for people to be able to raise hypotheses like “this person is trying to maintain a motte-and-bailey”, and to tell people if that is their current model.
I don’t currently think the above comment violated any moderation norms I would enforce, though navigating this part of conversational space is super hard and it’s quite possible there are some really important norms in the space that are super important and should be enforced, that I am missing. I have a model of a lot of norms in the space already, however the above comment does not violate any of them right now (mostly because it does prefix the statement with a “I suspect X”, and does not claim any broader social consensus beyond that).
I also think it’s good for you to chime in and say that it’s false (you are also correct in that it is uncharitable, but assuming that everyone is well-intentioned is IMO not true and not a required part of good discourse, so it not being charitable seems true but also not obviously bad and I am not sure what you pointing it out means. I think we should create justified knowledge of good intentions wherever possible, I just don’t think LW comment threads, especially threads about moderation, are a space where achieving such common knowledge is remotely feasible).
This did not raise the hypothesis that I want to maintain a motte-and-bailey.
It asserted that I do, as if fact.
I am quite confused. The comment clearly says “I suspect”? That seems like one of the clearest prefixes I know for raising something as a hypothesis, and very clearly signals that something is not being asserted as a fact. Am I missing something?
The “I suspect” is attached to the “Duncan won’t like this idea.” I would bet $10 that if you polled 100 readers on whether it was meant to include “I suspect that Duncan wants, etc.” a majority would say no, the second part was taken as given.
It’s of the form “I suspect X, because Y.” Not “I suspect X because I suspect Y.”
Oh, sure, I would be happy to take that bet. I agree there is some linguistic ambiguity here, but I think my interpretation is more natural.
In any case, @clone of saturn can clarify here. I would currently bet this is just a sad case of linguistic ambiguity, not actually someone making a confident statement about you having ill-intent.
I can’t read Duncan’s mind and have no direct access to facts about his ultimate motivations. I can be much more confident that a person who is currently getting away with doing X has reason to dislike a rule that would prevent X. So the “I suspect” was much more about the second clause than the first. I find this so obvious that it never occurred to me that it could be read another way.
I don’t accept Duncan’s stand-in sentence “I suspect that Eric won’t like the zoo, because he wants to stay out of the sun.” as being properly analogous, because staying out of the sun is not something people typically need to hide or deny.
To be honest, I think I have to take this exchange as further evidence that Duncan is operating in bad faith. (Within this particular conflict, not necessarily in general.)
I would’ve preferred if you had proposed another alternative wording, so that poll could be run as well, instead of just identifying the feature you think is disanalogous. (If you supply the wording, after all, Duncan can’t have twisted it, and your interpretation gets fairly tested.)
Why not just use the original sentence, with only the name changed? I don’t see what is supposed to be accomplished by the other substitutions.
Unfortunately, I don’t have quite the reach that Duncan has, but I think the result is still suggestive. (Subtract one from each vote, since I left one of each to start, as is usual.)
Ok, I edited the comment.
Does that influence
in any way?
Four days’ later edit: guess not. :/
Oliver proposed an alternative wording and I affirmed that I’d still bet on his wording. I was figuring I shouldn’t try to run a second poll myself because of priming/poisoning the well but I’m happy for someone else to go and get data.
The poll is here for people to watch results trickle in, though I ask that no one present in this subthread vote so the numbers can be more raw.
(It’s early yet, but so far it is unanimously in favor of my interpretation, with twenty reactions one way and zero the other, and one comment in between the two choices I gave but writing out that the epistemic status on the second clause seems stronger than “I suspect”.)
(Somewhat ironically, this makes me marginally more likely to interpret “well, I meant the more epistemically reserved thing” as being a fallback to a motte, if such a statement ever appears.)