Suggestion: whenever you’re tempted to respond with a tone argument (“stop being so rude/dismissive/such a flaming arsehole/etc”), try really hard to respond to the substance as if the tone is lovely. The effort will net you upvotes ;-)
Seconding your suggestion because it’s worked well for me every time I found the strength to use it. Also, when you feel really aggravated at your opponent’s tone, fogging is a useful and civil-sounding technique.
For a good example, note how wonderful Wei Dai’s tone consistently is, even when responding to comments where “go away you idiot” would be a quite reasonable reaction.
For a good example, note how wonderful Wei Dai’s tone consistently is, even when responding to comments where “go away you idiot” would be a quite reasonable reaction.
Better than many, worse than a few. Wei isn’t consistent and has violated this principle at times, at least as flagrant as others. (Mind you I can’t think of any examples from the last year or two.)
“I can’t think of any examples from the last year or two” seems to imply that you can think of some examples from before the last two years. Are you thinking of the time when I said arguing with you wasn’t fun, or something worse than that? I’d like to know because I honestly can’t remember writing any comments that might be considered “flagrant”, and your comment has made me a bit afraid that I might have a biased self image due to selective recall.
Are you thinking of the time when I said arguing with you wasn’t fun, or something worse than that?
I don’t recall you saying that. (ie. If/when you did say that it didn’t etch itself in my mind as a glaring social defection worth remembering).
I’d like to know because I honestly can’t remember writing any comments that might be considered “flagrant”
What you consider ok may be different to what I consider ok.
I’m not saying your tone isn’t better than most, but I’m certainly going to dispute it whenever you are put up on a pedestal as “wonderfully consistent”. (ie. I don’t want to bring up history, but claims of consistency are historical claims, and false ones at that!)
What you consider ok may be different to what I consider ok.
Let me put it this way then: I can’t recall doing anything worse than saying that arguing with you wasn’t fun, and certainly nothing that deserves being called “flagrant”, which my dictionary defines as “Conspicuously bad, offensive, or reprehensible”. If you still want to stand by your statement, then I think I deserve to see at least one example of what you are talking about.
If you still want to stand by your statement, then I think I deserve to see at least one example of what you are talking about.
I made my previous reply to you simply out of courtesy, and went out of my way to leave the option open for you to dismiss my objection as merely subjective—yet that was negatively received (by the metric of votes). I viscerally dislike it when I respond to questions in good faith and am penalized for doing so. I further assert (somewhat frequently) as a matter of general principle that nobody has the right to demand replies when making those replies can be expected to be detrimental for whatever reason—but almost always for some reason of social political nature. In this sense I oppose the sentiment and conclusion of your post from even more years back—Agree, retort or ignore. It introduces one more highly gamable social rule that would be a net detriment if adopted as a norm.
The above in mind I erased the draft reply I had—posting it would be an outright violation of my principles. I have no problem with accruing disapproval for expressing my own points, but actively provoking disapproval for the purpose of just answering a query of another when I would otherwise not have an interest in speaking on the subject? That’s an entirely different matter!
If you still want to stand by your statement
I’ll make no further stand here—and note that the stand I took here is against the position taken by your fanboy, not against you. In the unlikely event that David_Gerard or anyone else once again nominates Wei_Dai for an all-time “Turn The Other Cheek” award I will naturally take personal offense, sincerely, publicly and vocally.
It introduces one more highly gamable social rule that would be a net detriment if adopted as a norm.
Isn’t it probably a net detriment to have a norm against asking for concrete examples to back up vague critical claims when those vague criticisms are alleged to be offered in good faith?
There is no norm against asking. It is the asking via which Wei_Dai was able to publicly defend his right to the ‘wonderfully consistent tone’ nomination. What he gets no right to is the expectation that others will jump through a hoop he specifies when it is obviously detrimental to do so and no interest of there’s.
What he gets no right to is the expectation that others will jump through a hoop he specifies when it is obviously detrimental to do so and no interest of there’s.
