Actually, I was going to recommend against a detailed formal policy. Codified rules seems like an invitation for passionate arguments about Stuff That Doesn’t Matter™. If we need a rule, how about:
If you are acting in a way incongruent with the greater harmony of LessWrong, a moderator may private message to ask you to stop. If you don’t stop, you may be banned.
Also have a stated social norm:
Don’t downvote comments because of the author. There’s no hard and fast rule, but if you’ve downvoted someone more than 8 times in one day or read through someone’s comment history and downvoted past the first page, you are doing something wrong.
In the specific case of mass downvoting, if a moderator gets a complaint I think the typical procedure should be:
Moderator private messages the alleged downvoter a non-accusatory FYI letting them know that someone felt they were heavy on the thumbs-down and it might be a good idea to take a breather
If vindictive downvoting continues, look into the logs, do some quantitative analysis, and evaluate. Most probable conclusion is that the downvoter isn’t being vindictive. But if, regrettably, the downvoter appears to have a bullying voting pattern, the moderator should private message them “Really, you should stop. Even if there are good reasons for all of your downvotes, you shouldn’t continue just because it looks bad. There are plenty of other people are around who can pick up the slack if you bow out of downvoting.”
If abusive downvoting continues, give a final warning, then ban.
But before you complain to a moderator: Please consider the possibility that your comments are just bad, that someone might disagree with you for legitimate reasons, and that negative feedback is information positive.
There’s no hard and fast rule, but if you’ve downvoted someone more than 8 times in one day or read through someone’s comment history and downvoted past the first page, you are doing something wrong.
It’s not wrong if most of what the user writes is bad. The wrong thing is to act on an incorrect judgement, something that won’t be supported by idealized community. The heuristic you suggest limits influence, which guards against consequences of overconfidence. In some cases, you can see that there is no mistake.
There’s no hard and fast rule, but if you’ve downvoted someone more than 8 times in one day or read through someone’s comment history and downvoted past the first page, you are doing something wrong.
It’s not wrong if most of what the user writes is bad.
I tend to agree with the first statement as a rule of thumb. If you’re reading and downvoting 8 postings in a day that you think are not worth reading (apparently), it seems like you’re taking it upon yourself to punish that person, whereas I think it is better if we try to read what we consider to be valuable, and if we happen across some writing that seems bad, sure, critique it with a −1 if that seems worthwhile, but don’t go on a jag reading all the bad (by your standards) writing you can find and downvoting it.
If you are acting in a way incongruent with the greater harmony of LessWrong, a moderator may private message to ask you to stop. If you don’t stop, you may be banned.
Harmony is near the bottom of the list of values I want to see enforced. Probably below oral hygiene.
I do think that there are valid discussion about the usage of drugs such as modafinil that edge on the border of illegality. The LW scholar thread that allows requesting scientific papers could also be interpreted as violating copyrights and therefore fall in that category. I don’t have trouble with someone advocating to drive faster than the speeding limit. Having private contractors that fight in wars can violate military laws that all combatants have to wear military uniforms. Homosexuality happens to be a criminal act in some countries.
Instead of saying “criminal act” I would speak about actions that are likely to be persecuted as felonies in Western states if they become known to the authorities.
How about “violent, abusive, or fraudulent acts”? That seems to cover most of what we’d want to ban.
I wouldn’t be as happy with limiting it to felonies; first of all, I know just enough about law to know that what is or isn’t a felony is a complicated and potentially counterintuitive question and likely varies substantially by jurisdiction; and second, there’s a lot of things that I wouldn’t want people advocating but aren’t violent or felonious. Doxxing your pseudonymous critics, for example, is legally a fairly light gray but strikes me as very bad behavior when seen through the lens of blog policy.
How about “violent, abusive, or fraudulent acts”? That seems to cover most of what we’d want to ban.
Starting a war is certainly a violent act. Do you want to prevent that kind of discussion on LW? No one is allowed to write a post that the US should start a war against Iran?
Well, you could modify that with “personally” if you want to be able to advocate state violence. Honestly, though, I’d be just as happy if that was forbidden; the recent discussion of the violence in Gaza certainly hasn’t seemed very productive.
the recent discussion of the violence in Gaza certainly hasn’t seemed very productive.
The problem is when you forbid exactly one side of the argument. Forum rules that allow criticism of a Israeli attack on Gaza but that don’t provide the ability to defend it, can lead to trouble when some people find their views unfairly censored.
On the other hand I think the incident that lead to us having a rule against advocation of violence is not covered in the provision of “personally”.
Though I’d note that when you’re discussing a war or violent political conflict, supporting any acts of any side can be construed as supporting violence, so this doesn’t look too politically slanted. It bars advocacy of aggressive war, terrorism, or violent revolution, but given that this isn’t a politics board trafficking in expansionist nationalism or exotic revolutionary ideologies, and that one of the fastest ways to mindkill someone is to advocate physically killing them or their buddies, I’m okay with that. (It’s also obviously noncentral to the rule, and I maintain that some degree of vagueness in forum policy is necessary if you want to get stuff done without every policy issue degenerating into unproductive trivia.)
