Thank you. I was complaining about his use of needless profanity to refer to what I said, and a general “I’m better than you” tone (understandable, if he comes from a place where catching trolls is high status, but still rude). I not only approve of being told that I’ve done something wrong, I actually thanked him for it. Crocker’s rules don’t say “explain things in an insulting way”, they say “don’t soften the truths you speak to me”. You can optimize for information—and even get it across better—when you’re not trying to be rude. For instance,
And top it off with a bit of sympathetic character, damsel-in-distress crap.
That would not convey less truth if it weren’t vulgar. You can easily communicate that someone is tugging people’s heartstrings by presenting as a highly sympathetic damsel in distress without being vulgar.
Also, stuff like this:
Ha! well predicted I say. I just looked at the other 500 responses.
That makes it quite clear that nyan_sandwich is getting a high from this and feels high-status because of behavior like this. While that in itself is fine, the whole post does have the feel of gloating to it. I simultaneously want to upvote it for information and downvote it for lowering the overall level of civility.
Here’s my attempt to clarify how I wish to be engaged with: convey whatever information you feel is true. Be as reluctant to actively insult me as you would anyone else, bearing in mind that a simple “this is incorrect” is not insulting to me, and nor is “you’re being manipulative”. “This is crap” always lowers the standard of debate. If you spell out what’s crappy about it, your readers (including yours truly) can grasp for themselves that it’s crap.
Of course, if nyan_sandwich just came from 4chan, we can congratulate him on being an infinitely better human being than everyone else he hangs out with, as well as on saying something that isn’t 100% insulting, vulgar nonsense. (I’d say less than 5% insulting, vulgar nonsense.) Actually, his usual contexts considered, I may upvote him after all. I know what it takes to be more polite than you’re used to others being.
Thus, one who has committed to these rules largely gives up the right to complain about emotional provocation, flaming, abuse and other violations of etiquette
There’s a decision theoretic angle here. If I declare Crocker’s rules, and person X calls me a filthy anteater, then I might not care about getting valuable information from them (they probably don’t have any to share) but I refrain from lashing out anyway! Because I care about the signal I send to person Y who is still deciding whether to engage with me, who might have a sensitive detector of Crocker’s rules violations. And such thoughtful folks may offer the most valuable critique. I’m afraid you might have shot yourself in the foot here.
I think this is generally correct. I do wonder about a few points:
If I am operating on Crocker’s Rules (I personally am not, mind, but hypothetically), and someone’s attempt to convey information to me has obvious room for improvement, is it ever permissible for me to let them know this? Given your decision theory point, my guess would be “yes, politely and privately,” but I’m curious as to what others think as well. As a side note, I presume that if the other person is also operating by Crocker’s Rules, you can say whatever you like back.
someone’s attempt to convey information to me has obvious room for improvement
Do you mean improvement of the information content or the tone? If the former, I think saying “your comment was not informative enough, please explain more” is okay, both publicly and privately. If the latter, I think saying “your comment was not polite enough” is not okay under the spirit of Crocker’s rules, neither publicly nor privately, even if the other person has declared Crocker’s rules too.
When these things are orthogonal, I think your interpretation is clear, and when information would be obscured by politeness the information should win—that’s the point of Crocker’s Rules. What about when information is obscured by deliberate impoliteness? Does the prohibition on criticizing impoliteness win, or the permit for criticizing lack of clarity? In any case, if the other person is not themselves operating by Crocker’s Rules, it is of course important that your response be polite, whatever it is.
Question: do Crocker’s rules work differently here than I’m used to? I’m used to a communication style where people say things to get the point across, even though such things would be considered rude in typical society, not for being insulting but for pointless reasons, and we didn’t do pointless things just to be typical. We were bluntly honest with each other, even (actually especially) when people were wrong (after all, it was kind of important that we convey that information accurately, completely and as quickly as possible in some cases), but to be deliberately insulting when information could have been just as easily conveyed some other way (as opposed to when it couldn’t be), or to be insulting without adding any useful information at all, was quite gauche. At one point someone mentioned that if we wanted to invoke that in normal society, say we were under Crocker’s rules.
So it looks like the possibilities worth considering are:
Someone LIED just to make it harder for us to fit in with normal society!
Someone was just wrong.
You’re wrong.
Crockering means different things to different people.
Baiting and switching by declaring Crocker’s rules then shaming and condescending when they do not meet your standard of politeness could legitimately be considered a manipulative social ploy.