One solution would be to have a general norm against offering vague criticisms without being prepared to back them up with concrete examples. If such a norm were in place, it wouldn’t seem like you had made a concession to Wei in particular when you provided an example. You wouldn’t have to “jump through a hoop he specifies”, because the hoop would already have been pre-specified by the community. Wei would gain no status boost at your expense when you followed the general norm.
If such a norm doesn’t already exist, do you agree that it should? If so, why not help to establish it by following it, while making it clear that you are providing the concrete example not because Wei requested it, but rather because there ought to be a general norm to provide such examples?
I have been trying to work within what I took to be your own framing of the context, since otherwise rejection is inevitable. I accept that I failed. Are you willing to explain where I strayed out of your frame?
What he gets no right to is the expectation that others will jump through a hoop he specifies when it is obviously detrimental to do so and no interest of there’s.
I do not see how it can be detrimental to either offer an example or say something like “I don’t recall an example from more than two years ago either.” Or are you objecting to the fact that I used the word “deserve” while asking for such an example, and “detrimental” refers to the possibility of encouraging such thinking and/or language in the future? But I only used the word after you refused my first request for an example. Why did you refuse that one?
I’m afraid you’re either having an illusion of transparency (i.e., the thing you believe to be obvious is entirely unclear to others), or perhaps just making up excuses to avoid admitting an error.
ETA: Just saw Tyrrell’s sibling comment, and I guess this whole incident could be explained by the fact that I think the norm suggested by Tyrrell already exists whereas you don’t. Can you confirm that’s what’s going on?
The general scenario plays out rather frequently and the game-theoretic incentives are of interest to me (far more so than the specifics of to just what degree Wei_Dai should be honored as a universal role model.) Let me see if I can explain clearly, at least for the specific variant encountered a couple of ancestors up.
Background preferences:
Being downvoted—and in particular the social opposition that represents—is an undesirable thing. It induces negative affect and I take (and reflectively endorse myself taking) actions to minimise this.
The aversion I feel (and endorse feeling) for a given instance of being downvoted or subject to verbal social aggression varies greatly depending on context. Not all downvotes are equal.
Being downvoted for expressing a position that would reflect negatively on a user with many allies is a minor cost. Not only is expected it is behavior I endorse as the right thing for them to do, except in as much as it is based on false premises. That is the error in judgement on the behalf of the voters is in not believing that the expressed position is valid.
More broadly than the above, being downvoted for things that I want to do is a moderate-to-low cost. I am being opposed but I am in essence paying for the opportunity to seek a goal that I desire and endorse.
Being punished for answering a question for the sake of someone else’s interest is a major cost. I find it highly unpleasant to be punished for doing something I did only out of courtesy. The verbal string provoked in my mind tends to include the phrase “Fuck That!” The aversion to being in such circumstances is high and represents my instincts rightly telling me that my behavior was naive. Following someone else’s frame when to do so is to self-sabotage—to be baited into an intentional or unintentional trap—is a gross social blunder.
All else being equal I love to answer the questions of others and in general to assist them in understanding me or, for that matter, assist them in just about anything.
With that in mind consider my incentives at this point:
It was my judgement that I would certainly be downvoted and possibly sniped for just about any reply I gave (short of being blatantly dishonest by making some sort of retraction.) Voting responses in such situations are just political—the aforementioned social alliances dictate that my comments in the thread would be systematically downvoted to a more or less uniform degree based on how many people are on the ‘blue’ side. I can accept that.
Following your frame, answering your question would result in penalties—the same penalties I would get if I was actually trying to achieve my own goal. I’ve mentioned how much I dislike being in such situations and that I consider walking into them to be an inexcusable social blunder.
In such context a non-reply isn’t about you, the person being ignored. It doesn’t mean that the question is considered disingenuous or manipulative (although in other cases—not this one—it often is). It doesn’t mean that there is any assumption that the situation is transparent. It doesn’t mean that there is no desire to accede to your wishes and give you an answer. What it is about is the incentives implied by the predicted behavior of your allies.
