1) Its not that clear to me how to estimate the “norm” of one’s criticism. We aren’t going to do math to commute this stuff. What kind of heuristics can we use? Notably the community requires some degree of consistency in how people estimate criticism norms.
I think that in any situation in which the overall quality of a contribution must be estimated, we will have the same problem. Ultimately, I believe it is going to require either some kind of averaged community sentiment, in a similar way to how things are upvoted / downvoted right now, or require heavy moderator involvement (and have lots of mods). Personally I think moderators have pretty good incentives to be honest and thorough in their judgement (since they could easily lose their status by making poor calls). I think they could be encouraged to notify people which portions of their comments need to be edited or removed, and allow time for changes like that to happen before taking any disciplinary actions. Being objectively close to norm one is probably not possible, but it is much more possible to determine when things are far away from this norm, which I think is the important thing.
2) If you strongly disagree with a proposition X it might be hard to give any norm-one criticism. Maybe someone is suggesting plan X and you very storngly think they should abandon the plan. It might feel dishonest, insincere, or immoral to give advice on how to make plan X go slightly less badly.
I think it is possible to decouple norm-one criticism from your overall appraisal of the plan itself. Personally, I believe it is possible to be sincere when giving advice on how to slightly improve the plan without stating any disapproval you may have. It may not be the most candid and transparent summary of your feelings, and I realize that some might feel difficulty repressing the urge to express them, but if I have to be honest about what my plan suggests, then that is what I believe has to be done.
There might yet be a place for overall appraisal to be given in each critique, separately from the rest of the critique that follows norm one. But I still think it is good to avoid appraisal that is overly negative. The reason I’m not very worried about this particular issue is that, for most proposals or plans that require collective action, there has to be a level of support that must be reached before any progress on it can be made. Therefore, I do not think there is much risk in not making disapproval well-known. You can simply opt-out of participation. I think there is room for exceptions in the case that someone is planning on taking dangerous actions by themselves, in which case it might be the correct action to try and stop them.
3) Say a friend of yours asks you to critique their writing. This advice basically says you should hold back on some/much of your feedback. In theory you should try to only send the feedback thats most useful but fits inside a “norm-one” limit. This seems different from the “wall of red ink” technique that is commonly praised in wiriting cricles. (Though I find the walls of red ink demoralizing I am not a writer).
Hm, I’m not at all familiar with the “wall of red ink” technique. I too would feel completely overwhelmed by that kind of thing. Funnily, just by randomly Googling a bit I found a writing education company called “NoRedInk”.
4) Is it ever useful for someone to say: “Ignore the norm-one limit. Just give me all the criticism you have”. Will it become “low status” not to ask for unlimited-norm-criticism?
That’s a difficult question. I think it is possible that asking for unlimited criticism could become a status-signalling kind of thing, but I also feel that it wouldn’t be subtle enough for it to really work, especially if the norm-one limit is a visible community principle. Then it might be possible to get called-out for doing that.
I think that in any situation in which the overall quality of a contribution must be estimated, we will have the same problem. Ultimately, I believe it is going to require either some kind of averaged community sentiment, in a similar way to how things are upvoted / downvoted right now, or require heavy moderator involvement (and have lots of mods). Personally I think moderators have pretty good incentives to be honest and thorough in their judgement (since they could easily lose their status by making poor calls). I think they could be encouraged to notify people which portions of their comments need to be edited or removed, and allow time for changes like that to happen before taking any disciplinary actions. Being objectively close to norm one is probably not possible, but it is much more possible to determine when things are far away from this norm, which I think is the important thing.
I think it is possible to decouple norm-one criticism from your overall appraisal of the plan itself. Personally, I believe it is possible to be sincere when giving advice on how to slightly improve the plan without stating any disapproval you may have. It may not be the most candid and transparent summary of your feelings, and I realize that some might feel difficulty repressing the urge to express them, but if I have to be honest about what my plan suggests, then that is what I believe has to be done.
There might yet be a place for overall appraisal to be given in each critique, separately from the rest of the critique that follows norm one. But I still think it is good to avoid appraisal that is overly negative. The reason I’m not very worried about this particular issue is that, for most proposals or plans that require collective action, there has to be a level of support that must be reached before any progress on it can be made. Therefore, I do not think there is much risk in not making disapproval well-known. You can simply opt-out of participation. I think there is room for exceptions in the case that someone is planning on taking dangerous actions by themselves, in which case it might be the correct action to try and stop them.
Hm, I’m not at all familiar with the “wall of red ink” technique. I too would feel completely overwhelmed by that kind of thing. Funnily, just by randomly Googling a bit I found a writing education company called “NoRedInk”.
That’s a difficult question. I think it is possible that asking for unlimited criticism could become a status-signalling kind of thing, but I also feel that it wouldn’t be subtle enough for it to really work, especially if the norm-one limit is a visible community principle. Then it might be possible to get called-out for doing that.