I didn’t consider Crocker’s rules at all when reading nyan’s comment and it still didn’t seem at all inappropriate. You being outraged at the ‘vulgarity’ of the phrase “damsel in distress crap” is a problem with your excess sensitivity and not with the phrase. As far as I’m concerned “damsel in distress crap” is positively gentle. I would have used “martyrdom bullshit” (but then I also use bullshit as a technical term).
Crocker’s rules is about how people speak to you. But for all it is a reply about your comment nyan wasn’t even talking to you. He was talking to the lesswrong readers warning them about perceived traps they are falling into when engaging with your comment.
Like it or not people tend to reciprocate disrespect with disrespect. While you kept your comment superficially civil and didn’t use the word ‘crap’ you did essentially call everyone here a bunch of sexist Christian hating bullies. Why would you expect people to be nice to you when you treat them like that?
The impression I have is that calling Crocker’s rules being never acting offended or angry at the way people talk to you, with the expectation that you’ll get more information if people don’t censor themselves out of politeness.
Some of your reactions here are not those I expect from someone under Crocker’s rules (who would just ignore anything insulting or offensive).
So maybe what you consider as “Crocker’s rules” is what most people here would consider “normal” discussion, so when you call Crocker’s rules, people are extra rude.
I would suggest just dropping reference to Crocker’s rules, I don’t think they’re necessary for having a reasonable discussion, and they they put pressure on the people you’re talking to to either call Crocker’s rules too (giving you carte blanche to be rude to them), otherwise they look uptight or something.
So maybe what you consider as “Crocker’s rules” is what most people here would consider “normal” discussion, so when you call Crocker’s rules, people are extra rude.
Possible. I’m inexperienced in talking with neurotypicals. All I know is what was drilled into me by them, which is basically a bunch of things of the form “don’t ever convey this piece of information because it’s rude” (where the piece of information is like… you have hairy arms, you’re wrong, I don’t like this food, I don’t enjoy spending time with you, this gift was not optimized for making me happy—and the really awful, horrible dark side where they feel pressured never to say certain things to me, like that I’m wrong, they’re annoyed by something I’m doing, I’m ugly, I sound stupid, my writing needs improvement—it’s horrible to deal with people who never say those things because I can never assume sincerity, I just have to assume they’re lying all the time) that upon meeting other neurodiverse I immediately proceeded to forget all about. And so did they. And THAT works out well. It’s accepted within that community that “Crocker’s rules” is how the rest of the world will refer to it.
Anyway, if I’m not allowed to hear the truth without having to listen to whatever insults anyone can come up with, then so be it, I really want to hear the truth and I know it will never be given to me otherwise. But there IS supposed to be something between “you are not allowed to say anything to me except that I’m right about everything and the most wonderful special snowflake ever” and “insult me in every way you can think of”, even if the latter is still preferable to the former. (Is this community a place with a middle ground? If so, I didn’t think such existed. If so, I’ll gladly go by the normal rules of discussion here.)
the baseline interaction mode would be considered rude-but-not-insulting by most American subcultures, especially neurotypical ones
the interaction mode invoked by “Crocker’s rules” would be considered insulting by most American subcultures, especially neurotypical ones
there’s considerable heterogeneity in terms of what’s considered unacceptably rude
there’s a tentative consensus that dealing with occasional unacceptable rudeness is preferable to the consequences of disallowing occasional unacceptable rudeness, and
the community pushes back on perceived attempts to enforce politeness far more strongly than it pushes back on perceived rudeness.
Dunno if any of that answers your questions.
I would also say that nobody here has come even remotely close to “insult in every conceivable way” as an operating mode.
the baseline interaction mode would be considered rude-but-not-insulting by most American subcultures, especially neurotypical ones
the community pushes back on perceived attempts to enforce politeness far more strongly than it pushes back on perceived rudeness.
YES!
There seem to be a lot of new people introducing themselves on the Welcome thread today/yesterday. I would like to encourage everyone to maybe be just a tad bit more polite, and cognizant of the Principle of Charity, at least for the next week or two, so all our newcomers can acclimate to the culture here.
As someone who has only been on this site for a month or two (also as a NT, socially-skilled, female), I have spoken in the past about my difficulties dealing with the harshness here. I ended up deciding not to fight it, since people seem to like it that way, and that’s ok. But I do think the community needs to be aware that this IS in fact an issue that new (especially NT) people are likely to shy away from, and even leave or just not post because of.
tl;dr- I deal with the “rudeness”, but want people to be aware that is does in fact exist. Those of us who dislike it have just learned to keep our mouths shut and deal with it. There are a lot of new people now, so try to soften it for the next week or two.