I’m afraid you’re either having an illusion of transparency (i.e., the thing you believe to be obvious is entirely unclear to others), or perhaps just making up excuses to avoid admitting an error.
I hope the above gives you an alternative understanding to ‘transparency’ issues. I further hope you understand that if you had not at least couched the latter option with at least a somewhat less dire dichotomous option as the alternative that I would have taken a rather significant degree of offense, in accordance to the social implications of underlying the move.
Or are you objecting to the fact that I used the word “deserve” while asking for such an example, and “detrimental” refers to the possibility of encouraging such thinking and/or language in the future?
This applies to a certain extent. The ‘deserve’ claim applied to the desire of someone to that another voluntarily does something that amounts to self-sabotage requires a high degree of endorsement before I will refrain from expressing an objection to it—regardless of whether it is directed at myself.
But I only used the word after you refused my first request for an example. Why did you refuse that one?
I gave you an answer, when I had the option of simply ignoring your comment. It consisted of giving the clear option to dismiss my objection to David_Gerard as merely different subjective preferences about how people should interact socially while giving a clear social cue that I didn’t want to go looking up ancient history. As a general rule we should not expect others to exactly follow the instructions we give them regarding what to speak on and it is discourteous to try to press them to do so. (See also.) This isn’t to say that it is always necessarily inappropriate for you to so but it does mean that the nature of the interaction moves from being a request to a coercion via the manipulation of perceptions within the social environment. Your expectation of getting an answer should move from being based on expectations of goodwill toward how effectively you can apply social force in the context.
As for the reasons I didn’t directly respond with a link or detailed description:
See my several previous mentions of the difference between desiring to bring up specific history from multiple years ago to the desire to insist that general claims of your wonderfully consistent tone be tempered. But mostly:
When you executed the behaviors that you did you (probably) considered them the right thing to do. I didn’t and don’t. I did not wish to create a battle about whether said responses are right or wrong. Hence giving a pre-emptive and lite version of a ‘lets agree that we will probably disagree’.
Frankly, it’s a lot of work both in terms of time and emotional effort to dredge up details of past conflicts.
It is almost certain that we are already talking about the same incident (and month or so of context) but that we recall vastly different salient features.
By way of elaboration of the final point and also in answer to the question you have been asking, I refer to a case where you made false, highly personal and significant accusations regarding my nature and motives and backed it up by taking unrelated expressions of mine completely out of context, complete with links. A (yes) ‘flagrant’ and unacceptable attempt to do reputation damage against a target—a violation that both includes and exceeds that of mere ‘tone’. This is was prompted by a disagreement with you regarding your post saying that lesswrong is biased because we didn’t support a post by a (high status) outsider making, if I recall, claims about how clearly guilty Amanda Knox was.
I have commented on how ironic it is that of all the hundreds of social attacks I’ve endured on lesswrong—from vulgar name calling through denigration of my intellect or ‘rationality’ and even somehow to ‘fanboy’ - the most vicious and memorable attack has been by Wei_Dai, a user who is usually well be behaved and is universally respected. ‘Universally respected’ includes my own respect for the intellectual contributions you have made via object level posts.
The above is my best attempt to answer the question directly and is approximately what I had mentally rehearsed prior to the negative incentives prompting me to abort the reply. I don’t expect you agree with my evaluation. I don’t expect you like hearing it. While my decision to not directly answer the question (until now) was not based on how it effects you, do you really think it would have been better for me to say the above than to dodge with “we probably think different things are ok”?
ETA: Just saw Tyrrell’s sibling comment, and I guess this whole incident could be explained by the fact that I think the norm suggested by Tyrrell already exists whereas you don’t. Can you confirm that’s what’s going on?
Maybe somewhat. I accept a norm that all else being equal answering people’s questions is desirable. A significant issue is that to the extent that Tyrrell’s norm exists it is negatively enforced. By which I mean effective punishment of ‘norm violaters’, assuming said norm, has a sign bit that points in the wrong direction.
If people punish you for what they would advocate as ‘the right thing to do’ then don’t do it.
do you really think it would have been better for me to say the above than to dodge with “we probably think different things are ok”?
