I think that kaj is talking about “don’t read motivations into people as part of your criticism, or at least be more cautious about doing so” – criticize them for the action they’re doing if the action is bad.
I think ialdabaoth is saying ’yeah, but right now basically nobody is criticizing or stopping the people doing the death-by-cuts-thing, and whenever anyone tries, the moderators yell at them instead.”
(I think right now the death-by-papercutters are basically coming in juuust under a line that the moderators feel awkward about taking action on, and the people criticizing them are coming in juust over that line, and yes, this is a bad dynamic)
I’m currently looking into solutions that are more on the “solve it with technology” side of things than the “solve it with social”, but regardless agree that the status quo is bad.
What kinds of technological solutions are you thinking of?
Feel free to talk about it later if the ideas aren’t ready for public presentation yet. In general I’m concerned that criticism is important, truth-seeking is hard to separate from status-seeking (authors can be self-deceived as easily as commenters about their judgments/motivations), and whatever solution we adopt not cause more harm than good through unintended side effects.
I touched upon this in a recent meta post, although in a different context. (Basically, I expect small/big upvote distinctions to help with this issue, at least somewhat, while also being positive from a truthseeking perspective. Later on I’ll write up clearer thoughts on why I’m expecting this to help)
I anticipate that your tech solution will also help Eliezer come back—my intuition says that this is part of what he feels aversion to wasting energy on.
Weren’t the new moderation tools—where someone can make a top-level post and then delete every critical or contrary comment without a trace[1] (or, indeed, any comment at all, for any reason)—supposed to be Eliezer’s precondition for returning? I opposed that change, and still do, but it’s done—and now we’re hearing that it wasn’t enough? How seriously can we take Eliezer’s “I’ll come back when you __” stance this time, and how many other changes do you intend to make in the service of this goal?
[1] By the way, what’s the status of the moderation log feature?
Oh, actually I got a basic version of the moderation log done awhile ago and then I think I forgot to list it in an update post (or maybe I mentioned it but it got lost in the shuffle, unsure). Sorry
Neat. Er, are the “User” and “Deleted by user” columns meant to be the same? Because it seems like they *are* the same but I’d have expected the former to contain the name of the user who *posted* the thing-that-got-deleted, not the name of the user who deleted it.
Oh, yeah. (actually come to think of it I may have noticed that bug, though “I’ll fix that bug and then announce it, and then never got around to fixing it.”)
Sure. But in the meantime, realize that the fact that Val’s comment was downvoted into the negatives is a signal about something, and it’s about something you and Ben and Ollie and Kaj are doing.
And then decide whether you’re okay with all the consequences of that.
I think that kaj is talking about “don’t read motivations into people as part of your criticism, or at least be more cautious about doing so” – criticize them for the action they’re doing if the action is bad.
I think ialdabaoth is saying ’yeah, but right now basically nobody is criticizing or stopping the people doing the death-by-cuts-thing, and whenever anyone tries, the moderators yell at them instead.”
(I think right now the death-by-papercutters are basically coming in juuust under a line that the moderators feel awkward about taking action on, and the people criticizing them are coming in juust over that line, and yes, this is a bad dynamic)
I’m currently looking into solutions that are more on the “solve it with technology” side of things than the “solve it with social”, but regardless agree that the status quo is bad.
What kinds of technological solutions are you thinking of?
Feel free to talk about it later if the ideas aren’t ready for public presentation yet. In general I’m concerned that criticism is important, truth-seeking is hard to separate from status-seeking (authors can be self-deceived as easily as commenters about their judgments/motivations), and whatever solution we adopt not cause more harm than good through unintended side effects.
I touched upon this in a recent meta post, although in a different context. (Basically, I expect small/big upvote distinctions to help with this issue, at least somewhat, while also being positive from a truthseeking perspective. Later on I’ll write up clearer thoughts on why I’m expecting this to help)
I anticipate that your tech solution will also help Eliezer come back—my intuition says that this is part of what he feels aversion to wasting energy on.
Oh yeah I have better than intuition, I have Eliezer literally* saying to us “dude I will try coming back when you take care of this shit.”
*okay okay almost literally
Weren’t the new moderation tools—where someone can make a top-level post and then delete every critical or contrary comment without a trace[1] (or, indeed, any comment at all, for any reason)—supposed to be Eliezer’s precondition for returning? I opposed that change, and still do, but it’s done—and now we’re hearing that it wasn’t enough? How seriously can we take Eliezer’s “I’ll come back when you __” stance this time, and how many other changes do you intend to make in the service of this goal?
[1] By the way, what’s the status of the moderation log feature?
Oh, actually I got a basic version of the moderation log done awhile ago and then I think I forgot to list it in an update post (or maybe I mentioned it but it got lost in the shuffle, unsure). Sorry
In any case, https://www.lesswrong.com/moderation is here. Haven’t yet implemented a “link this at the bottom of the comment section” or some-such yet.
Sorry about that.
Neat. Er, are the “User” and “Deleted by user” columns meant to be the same? Because it seems like they *are* the same but I’d have expected the former to contain the name of the user who *posted* the thing-that-got-deleted, not the name of the user who deleted it.
Oh, yeah. (actually come to think of it I may have noticed that bug, though “I’ll fix that bug and then announce it, and then never got around to fixing it.”)
Sure. But in the meantime, realize that the fact that Val’s comment was downvoted into the negatives is a signal about something, and it’s about something you and Ben and Ollie and Kaj are doing.
And then decide whether you’re okay with all the consequences of that.