(Note: I have not been recently down-voted, flamed, or crushed, so this isn’t just me raging.)
I’m unlikely to change my style of presentation here as a consequence of new people arriving, especially since I find it unlikely that the wave of introductions reflects an actual influx of new people, as opposed to an influx of activity on the Welcome threads making the threads more visible and inspiring introductions.
If my presentation style is offputting to new people who prefer a different style, I agree that’s unfortunate. I’m not sure that my dealing by changing my style for their benefit—supposing they even benefit from it—is better.
You are correct, in that I do believe that many of the introductions here are people who have been lurking a long time, but are following the principle of social proof, and just introducing themselves now that everyone else is.
However, I do think that once they have gone through the motions of setting up an account an publishing their introduction, that self-consistency will lead them to continue to be more active on this site; They have just changed their self-image to that of “Member of LW” after all!
Your other supposition- that they might not benefit from it… I will tell you that I have almost quit LW many times in the past month, and it is only a lack of anything better out there that has kept me here.
My assumption is that you are OK with this, and feel that people that can’t handle the heat should get out of the kitchen anyway, so to speak.
I think that is a valid point, IFF you want to maintain LW as it currently stands. I will admit that my preferences are different in that I hope LW grows and gets more and more participants. I also hope that this growth causes LW to be more “inclusive” and have a higher percentage of females (gender stereotyping here, sorry) and NTs, which will in effect lower the harshness of the site.
So I think our disagreement doesn’t stem from “bad” rationality on either of our parts. It’s just that we have different end-goals.
I’m sorry, I did not want to imply that you specifically made me want to quit. In all honesty, the lack of visual avatars means I can’t keep LW users straight at all.
But since you seem to be asking about your presentation style, here is me re-writing your previous post in a way that is optimized for a conversation I would enjoy, without feeling discomfort.
Original:
I’m unlikely to change my style of presentation here as a consequence of new people arriving, especially since I find it unlikely that the wave of introductions reflects an actual influx of new people, as opposed to an influx of activity on the Welcome threads making the threads more visible and inspiring introductions.
If my presentation style is offputting to new people who prefer a different style, I agree that’s unfortunate. I’m not sure that my dealing by changing my style for their benefit—supposing they even benefit from it—is better.
How I WISH LW operated (and realize that 95% of you do not wish this)
I agree that it’s unfortunate that the style of LW posts may drive new users away, especially if they would otherwise enjoy the site and become valuable participants. However, I don’t plan on updating my personal writing style here.
My main reason for this is that I find it unlikely that the wave of introductions reflects an actual influx of new people, as opposed to an influx of activity on the Welcome threads making the threads more visible and inspiring introductions.
I am also unsure if changing my writing style would actually help these newcomers in the long run. Or even if it did, would I prefer a LW that is watered-down, but more accessible? (my interpretation of what you meant by “better”)
I asked about my presentation style because that’s what I wrote about in the first place, and I couldn’t tell whether your response to my comment was actually a response to what I wrote, or some more general response to some more general thing that you decided to treat my comment as a standin for.
I infer from your clarification that i was the latter. I appreciate the clarification.
Your suggested revision of what I said would include several falsehoods, were I to have said it.
Your suggested revision of what I said would include several falsehoods, were I to have said it.
I had to fill in some interpretations of what I thought you could have meant. If what I filled in was false, it is just that I do not know your mind as well as you do. If I did, I could fill in things that were true.
Politeness does not necessarily require falsity. Your post lacked the politeness parts, so I had to fill in politeness parts that I thought sounded like reasonable things you might be thinking. Were you trying to be polite, you could fill in politeness parts with things that were actually true for you (and not just my best guesses.)
I infer from your explanation that your version of politeness does require that I reveal more information than I initially revealed. Can you say more about why?
How do I insult thee? Let me count the ways. I insult thee to the depth and breadth and height My mind can reach, when feeling out of sight For the lack of Reason and the craft of Bayes.
I must confess, I have never actually heard the words ‘gyre’ and ‘falconer’. I assumed they could be pronounced in such a way that it would sound like a rhyme. In my head, they both were pronounced like ‘hear’. Likewise, I assumed one could pronounce ‘world’ and ‘hold’ in such a way that they could sort-of rhyme. In my head, ‘hold’ was pronounced ‘held’ and ‘world’ was pronounced ‘weld.’
Returning to this… if you’re still tempted, I’d love to see your take on it. Feel free to use me as a target if that helps your creativity, though I’m highly unlikely to take anything you say in this mode seriously. (That said, using a hypothetical third party would likely be emotionally easier.)