Yes, in part because I thought there was a non-negligible chance that I had done something really bad and then blocked the memory of it. (I mentioned this fear in my first reply to you.) So I really do appreciate the time and effort you took to clearly explain everything (or at least your perspective of it, which is all I can ask for). Of course, as you suspected, I disagree about your interpretation of the events you cited, but I’ll respect your desire to not “battle” over it.
If people punish you for what they would advocate as ‘the right thing to do’ then don’t do it.
Huh? Given the upvotes on Tyrrell’s comment, it seems that most people (at least among the LW population paying attention to this thread) think the right thing to do is for you to provide a concrete example of what I did wrong, which you hadn’t done until now. It seems clear to me that people were punishing you for not doing the right thing.
(I hope you don’t mind that I ignored most of your comment. I did so because it was quite long and I’m afraid that readers are probably getting bored with this discussion. If you do mind, or have any specific parts you want me to address, or would like to continue in private, please let me know.)
Huh? Given the upvotes on Tyrrell’s comment, it seems that most people (at least among the LW population paying attention to this thread) think the right thing to do is for you to provide a concrete example of what I did wrong, which you hadn’t done until now. It seems clear to me that people were punishing you for not doing the right thing.
You miss the point. Comments that don’t exist physically can not be downvoted or sniped. Moreover they do not draw attention to the issue at all so in my judgement (and experience!) will likely result in less antipathy that will be taken out elsewhere. Whereas, as previously described, any (realistic) comment that was made would be penalised out of social obligation to yourself by the couple of (net) people who had already picked that side. If I was executing the strategy that I advocate I would have made no reply at all. I of course did not, I went in to an extended analysis of the abstract subject—but hey, I don’t consider myself obliged to do what I consider the correct thing to do all the time.
I hope you don’t mind that I ignored most of your comment. I did so because it was quite long and I’m afraid that readers are probably getting bored with this discussion. If you do mind, or have any specific parts you want me to address, or would like to continue in private, please let me know.
I was neutral with respect to getting any reply at all.
Worked well in what sense? David talked about netting upvotes, but surely that’s not a main consideration for you at this point. I’m hoping that being nice and responding just to substance might make the other person less belligerent and a better contributor to the community. I tried this on Dmytry and it didn’t work, but I wonder if it has worked in the past on others. Do you or anyone else have any anecdotes in this regard?
Hmm, you’re right, I just checked and it has never worked on rude people for me either. I must’ve been thinking about my exchanges with some people who were confident and confused about an issue, but not rude. Sorry.
It nets upvotes because it produces a useful response post for the onlookers, who have the votes. This is why it’s work, because it involves turning an annoying post into something of value.
Avoiding flame wars. Leaving the ‘contrarian’ at least with the sense that some of their ideas have been heard and validated. Reducing the extent to which you yourself get caught up in negative spirals. All without enabling them or encouraging more undesired behavior.
Both you and David_Gerard seem to have taken my question as asking about the general benefits of “ignoring tone”, when I was trying to figure out what cousin_it meant by “worked well”, specifically whether he had succeeded in making a rude commenter less belligerent and a better contributor to the community, and also explaining why I wasn’t sure what he meant.
Did you really misinterpret my question, or did you just use it as an opportunity to go off on a tangent and write something of general interest? (I’m trying to figure out if I need to be more careful about how to express myself.)
I would be interested to know what “worked well” meant more specifically as well (more specifically than “I felt personally satisfied with the conversation”).
Both you and David_Gerard seem to have taken my question as asking about the general benefits of “ignoring tone
I don’t seem to have done that at all.
Not only was I repling to what ‘worked well’ meant—in general and from what I have observed of specific recent applications here—I was discussing the use of fogging, not merely tone-ignorance.
(I remember being sort of rude or at least mildly-aggressively-uncharitable to you about a year ago and you responded saying we could clear up any misunderstandings via chat. I subsequently issued some mea culpas and was probably more charitable towards you from then on. Not sure if that counts, IIRC I was only being mildly rude.)
