Well, unfortunately bad karma can sort of snowball on Less Wrong; when I see a comment in the negative numbers, I instinctively read it (and downthread comments) in a “possibly trolling” light. I’m not sure what might be a good fix for this.
Anyway, I think that people would have given it the benefit of the doubt had it not appeared in a meetup thread. It’s a general rule of etiquette that you don’t start an intellectual argument where people are trying to set up a social gathering- it throws a monkey wrench in the works. Thus, when someone violates the norm, the first assumption is that they’re intending to throw a monkey wrench.
(Yes, the beauty of threaded conversations is that something like this won’t necessarily derail the social gathering. But the norm exists, and while it does it’s smart to be aware of it.)
OK, this is enough meta discussion for me. I hope you make a top-level post so we can actually discuss the issues...
Well, unfortunately bad karma can sort of snowball on Less Wrong; when I see a comment in the negative numbers, I instinctively read it (and downthread comments) in a “possibly trolling” light. I’m not sure what might be a good fix for this.
Anyway, I think that people would have given it the benefit of the doubt had it not appeared in a meetup thread. It’s a general rule of etiquette that you don’t start an intellectual argument where people are trying to set up a social gathering- it throws a monkey wrench in the works. Thus, when someone violates the norm, the first assumption is that they’re intending to throw a monkey wrench.
(Yes, the beauty of threaded conversations is that something like this won’t necessarily derail the social gathering. But the norm exists, and while it does it’s smart to be aware of it.)
OK, this is enough meta discussion for me. I hope you make a top-level post so we can actually discuss the issues...