Unrelatedly: were you the person who had the script that sorts and display’s all of a user’s comments? I’ve changed computers since being handed that pointer and seem to have misplaced the pointer.
[T]hey put pressure on the people you’re talking to to either call Crocker’s rules too (giving you carte blanche to be rude to them), otherwise they look uptight or something.
This should be strongly rejected, if Crocker’s Rules are ever going to do more good than harm. I do not mean that it is not the case given existing norms (I simply do not know one way or the other), but that norms should be established such that this is clearly not the case. Someone who is unable to operate according to Crocker’s Rules attempting to does not improve discourse or information flow—no one should be pressured to do so.
The problem is, the more a community is likely to consider X a “good” practice, the more it is likely to think less of those who refuse to do do X, whatever X is; so I don’t see a good way of avoiding negative connotations to “unable to operate according to Crocker’s Rules”.
… that is, unless the interaction is not symmetric, so that when one side announces Crocker’s rules, there is no implicit expectation that the other side should do the same (with the associated status threat); for example if on my website I mention Crocker’s rules next to the email form or something.
But in a peer-to-peer community like this, that expectation is always going to be implicit, and I don’t see a good way to make it disappear.
As I’ve mentioned before, I am not operating by Crocker’s rules. I try to be responsible for my emotional state, but realize that I’m not perfect at this, so tell me the truth but there’s no need to be a dick about it. I am not unlikely, in the future, to declare Crocker’s rules with respect to some specific individuals and domains, but globally is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Here’s my part too: I don’t declare Crocker’s rules and do not commit to paying any heed to whether others have declared Crocker’s rules. I’ll speak to people however I see fit—which will include taking into account the preferences of both the recipient and any onlookers to precisely the degree that seems appropriate or desirable at the time.
I don’t know about getting rid of it entirely, but we can at least help by stressing the importance of the distinction, and choosing to view operation by Crocker’s rules as rare, difficult, unrelated to any particular discussion, and of only minor status boost.
Another approach might be to make all Crocker communication private, and expect polite (enough) discourse publicly.
The underlying assumption is that rudeness is sometimes necessary for effective conveyance of information, if only to signal a lack of patience or tolerance: after all, knowing whether the speaker is becoming angry or despondent is useful rational evidence.
Looking hard for another source, something called the DoWire Wiki has this unsourced:
By invoking these Rules, the recipient declares that s/he does not care about, and some hold that s/he gives up all right to complain about and must require others not to complain about, any level of emotional provocation, flames, abuse of any kind.
So if anyone is using Crocker’s Rules a different way, I think it’s safe to say they’re doing it wrong, but only by definition. Maybe someone should ask Crocker, if they’re concerned.
OK. FWIW, I agree that nyan-sandwich’s tone was condescending, and that they used vulgar words. I also think “I suppose they can’t be expected to behave any better, we should praise them for not being completely awful” is about as condescending as anything else that’s been said in this thread.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I didn’t mean for that to come out that way (when I used to spend a lot of time on places with low standards, my standards were lowered, too), but that did end up insulting. I’m sorry, nyan_sandwich.
Crocker’s rules don’t say “explain things in an insulting way”, they say “don’t soften the truths you speak to me”. You can optimize for information—and even get it across better—when you’re not trying to be rude.
A lot of intelligent folks have to spend a lot of energy trying not to be rude, and part of the point of Crocker’s Rules is to remove that burden by saying you won’t call them on rudeness.
Not all politeness is inconsistent with communicating truth. I agree that “Does this dress make me look fat” has a true answer and a polite answer. It’s worth investing some attention into figuring out which answer to give. Often, people use questions like that as a trap, as mean-spirited or petty social and emotional manipulation. Crocker’s Rule is best understood as a promise that the speaker is aware of this dynamic and explicitly denies engaging in it.
That doesn’t license being rude. If you are really trying to help someone else come to a better understanding of the world, being polite helps them avoid cognitive biases that would prevent them from thinking logically about your assertions. In short, Crocker’s Rule does not mean “I don’t mind if you are intentionally rude to me.” It means “I am aware that your assertions might be unintentionally rude, and I will be guided by your intention to inform rather than interpreting you as intentionally rude.
In short, Crocker’s Rule does not mean “I don’t mind if you are intentionally rude to me.” It means “I am aware that your assertions might be unintentionally rude, and I will be guided by your intention to inform rather than interpreting you as intentionally rude.