I’m thinking of the responses to critics of late. Even the arseholes are slightly worth listening to, but tone arguments are a way of not listening, and this may miss something important even if it’s often all the response it deserves. No-one’s obligated not to use it, but it’s a good exercise to be able not to, particularly for the benefit of onlookers.
Of course, listening doesn’t leave a record, so it’s hard to tell how many people are listening. It’s the relative handful of people who reply who define the perceived tone of the site’s response.
Or are you suggesting that responding to the substance is a better strategy than simply listening?
Hmmm. Driving readers away in such a way that they don’t even respond strikes me as bad. But in working out what to do about this, I’m left with asking my other-people-simulator, which I strongly suspect will just hand me back the results of typical mind fallacy.
Awarded to a nonconformist in black or a nonconformist in a clown suit? The latter is likely to get the tone argument (where someone’s claimed rejection is the tone of the statement rather than its content).
Suggestion: whenever you’re tempted to respond with a tone argument (“stop being so rude/dismissive/such a flaming arsehole/etc”), try really hard to respond to the substance as if the tone is lovely. The effort will net you upvotes ;-)
Seconding your suggestion because it’s worked well for me every time I found the strength to use it. Also, when you feel really aggravated at your opponent’s tone, fogging is a useful and civil-sounding technique.
That took forever for me to figure out. Wikipedia:Fogging.
Hmm… I just realized my standard for “taking forever” to find a piece of information is about 30 seconds. I love the future.
For a good example, note how wonderful Wei Dai’s tone consistently is, even when responding to comments where “go away you idiot” would be a quite reasonable reaction.
Better than many, worse than a few. Wei isn’t consistent and has violated this principle at times, at least as flagrant as others. (Mind you I can’t think of any examples from the last year or two.)
“I can’t think of any examples from the last year or two” seems to imply that you can think of some examples from before the last two years. Are you thinking of the time when I said arguing with you wasn’t fun, or something worse than that? I’d like to know because I honestly can’t remember writing any comments that might be considered “flagrant”, and your comment has made me a bit afraid that I might have a biased self image due to selective recall.
I don’t recall you saying that. (ie. If/when you did say that it didn’t etch itself in my mind as a glaring social defection worth remembering).
What you consider ok may be different to what I consider ok.
I’m not saying your tone isn’t better than most, but I’m certainly going to dispute it whenever you are put up on a pedestal as “wonderfully consistent”. (ie. I don’t want to bring up history, but claims of consistency are historical claims, and false ones at that!)
Let me put it this way then: I can’t recall doing anything worse than saying that arguing with you wasn’t fun, and certainly nothing that deserves being called “flagrant”, which my dictionary defines as “Conspicuously bad, offensive, or reprehensible”. If you still want to stand by your statement, then I think I deserve to see at least one example of what you are talking about.
Just for what it’s worth, I think that’s a poor definition. The actual meaning is more like “conspicuous”, with a connotation of badness (etc.).
I made my previous reply to you simply out of courtesy, and went out of my way to leave the option open for you to dismiss my objection as merely subjective—yet that was negatively received (by the metric of votes). I viscerally dislike it when I respond to questions in good faith and am penalized for doing so. I further assert (somewhat frequently) as a matter of general principle that nobody has the right to demand replies when making those replies can be expected to be detrimental for whatever reason—but almost always for some reason of social political nature. In this sense I oppose the sentiment and conclusion of your post from even more years back—Agree, retort or ignore. It introduces one more highly gamable social rule that would be a net detriment if adopted as a norm.
The above in mind I erased the draft reply I had—posting it would be an outright violation of my principles. I have no problem with accruing disapproval for expressing my own points, but actively provoking disapproval for the purpose of just answering a query of another when I would otherwise not have an interest in speaking on the subject? That’s an entirely different matter!
I’ll make no further stand here—and note that the stand I took here is against the position taken by your fanboy, not against you. In the unlikely event that David_Gerard or anyone else once again nominates Wei_Dai for an all-time “Turn The Other Cheek” award I will naturally take personal offense, sincerely, publicly and vocally.
