Banning specific topics is probably a good meta-policy for the community: once anything associated with a topic starts to hurt the discussion, for any reason at all, without coming to a resolution, a “cool-down” mode can be switched on by adding the topic to a list of banned topics. This improves the forum for the coming months, and once the ban is lifted (there should be no permanent bans), the topic either loses its harmful qualities in the new context, loses attention of the community, thus causing no more trouble, or gets resolved after a fresh look.
I second this; I think that a moratorium (for a month or two) on PUA theorizing would be better for the LW community than either a permanent ban or the continuation of the currently-entrenched battle on it, either of which would probably drive away a number of valuable rationalists. (Goes without saying that bashing PUA theories would also count as trolling during the moratorium.)
I want to see what the support looks like for this. Below is an informal poll: vote your preferred option(s) up and the karma offset comment down.
EDIT: You know, Vladimir has a better setup: take his poll below and we’ll count them up after a bit. I’m deleting the current poll setup, with nothing at more than +2; sorry if you’ll have to revote.
Adaptation of comment voting to polls is awkward. There are free poll web services. Below is the same poll, implemented in the first service I stumbled on in Google:
By the way, this setup seems to remove punctuation when graphing, which turns “1-2 months” into “12 months”. (It keeps the punctuation when asking the question, though, so it shouldn’t skew the results.)
Banning specific topics is probably a good meta-policy for the community: once anything associated with a topic starts to hurt the discussion, for any reason at all, without coming to a resolution, a “cool-down” mode can be switched on by adding the topic to a list of banned topics. This improves the forum for the coming months, and once the ban is lifted (there should be no permanent bans), the topic either loses its harmful qualities in the new context, loses attention of the community, thus causing no more trouble, or gets resolved after a fresh look.
(Inspired by Alicorn’s comment.)
ETA: Here’s a poll about banning the PUA topic.
I second this; I think that a moratorium (for a month or two) on PUA theorizing would be better for the LW community than either a permanent ban or the continuation of the currently-entrenched battle on it, either of which would probably drive away a number of valuable rationalists. (Goes without saying that bashing PUA theories would also count as trolling during the moratorium.)
I want to see what the support looks like for this. Below is an informal poll: vote your preferred option(s) up and the karma offset comment down.
EDIT: You know, Vladimir has a better setup: take his poll below and we’ll count them up after a bit. I’m deleting the current poll setup, with nothing at more than +2; sorry if you’ll have to revote.
I’m keeping my “zero-boxing” comment, though.
OPTION 2: Moratorium for 1-2 months on PUA discussion here.
(Vote up if you agree; then please offset the karma below.)
EXTRA KARMA OFFSET: If you voted two suggestions up, you can use me to equalize the karma effect.
Um...
I zero-box on Newcomb’s Problem!
OPTION 5: No restrictions on PUA discussion at Less Wrong.
(Vote up if you agree; then please offset the karma below.)
P.S. Whoops! I knew I forgot one of the obvious options. Not intentional, I assure you.
OPTION 4: None of those capture my brilliant idea!
(Vote up if you agree; then please offset the karma below, and reply to this comment with your fantastic scheme for Less Wrong harmony.)
OPTION 1: Ban PUA discussion from Less Wrong indefinitely.
(Vote up if you agree; then please offset the karma below.)
Adaptation of comment voting to polls is awkward. There are free poll web services. Below is the same poll, implemented in the first service I stumbled on in Google:
Click here to vote!
There doesn’t seem to be a “view results” button, and I don’t want to vote again for fear of screwing with the results. How did the poll turn out?
I hadn’t yet voted. Having done so now, the results are:
43%: temporary moratorium (28 votes)
38%: no restrictions (25 votes)
9%: restrict to a number of threads (6 votes)
6%: total ban (4 votes)
3%: a marvelous idea which this poll is too small to contain (2 votes)
OT: Nice poll. BTW—who is the other person who voted from Edinburgh?
By the way, this setup seems to remove punctuation when graphing, which turns “1-2 months” into “12 months”. (It keeps the punctuation when asking the question, though, so it shouldn’t skew the results.)
Fixed.
OPTION 3: Restrict PUA discussion to a number of threads here; disallow it outside of those.
(Vote up if you agree; then please offset the karma below.)
KARMA OFFSET: Downvote me once you’ve voted.
Um...
The Earth is 6000 seconds old! Hail Xenu!