If someone’s producing lots of great ideas and posts on the site, but they’re sometimes aggressive or rude or spiky, then I will put in more effort to give them feedback and give them a lot more rope than if (on the other end of the spectrum) they’re a first time poster. If Ilya’s comment was an account’s first comment, I’d ban the account and delete the comment. That sort of new user growth is bad for the site.
Responding to this situation in particular: I had the perception that Ilya had in the past contributed substantially to the site (in large part on the topic of causal modeling), and have (in my head) been giving him leeway for that. Also I met him once at LessWrong thing in Cambridge UK when I was 16 and he was friendly, and that gave me a sense he would be open to conversation and feedback if it came. That said, looking over his past comments was much more heat to light than I expected (lots more random unpleasant and rude comments and way fewer substantive contributions), so I am a bit surprised.
I do a cost-benefit calculation.
If someone’s producing lots of great ideas and posts on the site, but they’re sometimes aggressive or rude or spiky, then I will put in more effort to give them feedback and give them a lot more rope than if (on the other end of the spectrum) they’re a first time poster. If Ilya’s comment was an account’s first comment, I’d ban the account and delete the comment. That sort of new user growth is bad for the site.
Responding to this situation in particular: I had the perception that Ilya had in the past contributed substantially to the site (in large part on the topic of causal modeling), and have (in my head) been giving him leeway for that. Also I met him once at LessWrong thing in Cambridge UK when I was 16 and he was friendly, and that gave me a sense he would be open to conversation and feedback if it came. That said, looking over his past comments was much more heat to light than I expected (lots more random unpleasant and rude comments and way fewer substantive contributions), so I am a bit surprised.
I’ve now given Ilya a warning upthread.
Thanks for replying; strong-upvote for displaying transparency.