Isn’t it probably a net detriment to have a norm against asking for concrete examples to back up vague critical claims when those vague criticisms are alleged to be offered in good faith?
There is no norm against asking. It is the asking via which Wei_Dai was able to publicly defend his right to the ‘wonderfully consistent tone’ nomination. What he gets no right to is the expectation that others will jump through a hoop he specifies when it is obviously detrimental to do so and no interest of there’s.
One solution would be to have a general norm against offering vague criticisms without being prepared to back them up with concrete examples. If such a norm were in place, it wouldn’t seem like you had made a concession to Wei in particular when you provided an example. You wouldn’t have to “jump through a hoop he specifies”, because the hoop would already have been pre-specified by the community. Wei would gain no status boost at your expense when you followed the general norm.
If such a norm doesn’t already exist, do you agree that it should? If so, why not help to establish it by following it, while making it clear that you are providing the concrete example not because Wei requested it, but rather because there ought to be a general norm to provide such examples?
I forcefully reject your framing of the context.
I have been trying to work within what I took to be your own framing of the context, since otherwise rejection is inevitable. I accept that I failed. Are you willing to explain where I strayed out of your frame?
I do not see how it can be detrimental to either offer an example or say something like “I don’t recall an example from more than two years ago either.” Or are you objecting to the fact that I used the word “deserve” while asking for such an example, and “detrimental” refers to the possibility of encouraging such thinking and/or language in the future? But I only used the word after you refused my first request for an example. Why did you refuse that one?
I’m afraid you’re either having an illusion of transparency (i.e., the thing you believe to be obvious is entirely unclear to others), or perhaps just making up excuses to avoid admitting an error.
ETA: Just saw Tyrrell’s sibling comment, and I guess this whole incident could be explained by the fact that I think the norm suggested by Tyrrell already exists whereas you don’t. Can you confirm that’s what’s going on?
The general scenario plays out rather frequently and the game-theoretic incentives are of interest to me (far more so than the specifics of to just what degree Wei_Dai should be honored as a universal role model.) Let me see if I can explain clearly, at least for the specific variant encountered a couple of ancestors up.
Background preferences:
Being downvoted—and in particular the social opposition that represents—is an undesirable thing. It induces negative affect and I take (and reflectively endorse myself taking) actions to minimise this.
The aversion I feel (and endorse feeling) for a given instance of being downvoted or subject to verbal social aggression varies greatly depending on context. Not all downvotes are equal.
Being downvoted for expressing a position that would reflect negatively on a user with many allies is a minor cost. Not only is expected it is behavior I endorse as the right thing for them to do, except in as much as it is based on false premises. That is the error in judgement on the behalf of the voters is in not believing that the expressed position is valid.
More broadly than the above, being downvoted for things that I want to do is a moderate-to-low cost. I am being opposed but I am in essence paying for the opportunity to seek a goal that I desire and endorse.
Being punished for answering a question for the sake of someone else’s interest is a major cost. I find it highly unpleasant to be punished for doing something I did only out of courtesy. The verbal string provoked in my mind tends to include the phrase “Fuck That!” The aversion to being in such circumstances is high and represents my instincts rightly telling me that my behavior was naive. Following someone else’s frame when to do so is to self-sabotage—to be baited into an intentional or unintentional trap—is a gross social blunder.
All else being equal I love to answer the questions of others and in general to assist them in understanding me or, for that matter, assist them in just about anything.
With that in mind consider my incentives at this point:
It was my judgement that I would certainly be downvoted and possibly sniped for just about any reply I gave (short of being blatantly dishonest by making some sort of retraction.) Voting responses in such situations are just political—the aforementioned social alliances dictate that my comments in the thread would be systematically downvoted to a more or less uniform degree based on how many people are on the ‘blue’ side. I can accept that.
Following your frame, answering your question would result in penalties—the same penalties I would get if I was actually trying to achieve my own goal. I’ve mentioned how much I dislike being in such situations and that I consider walking into them to be an inexcusable social blunder.