Though I’d note that when you’re discussing a war or violent political conflict, supporting any acts of any side can be construed as supporting violence, so this doesn’t look too politically slanted.
You don’t need to support Hamas to criticize Israeli action in the region.
“Violent crime, abuse, or fraud”, then.
Okay, that looks fine to me.
It’s also obviously noncentral to the rule, and I maintain that some degree of vagueness in forum policy is necessary if you want to get stuff done without every policy issue degenerating into unproductive trivia
It makes sense to imagine what the rule actually does in practice. There are certain actions like killing your neighbor where it’s perfectly fine to allow moral arguments about why killing your neighbor is bad but still forbid people from advocating killing your neighbor. That’s because we have a consensus that killing your neighbor is bad.
If you start banning the advocation of violence in a political debate where one side favors violence and the other isn’t you are set up for drama.
You don’t need to support Hamas to criticize Israeli action in the region.
No, but—to move back to something a little less topical—you may recall that criticism of American action in Afghanistan and Iraq circa 2001 − 2011 was seen in certain circles as implicit support of Islamist violence. It wasn’t, of course, but if you’re trying to avoid drama you need to take perception into account as much as reality.
In this case, though, the spirit of the rule is less “avoid political drama”—we have a weaker norm against politics for that—and more “don’t advocate things that make us look like we’re all about to go Ted Kaczynski on someone’s ass”, which is why I feel that discussing war in its context is noncentral.
No, but—to move back to something a little less topical—you may recall that criticism of American action in Afghanistan and Iraq circa 2001 − 2011 was seen in certain circles as implicit support of Islamist violence
If you start banning people on forum for positions that they don’t explicitly argue but that you think they argue implicitly because of tribal associations than you have problems.
It wasn’t, of course
Yes. It wasn’t by any reasonable rational standard that a forum moderator is supposed to use to make moderating decisions. Don’t let yourself be mindkilled. Arguments aren’t soldiers. It’s quite easy to make an argument against invading other countries without arguing in favor of violence.
On reflection, you’re right; a prohibition on advocating violence doesn’t extend that far. Though I’d appreciate not having memes from the politics sequence flung at me.
Points 1 and 2 are reasonably clear. Point 3 is unhelpfully vague. If I were moderator, I would have no idea how far that pushes, and as a commenter I wouldn’t have a lot of insight as to what to avoid.
I don’t mind giving a catch-all authority to a moderator, but if there are specific things you have in mind that are to be avoided, it’s probably better to enumerate them.
I would add an explicit “nothing illegal, nothing personally threatening” clause. Those haven’t been problems, but it seems better to remind people and to make clear we all agree on that as a standard.
If, and only if, a formal official policy is hammered out and clearly stated somewhere, I’d be willing to volunteer to enforce it.
Actually, I was going to recommend against a detailed formal policy. Codified rules seems like an invitation for passionate arguments about Stuff That Doesn’t Matter™. If we need a rule, how about:
If you are acting in a way incongruent with the greater harmony of LessWrong, a moderator may private message to ask you to stop. If you don’t stop, you may be banned.
Also have a stated social norm:
Don’t downvote comments because of the author. There’s no hard and fast rule, but if you’ve downvoted someone more than 8 times in one day or read through someone’s comment history and downvoted past the first page, you are doing something wrong.
In the specific case of mass downvoting, if a moderator gets a complaint I think the typical procedure should be:
Moderator private messages the alleged downvoter a non-accusatory FYI letting them know that someone felt they were heavy on the thumbs-down and it might be a good idea to take a breather
If vindictive downvoting continues, look into the logs, do some quantitative analysis, and evaluate. Most probable conclusion is that the downvoter isn’t being vindictive. But if, regrettably, the downvoter appears to have a bullying voting pattern, the moderator should private message them “Really, you should stop. Even if there are good reasons for all of your downvotes, you shouldn’t continue just because it looks bad. There are plenty of other people are around who can pick up the slack if you bow out of downvoting.”
If abusive downvoting continues, give a final warning, then ban.
But before you complain to a moderator: Please consider the possibility that your comments are just bad, that someone might disagree with you for legitimate reasons, and that negative feedback is information positive.
It’s not wrong if most of what the user writes is bad. The wrong thing is to act on an incorrect judgement, something that won’t be supported by idealized community. The heuristic you suggest limits influence, which guards against consequences of overconfidence. In some cases, you can see that there is no mistake.
I tend to agree with the first statement as a rule of thumb. If you’re reading and downvoting 8 postings in a day that you think are not worth reading (apparently), it seems like you’re taking it upon yourself to punish that person, whereas I think it is better if we try to read what we consider to be valuable, and if we happen across some writing that seems bad, sure, critique it with a −1 if that seems worthwhile, but don’t go on a jag reading all the bad (by your standards) writing you can find and downvoting it.
Harmony is near the bottom of the list of values I want to see enforced. Probably below oral hygiene.