Right, I wasn’t saying anything that contradicted that. Rather, some of us have additional cognitive burden in general trying to figure out if something is supposed to be rude, and I always understood part of the point of Crocker’s Rules to be removing that burden so we can communicate more efficiently. Especially since many such people are often worth listening to.
Thank you. I was complaining about his use of needless profanity to refer to what I said, and a general “I’m better than you” tone (understandable, if he comes from a place where catching trolls is high status, but still rude). I not only approve of being told that I’ve done something wrong, I actually thanked him for it. Crocker’s rules don’t say “explain things in an insulting way”, they say “don’t soften the truths you speak to me”. You can optimize for information—and even get it across better—when you’re not trying to be rude. For instance,
That would not convey less truth if it weren’t vulgar. You can easily communicate that someone is tugging people’s heartstrings by presenting as a highly sympathetic damsel in distress without being vulgar.
Also, stuff like this:
That makes it quite clear that nyan_sandwich is getting a high from this and feels high-status because of behavior like this. While that in itself is fine, the whole post does have the feel of gloating to it. I simultaneously want to upvote it for information and downvote it for lowering the overall level of civility.
Here’s my attempt to clarify how I wish to be engaged with: convey whatever information you feel is true. Be as reluctant to actively insult me as you would anyone else, bearing in mind that a simple “this is incorrect” is not insulting to me, and nor is “you’re being manipulative”. “This is crap” always lowers the standard of debate. If you spell out what’s crappy about it, your readers (including yours truly) can grasp for themselves that it’s crap.
Of course, if nyan_sandwich just came from 4chan, we can congratulate him on being an infinitely better human being than everyone else he hangs out with, as well as on saying something that isn’t 100% insulting, vulgar nonsense. (I’d say less than 5% insulting, vulgar nonsense.) Actually, his usual contexts considered, I may upvote him after all. I know what it takes to be more polite than you’re used to others being.
That doesn’t sound right. Here’s a quote from Crocker’s rules:
Another quote:
Quote from our wiki:
There’s a decision theoretic angle here. If I declare Crocker’s rules, and person X calls me a filthy anteater, then I might not care about getting valuable information from them (they probably don’t have any to share) but I refrain from lashing out anyway! Because I care about the signal I send to person Y who is still deciding whether to engage with me, who might have a sensitive detector of Crocker’s rules violations. And such thoughtful folks may offer the most valuable critique. I’m afraid you might have shot yourself in the foot here.
I think this is generally correct. I do wonder about a few points:
If I am operating on Crocker’s Rules (I personally am not, mind, but hypothetically), and someone’s attempt to convey information to me has obvious room for improvement, is it ever permissible for me to let them know this? Given your decision theory point, my guess would be “yes, politely and privately,” but I’m curious as to what others think as well. As a side note, I presume that if the other person is also operating by Crocker’s Rules, you can say whatever you like back.
Do you mean improvement of the information content or the tone? If the former, I think saying “your comment was not informative enough, please explain more” is okay, both publicly and privately. If the latter, I think saying “your comment was not polite enough” is not okay under the spirit of Crocker’s rules, neither publicly nor privately, even if the other person has declared Crocker’s rules too.
When these things are orthogonal, I think your interpretation is clear, and when information would be obscured by politeness the information should win—that’s the point of Crocker’s Rules. What about when information is obscured by deliberate impoliteness? Does the prohibition on criticizing impoliteness win, or the permit for criticizing lack of clarity? In any case, if the other person is not themselves operating by Crocker’s Rules, it is of course important that your response be polite, whatever it is.
Basically, no. If you want to criticize people for being rude to you just don’t operate by Crocker’s rules. Make up different ones.
Question: do Crocker’s rules work differently here than I’m used to? I’m used to a communication style where people say things to get the point across, even though such things would be considered rude in typical society, not for being insulting but for pointless reasons, and we didn’t do pointless things just to be typical. We were bluntly honest with each other, even (actually especially) when people were wrong (after all, it was kind of important that we convey that information accurately, completely and as quickly as possible in some cases), but to be deliberately insulting when information could have been just as easily conveyed some other way (as opposed to when it couldn’t be), or to be insulting without adding any useful information at all, was quite gauche. At one point someone mentioned that if we wanted to invoke that in normal society, say we were under Crocker’s rules.
So it looks like the possibilities worth considering are:
Someone LIED just to make it harder for us to fit in with normal society!
Someone was just wrong.
You’re wrong.
Crockering means different things to different people.
Which do you think it is?
Cousin it’s comment doesn’t leave much room for doubt.