In such context a non-reply isn’t about you, the person being ignored. It doesn’t mean that the question is considered disingenuous or manipulative (although in other cases—not this one—it often is). It doesn’t mean that there is any assumption that the situation is transparent. It doesn’t mean that there is no desire to accede to your wishes and give you an answer. What it is about is the incentives implied by the predicted behavior of your allies.
I hope the above gives you an alternative understanding to ‘transparency’ issues. I further hope you understand that if you had not at least couched the latter option with at least a somewhat less dire dichotomous option as the alternative that I would have taken a rather significant degree of offense, in accordance to the social implications of underlying the move.
This applies to a certain extent. The ‘deserve’ claim applied to the desire of someone to that another voluntarily does something that amounts to self-sabotage requires a high degree of endorsement before I will refrain from expressing an objection to it—regardless of whether it is directed at myself.
I gave you an answer, when I had the option of simply ignoring your comment. It consisted of giving the clear option to dismiss my objection to David_Gerard as merely different subjective preferences about how people should interact socially while giving a clear social cue that I didn’t want to go looking up ancient history. As a general rule we should not expect others to exactly follow the instructions we give them regarding what to speak on and it is discourteous to try to press them to do so. (See also.) This isn’t to say that it is always necessarily inappropriate for you to so but it does mean that the nature of the interaction moves from being a request to a coercion via the manipulation of perceptions within the social environment. Your expectation of getting an answer should move from being based on expectations of goodwill toward how effectively you can apply social force in the context.
As for the reasons I didn’t directly respond with a link or detailed description:
See my several previous mentions of the difference between desiring to bring up specific history from multiple years ago to the desire to insist that general claims of your wonderfully consistent tone be tempered. But mostly:
When you executed the behaviors that you did you (probably) considered them the right thing to do. I didn’t and don’t. I did not wish to create a battle about whether said responses are right or wrong. Hence giving a pre-emptive and lite version of a ‘lets agree that we will probably disagree’.
Frankly, it’s a lot of work both in terms of time and emotional effort to dredge up details of past conflicts.
It is almost certain that we are already talking about the same incident (and month or so of context) but that we recall vastly different salient features.
By way of elaboration of the final point and also in answer to the question you have been asking, I refer to a case where you made false, highly personal and significant accusations regarding my nature and motives and backed it up by taking unrelated expressions of mine completely out of context, complete with links. A (yes) ‘flagrant’ and unacceptable attempt to do reputation damage against a target—a violation that both includes and exceeds that of mere ‘tone’. This is was prompted by a disagreement with you regarding your post saying that lesswrong is biased because we didn’t support a post by a (high status) outsider making, if I recall, claims about how clearly guilty Amanda Knox was.
I have commented on how ironic it is that of all the hundreds of social attacks I’ve endured on lesswrong—from vulgar name calling through denigration of my intellect or ‘rationality’ and even somehow to ‘fanboy’ - the most vicious and memorable attack has been by Wei_Dai, a user who is usually well be behaved and is universally respected. ‘Universally respected’ includes my own respect for the intellectual contributions you have made via object level posts.
The above is my best attempt to answer the question directly and is approximately what I had mentally rehearsed prior to the negative incentives prompting me to abort the reply. I don’t expect you agree with my evaluation. I don’t expect you like hearing it. While my decision to not directly answer the question (until now) was not based on how it effects you, do you really think it would have been better for me to say the above than to dodge with “we probably think different things are ok”?
Maybe somewhat. I accept a norm that all else being equal answering people’s questions is desirable. A significant issue is that to the extent that Tyrrell’s norm exists it is negatively enforced. By which I mean effective punishment of ‘norm violaters’, assuming said norm, has a sign bit that points in the wrong direction.
If people punish you for what they would advocate as ‘the right thing to do’ then don’t do it.