I invite suggestions for improved rule phrasings which avoid objectionable or controversial words like harmony :-)
I invite suggestions for improved rule phrasings that avoid objectionable or controversial words like harmony :-)
I am not opposed to a moderator having power like what you describe, but I wouldn’t want to be them.
Could you imagine writing a proposal for a policy that you would like to enforce yourself?
I specifically don’t want to write it myself. I would like to minimize angles from which I may be accused of self-serving moderation.
This should happen regardless.
How about this as a policy:
1) You can’t advocate violence or criminal acts.
2) You can’t engage in what the moderator determines to be massive down voting of a single person.
3) You can’t create posts that the moderator determines are not beneficial to the LessWrong community.
4) The moderator has the right to ban posts or users that violate (1), (2), or (3).
I would add that massive downvoting is about voting down a post based on who wrote it instead of voting it down based on the content of the post.
I do think that there are valid discussion about the usage of drugs such as modafinil that edge on the border of illegality. The LW scholar thread that allows requesting scientific papers could also be interpreted as violating copyrights and therefore fall in that category. I don’t have trouble with someone advocating to drive faster than the speeding limit. Having private contractors that fight in wars can violate military laws that all combatants have to wear military uniforms. Homosexuality happens to be a criminal act in some countries.
Instead of saying “criminal act” I would speak about actions that are likely to be persecuted as felonies in Western states if they become known to the authorities.
How about “violent, abusive, or fraudulent acts”? That seems to cover most of what we’d want to ban.
I wouldn’t be as happy with limiting it to felonies; first of all, I know just enough about law to know that what is or isn’t a felony is a complicated and potentially counterintuitive question and likely varies substantially by jurisdiction; and second, there’s a lot of things that I wouldn’t want people advocating but aren’t violent or felonious. Doxxing your pseudonymous critics, for example, is legally a fairly light gray but strikes me as very bad behavior when seen through the lens of blog policy.
Starting a war is certainly a violent act. Do you want to prevent that kind of discussion on LW? No one is allowed to write a post that the US should start a war against Iran?
Well, you could modify that with “personally” if you want to be able to advocate state violence. Honestly, though, I’d be just as happy if that was forbidden; the recent discussion of the violence in Gaza certainly hasn’t seemed very productive.
The problem is when you forbid exactly one side of the argument. Forum rules that allow criticism of a Israeli attack on Gaza but that don’t provide the ability to defend it, can lead to trouble when some people find their views unfairly censored.
On the other hand I think the incident that lead to us having a rule against advocation of violence is not covered in the provision of “personally”.
“Violent crime, abuse, or fraud”, then.
Though I’d note that when you’re discussing a war or violent political conflict, supporting any acts of any side can be construed as supporting violence, so this doesn’t look too politically slanted. It bars advocacy of aggressive war, terrorism, or violent revolution, but given that this isn’t a politics board trafficking in expansionist nationalism or exotic revolutionary ideologies, and that one of the fastest ways to mindkill someone is to advocate physically killing them or their buddies, I’m okay with that. (It’s also obviously noncentral to the rule, and I maintain that some degree of vagueness in forum policy is necessary if you want to get stuff done without every policy issue degenerating into unproductive trivia.)
You don’t need to support Hamas to criticize Israeli action in the region.
Okay, that looks fine to me.
It makes sense to imagine what the rule actually does in practice. There are certain actions like killing your neighbor where it’s perfectly fine to allow moral arguments about why killing your neighbor is bad but still forbid people from advocating killing your neighbor. That’s because we have a consensus that killing your neighbor is bad.
If you start banning the advocation of violence in a political debate where one side favors violence and the other isn’t you are set up for drama.
No, but—to move back to something a little less topical—you may recall that criticism of American action in Afghanistan and Iraq circa 2001 − 2011 was seen in certain circles as implicit support of Islamist violence. It wasn’t, of course, but if you’re trying to avoid drama you need to take perception into account as much as reality.
In this case, though, the spirit of the rule is less “avoid political drama”—we have a weaker norm against politics for that—and more “don’t advocate things that make us look like we’re all about to go Ted Kaczynski on someone’s ass”, which is why I feel that discussing war in its context is noncentral.
If you start banning people on forum for positions that they don’t explicitly argue but that you think they argue implicitly because of tribal associations than you have problems.
Yes. It wasn’t by any reasonable rational standard that a forum moderator is supposed to use to make moderating decisions. Don’t let yourself be mindkilled. Arguments aren’t soldiers. It’s quite easy to make an argument against invading other countries without arguing in favor of violence.
On reflection, you’re right; a prohibition on advocating violence doesn’t extend that far. Though I’d appreciate not having memes from the politics sequence flung at me.
Points 1 and 2 are reasonably clear. Point 3 is unhelpfully vague. If I were moderator, I would have no idea how far that pushes, and as a commenter I wouldn’t have a lot of insight as to what to avoid.
I don’t mind giving a catch-all authority to a moderator, but if there are specific things you have in mind that are to be avoided, it’s probably better to enumerate them.
I would add an explicit “nothing illegal, nothing personally threatening” clause. Those haven’t been problems, but it seems better to remind people and to make clear we all agree on that as a standard.