Baiting and switching by declaring Crocker’s rules then shaming and condescending when they do not meet your standard of politeness could legitimately be considered a manipulative social ploy.
I didn’t consider Crocker’s rules at all when reading nyan’s comment and it still didn’t seem at all inappropriate. You being outraged at the ‘vulgarity’ of the phrase “damsel in distress crap” is a problem with your excess sensitivity and not with the phrase. As far as I’m concerned “damsel in distress crap” is positively gentle. I would have used “martyrdom bullshit” (but then I also use bullshit as a technical term).
Crocker’s rules is about how people speak to you. But for all it is a reply about your comment nyan wasn’t even talking to you. He was talking to the lesswrong readers warning them about perceived traps they are falling into when engaging with your comment.
Like it or not people tend to reciprocate disrespect with disrespect. While you kept your comment superficially civil and didn’t use the word ‘crap’ you did essentially call everyone here a bunch of sexist Christian hating bullies. Why would you expect people to be nice to you when you treat them like that?
The impression I have is that calling Crocker’s rules being never acting offended or angry at the way people talk to you, with the expectation that you’ll get more information if people don’t censor themselves out of politeness.
Some of your reactions here are not those I expect from someone under Crocker’s rules (who would just ignore anything insulting or offensive).
So maybe what you consider as “Crocker’s rules” is what most people here would consider “normal” discussion, so when you call Crocker’s rules, people are extra rude.
I would suggest just dropping reference to Crocker’s rules, I don’t think they’re necessary for having a reasonable discussion, and they they put pressure on the people you’re talking to to either call Crocker’s rules too (giving you carte blanche to be rude to them), otherwise they look uptight or something.
Possible. I’m inexperienced in talking with neurotypicals. All I know is what was drilled into me by them, which is basically a bunch of things of the form “don’t ever convey this piece of information because it’s rude” (where the piece of information is like… you have hairy arms, you’re wrong, I don’t like this food, I don’t enjoy spending time with you, this gift was not optimized for making me happy—and the really awful, horrible dark side where they feel pressured never to say certain things to me, like that I’m wrong, they’re annoyed by something I’m doing, I’m ugly, I sound stupid, my writing needs improvement—it’s horrible to deal with people who never say those things because I can never assume sincerity, I just have to assume they’re lying all the time) that upon meeting other neurodiverse I immediately proceeded to forget all about. And so did they. And THAT works out well. It’s accepted within that community that “Crocker’s rules” is how the rest of the world will refer to it.
Anyway, if I’m not allowed to hear the truth without having to listen to whatever insults anyone can come up with, then so be it, I really want to hear the truth and I know it will never be given to me otherwise. But there IS supposed to be something between “you are not allowed to say anything to me except that I’m right about everything and the most wonderful special snowflake ever” and “insult me in every way you can think of”, even if the latter is still preferable to the former. (Is this community a place with a middle ground? If so, I didn’t think such existed. If so, I’ll gladly go by the normal rules of discussion here.)
My experience of LW is that:
the baseline interaction mode would be considered rude-but-not-insulting by most American subcultures, especially neurotypical ones
the interaction mode invoked by “Crocker’s rules” would be considered insulting by most American subcultures, especially neurotypical ones
there’s considerable heterogeneity in terms of what’s considered unacceptably rude
there’s a tentative consensus that dealing with occasional unacceptable rudeness is preferable to the consequences of disallowing occasional unacceptable rudeness, and
the community pushes back on perceived attempts to enforce politeness far more strongly than it pushes back on perceived rudeness.
Dunno if any of that answers your questions.
I would also say that nobody here has come even remotely close to “insult in every conceivable way” as an operating mode.
YES!
There seem to be a lot of new people introducing themselves on the Welcome thread today/yesterday. I would like to encourage everyone to maybe be just a tad bit more polite, and cognizant of the Principle of Charity, at least for the next week or two, so all our newcomers can acclimate to the culture here.
As someone who has only been on this site for a month or two (also as a NT, socially-skilled, female), I have spoken in the past about my difficulties dealing with the harshness here. I ended up deciding not to fight it, since people seem to like it that way, and that’s ok. But I do think the community needs to be aware that this IS in fact an issue that new (especially NT) people are likely to shy away from, and even leave or just not post because of.
tl;dr- I deal with the “rudeness”, but want people to be aware that is does in fact exist. Those of us who dislike it have just learned to keep our mouths shut and deal with it. There are a lot of new people now, so try to soften it for the next week or two.
(Note: I have not been recently down-voted, flamed, or crushed, so this isn’t just me raging.)