Yes, in part because I thought there was a non-negligible chance that I had done something really bad and then blocked the memory of it. (I mentioned this fear in my first reply to you.) So I really do appreciate the time and effort you took to clearly explain everything (or at least your perspective of it, which is all I can ask for). Of course, as you suspected, I disagree about your interpretation of the events you cited, but I’ll respect your desire to not “battle” over it.
Huh? Given the upvotes on Tyrrell’s comment, it seems that most people (at least among the LW population paying attention to this thread) think the right thing to do is for you to provide a concrete example of what I did wrong, which you hadn’t done until now. It seems clear to me that people were punishing you for not doing the right thing.
(I hope you don’t mind that I ignored most of your comment. I did so because it was quite long and I’m afraid that readers are probably getting bored with this discussion. If you do mind, or have any specific parts you want me to address, or would like to continue in private, please let me know.)
You miss the point. Comments that don’t exist physically can not be downvoted or sniped. Moreover they do not draw attention to the issue at all so in my judgement (and experience!) will likely result in less antipathy that will be taken out elsewhere. Whereas, as previously described, any (realistic) comment that was made would be penalised out of social obligation to yourself by the couple of (net) people who had already picked that side. If I was executing the strategy that I advocate I would have made no reply at all. I of course did not, I went in to an extended analysis of the abstract subject—but hey, I don’t consider myself obliged to do what I consider the correct thing to do all the time.
I was neutral with respect to getting any reply at all.
Worked well in what sense? David talked about netting upvotes, but surely that’s not a main consideration for you at this point. I’m hoping that being nice and responding just to substance might make the other person less belligerent and a better contributor to the community. I tried this on Dmytry and it didn’t work, but I wonder if it has worked in the past on others. Do you or anyone else have any anecdotes in this regard?
Hmm, you’re right, I just checked and it has never worked on rude people for me either. I must’ve been thinking about my exchanges with some people who were confident and confused about an issue, but not rude. Sorry.
It nets upvotes because it produces a useful response post for the onlookers, who have the votes. This is why it’s work, because it involves turning an annoying post into something of value.
Avoiding flame wars. Leaving the ‘contrarian’ at least with the sense that some of their ideas have been heard and validated. Reducing the extent to which you yourself get caught up in negative spirals. All without enabling them or encouraging more undesired behavior.
Both you and David_Gerard seem to have taken my question as asking about the general benefits of “ignoring tone”, when I was trying to figure out what cousin_it meant by “worked well”, specifically whether he had succeeded in making a rude commenter less belligerent and a better contributor to the community, and also explaining why I wasn’t sure what he meant.
Did you really misinterpret my question, or did you just use it as an opportunity to go off on a tangent and write something of general interest? (I’m trying to figure out if I need to be more careful about how to express myself.)
I would be interested to know what “worked well” meant more specifically as well (more specifically than “I felt personally satisfied with the conversation”).
I don’t seem to have done that at all.
Not only was I repling to what ‘worked well’ meant—in general and from what I have observed of specific recent applications here—I was discussing the use of fogging, not merely tone-ignorance.
(I remember being sort of rude or at least mildly-aggressively-uncharitable to you about a year ago and you responded saying we could clear up any misunderstandings via chat. I subsequently issued some mea culpas and was probably more charitable towards you from then on. Not sure if that counts, IIRC I was only being mildly rude.)
Whatever kind of contrarian Less Wrong thinks is valuable. It’s not completely specified. I’m not sure I see how tone comes in.
I’m thinking of the responses to critics of late. Even the arseholes are slightly worth listening to, but tone arguments are a way of not listening, and this may miss something important even if it’s often all the response it deserves. No-one’s obligated not to use it, but it’s a good exercise to be able not to, particularly for the benefit of onlookers.
Of course, listening doesn’t leave a record, so it’s hard to tell how many people are listening. It’s the relative handful of people who reply who define the perceived tone of the site’s response.
Or are you suggesting that responding to the substance is a better strategy than simply listening?
Hmmm. Driving readers away in such a way that they don’t even respond strikes me as bad. But in working out what to do about this, I’m left with asking my other-people-simulator, which I strongly suspect will just hand me back the results of typical mind fallacy.