I’m unlikely to change my style of presentation here as a consequence of new people arriving, especially since I find it unlikely that the wave of introductions reflects an actual influx of new people, as opposed to an influx of activity on the Welcome threads making the threads more visible and inspiring introductions.
If my presentation style is offputting to new people who prefer a different style, I agree that’s unfortunate. I’m not sure that my dealing by changing my style for their benefit—supposing they even benefit from it—is better.
You are correct, in that I do believe that many of the introductions here are people who have been lurking a long time, but are following the principle of social proof, and just introducing themselves now that everyone else is.
However, I do think that once they have gone through the motions of setting up an account an publishing their introduction, that self-consistency will lead them to continue to be more active on this site; They have just changed their self-image to that of “Member of LW” after all!
Your other supposition- that they might not benefit from it… I will tell you that I have almost quit LW many times in the past month, and it is only a lack of anything better out there that has kept me here.
My assumption is that you are OK with this, and feel that people that can’t handle the heat should get out of the kitchen anyway, so to speak.
I think that is a valid point, IFF you want to maintain LW as it currently stands. I will admit that my preferences are different in that I hope LW grows and gets more and more participants. I also hope that this growth causes LW to be more “inclusive” and have a higher percentage of females (gender stereotyping here, sorry) and NTs, which will in effect lower the harshness of the site.
So I think our disagreement doesn’t stem from “bad” rationality on either of our parts. It’s just that we have different end-goals.
I am going to share with you a trick that is likely to make staying here (or anywhere else with some benefit) easier...
Prismattic’s guaranteed (or your money back) method for dealing with stupid or obnoxious text on the Internet:
Read the problematic material as though it is being performed by Gonzo’s chickens, to the tune of the William Tell Overture.
When this gets boring, you can alternate with reading it as performed by the Swedish chef, to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries.
Really, everything becomes easier to bear when filtered this way. I wish separating out emotional affect was as easy in tense face-to-face situations.
Can you confirm that you’re actually responding to what I wrote?
If so, can you specify what it is about my presentation style that has encouraged you to almost quit?
I’m sorry, I did not want to imply that you specifically made me want to quit. In all honesty, the lack of visual avatars means I can’t keep LW users straight at all.
But since you seem to be asking about your presentation style, here is me re-writing your previous post in a way that is optimized for a conversation I would enjoy, without feeling discomfort.
Original:
How I WISH LW operated (and realize that 95% of you do not wish this)
I asked about my presentation style because that’s what I wrote about in the first place, and I couldn’t tell whether your response to my comment was actually a response to what I wrote, or some more general response to some more general thing that you decided to treat my comment as a standin for.
I infer from your clarification that i was the latter. I appreciate the clarification.
Your suggested revision of what I said would include several falsehoods, were I to have said it.
I had to fill in some interpretations of what I thought you could have meant. If what I filled in was false, it is just that I do not know your mind as well as you do. If I did, I could fill in things that were true.
Politeness does not necessarily require falsity. Your post lacked the politeness parts, so I had to fill in politeness parts that I thought sounded like reasonable things you might be thinking. Were you trying to be polite, you could fill in politeness parts with things that were actually true for you (and not just my best guesses.)
I agree that politeness does not require falsity.
I infer from your explanation that your version of politeness does require that I reveal more information than I initially revealed. Can you say more about why?
I should hope not. I can conceive of more ways to insult than I can type in a day, depending on how we want to count ‘ways’.
How do I insult thee? Let me count the ways.
I insult thee to the depth and breadth and height
My mind can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the lack of Reason and the craft of Bayes.
Turning and turning in the narrowing spiral
The user cannot resist those memes which are viral;
The waterline is lowered; beliefs begin to cool;
Mere tribalism is loosed, upon Lesswrong’s school,
The grey-matter is killed, and everywhere
The knowledge of one’s ignorance is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Heh. I’m not sure why you felt compelled to rhyme there, though; Yeats didn’t.
I must confess, I have never actually heard the words ‘gyre’ and ‘falconer’. I assumed they could be pronounced in such a way that it would sound like a rhyme. In my head, they both were pronounced like ‘hear’. Likewise, I assumed one could pronounce ‘world’ and ‘hold’ in such a way that they could sort-of rhyme. In my head, ‘hold’ was pronounced ‘held’ and ‘world’ was pronounced ‘weld.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEunVObSnVM
Apparently, this is not the case. Oops.
Although I must admit I was tempted take it up as a novel challenge just to demonstrate how absurd the hyperbole was.
Returning to this… if you’re still tempted, I’d love to see your take on it. Feel free to use me as a target if that helps your creativity, though I’m highly unlikely to take anything you say in this mode seriously. (That said, using a hypothetical third party would likely be emotionally easier.)
Unrelatedly: were you the person who had the script that sorts and display’s all of a user’s comments? I’ve changed computers since being handed that pointer and seem to have misplaced the pointer.
No, that’d be Wei Dai, I think; eg. I recently used http://www.ibiblio.org/weidai/lesswrong_user.php?u=Eliezer_Yudkowsky to point out that Eliezer has more than one negative comment (contra the cult leader accusation).
Hah! Awesome. Thank you!
You might like this comment.
This should be strongly rejected, if Crocker’s Rules are ever going to do more good than harm. I do not mean that it is not the case given existing norms (I simply do not know one way or the other), but that norms should be established such that this is clearly not the case. Someone who is unable to operate according to Crocker’s Rules attempting to does not improve discourse or information flow—no one should be pressured to do so.
I agree with you in the abstract.
The problem is, the more a community is likely to consider X a “good” practice, the more it is likely to think less of those who refuse to do do X, whatever X is; so I don’t see a good way of avoiding negative connotations to “unable to operate according to Crocker’s Rules”.
… that is, unless the interaction is not symmetric, so that when one side announces Crocker’s rules, there is no implicit expectation that the other side should do the same (with the associated status threat); for example if on my website I mention Crocker’s rules next to the email form or something.
But in a peer-to-peer community like this, that expectation is always going to be implicit, and I don’t see a good way to make it disappear.
Well, here’s me doing my part: I don’t declare Crocker’s rules, and am unlikely to ever do so. Others can if they wish.
As I’ve mentioned before, I am not operating by Crocker’s rules. I try to be responsible for my emotional state, but realize that I’m not perfect at this, so tell me the truth but there’s no need to be a dick about it. I am not unlikely, in the future, to declare Crocker’s rules with respect to some specific individuals and domains, but globally is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Here’s my part too: I don’t declare Crocker’s rules and do not commit to paying any heed to whether others have declared Crocker’s rules. I’ll speak to people however I see fit—which will include taking into account the preferences of both the recipient and any onlookers to precisely the degree that seems appropriate or desirable at the time.
I don’t know about getting rid of it entirely, but we can at least help by stressing the importance of the distinction, and choosing to view operation by Crocker’s rules as rare, difficult, unrelated to any particular discussion, and of only minor status boost.
Another approach might be to make all Crocker communication private, and expect polite (enough) discourse publicly.
Wikipedia and Google seem to think Eliezer is the authority on Crocker’s Rules. Quoting Eliezer on sl4 via Wikipedia:
Also, from our wiki:
Looking hard for another source, something called the DoWire Wiki has this unsourced:
So if anyone is using Crocker’s Rules a different way, I think it’s safe to say they’re doing it wrong, but only by definition. Maybe someone should ask Crocker, if they’re concerned.
OK.
FWIW, I agree that nyan-sandwich’s tone was condescending, and that they used vulgar words.
I also think “I suppose they can’t be expected to behave any better, we should praise them for not being completely awful” is about as condescending as anything else that’s been said in this thread.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I didn’t mean for that to come out that way (when I used to spend a lot of time on places with low standards, my standards were lowered, too), but that did end up insulting. I’m sorry, nyan_sandwich.
A lot of intelligent folks have to spend a lot of energy trying not to be rude, and part of the point of Crocker’s Rules is to remove that burden by saying you won’t call them on rudeness.
Not all politeness is inconsistent with communicating truth. I agree that “Does this dress make me look fat” has a true answer and a polite answer. It’s worth investing some attention into figuring out which answer to give. Often, people use questions like that as a trap, as mean-spirited or petty social and emotional manipulation. Crocker’s Rule is best understood as a promise that the speaker is aware of this dynamic and explicitly denies engaging in it.
That doesn’t license being rude. If you are really trying to help someone else come to a better understanding of the world, being polite helps them avoid cognitive biases that would prevent them from thinking logically about your assertions. In short, Crocker’s Rule does not mean “I don’t mind if you are intentionally rude to me.” It means “I am aware that your assertions might be unintentionally rude, and I will be guided by your intention to inform rather than interpreting you as intentionally rude.
Right, I wasn’t saying anything that contradicted that. Rather, some of us have additional cognitive burden in general trying to figure out if something is supposed to be rude, and I always understood part of the point of Crocker’s Rules to be removing that burden so we can communicate more efficiently. Especially since many such people are often worth listening to.