Not to commit an act of terrorism or anything, but I have had similar experiences—some of what I get a lot of compliments about were “diamonds in the rough”.
The context you’re missing is that I have asked SilasBarta not to reply directly to my comments or PM me (summarized as “leave me alone”). Occasionally he does anyway, referring to it sarcastically as an “act of terrorism” or similar. Today I have chosen to delete the comment he replied to, because the thread didn’t seem like it needed my comment to make sense and that was a viable option. It wasn’t an interesting comment in itself; it boiled down to “yay thrift stores!”
The context you’re missing is that I have asked SilasBarta not to reply directly to my comments or PM me (summarized as “leave me alone”). Occasionally he does anyway
And up to here (and only up to here) this is entirely appropriate. I can think of half a dozen commenters that I would like to prevent from being able to reply to me (either because they are bad at thinking or tend to behave as social adversaries), but that is not a privilege that we have, and that is a good thing. Being able to influence the public discourse while picking and choosing which replies may be heard would be a mind killing disaster!
Replies to a comment aren’t like talking to the author of the parent. In this comment, for example, I am not addressing Alicorn at all. I am commenting to the blog about something that is prompted by what happens to be in a comment made by Alicorn. If this were a literal historic forum with Romans and togas I would not be facing Alicorn I would be directing my voice to whichever element of the crowd I was most interested in engaging with or influencing.
referring to it sarcastically as an “act of terrorism” or similar
But that part is foolish and impractical. All the worse because I know I personally have explained to Silas several times why buying into the villain frame and then getting sarcastic about it is shooting himself in both feet.
If we had a decently sophisticated comment system (trn!trn!), it would be feasible for people to choose to not see comments (and answers to those comments) from posters they wanted to avoid.
As far as I can tell, that sort of feature didn’t damage usenet, though killfiling trolls means that a newsgroup (forum) could be made tolerable for existing members while becoming increasingly unattractive to new members.
If we had a decently sophisticated comment system (trn! trn!), it would be feasible for people to choose to not see comments (and answers to those comments) from posters they wanted to avoid.
Yes, writing a greasemonkey script for that purpose is on my todo list. It wouldn’t even be that complicated. A few lines added to and remove from the old kibitzer script would do it. But I’ll probably not bother until the next obnoxious person gets on my nerves.
.… Wait.… did I just give anyone who wants that feature a motive to flame me? Bother.
Incidentally I would probably include an extra category for people whose comments I want to see except for when they are replying for me. In some cases people can be good at coming up with their own ideas but poor at understanding and replying to those of others. In those cases a coarse mechanism to pick the potentially best without expecting the frustration of predictable straw men would be handy.
I think that the one of the best meta-parts of LW is that we deal with differences in temper and disagreement in a way that always tries to take into account Rationality even when its unattainable. This tool would avoid disagreement for some but wouldn’t really limit much on a wide scale.
I know that Alicorn considers it harassment, and you observably know that. Given the subjective nature of the emotions at hand, that seems sufficient for me.
Compare: I have minor-to-moderate tactile sensitivity. Being touched, even gently and in socially normal ways, is often painful to me. If I tell you this, and you acknowledge that you understand it, and then you intentionally touch me in a way that you know is likely to cause me pain, claiming that your intention was not to cause pain does not excuse the action.
(Edit: I apparently misremembered Alicorn’s position on the issue.)
Given the subjective nature of ‘terror’, that seems sufficient for me.
Given some people’s willingness to abuse our deference to their subjective experiences, no, it’s not. My comment was not “use or threat of violence against non-combatants to induce fear as a means of pursuing political or social goals”. This isn’t even debatable.
People have criticized me for the extreme comparisons. I hope they can now see what I’m dealing with. If Alicorn really has such terror at seeing a general comment under her posts with my name on it, she should have thought about that before posting in “my” thread, not when her Machiavellian instincts kicked in and saw a chance to play victim.
It’s an unfortunate consequence of the reddit interface that you can’t join any conversational thread in which she is the last person to post, without your comment having to be a reply to her that shows up in her messages… even if you aren’t even trying to interact with her. I’m worried about the precedence of non-moderators on LW essentially having the power to ban people they’ve had conflict with out of interesting discussions. [Edit: realized that Alicorn is currently a moderator. My point was to discuss the potential problems from User A requiring that User B never reply to them on a Reddit-style interface, and how it can effectively become an unofficial thread-ban, not just a reply-ban, even when mod powers are not used.]
The ideal solution in my mind is if it’s OK by Alicorn for you to respond to anything that she posts (at least, when you don’t ask for a reply), and she has no obligation to reply to you. (Of course, you must limit these replies to be abstract, and resist any urge to make them personal or snide.) Given your past interactions with Alicorn, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to reply to her and attempt any discussions, but it seems a bit steep if you can’t reply to comments by her, even when you aren’t trying to have a discussion with her, because that potentially locks you out of threads that others are reading.
Failing that, the next best solution is probably to just take the high road and not respond directly to any comment by her, due to the conflict and status hits incurred to both you (and her) in the eyes of various observers every time this comes up, particularly when you make “terrorism” comments. If she posts something interesting, often other people will reply to it, and you can reply to them.
If you must respond to a comment by her simply out of interest in the topic, I suggest that you keep it impersonal and neutral, and she can simply ignore it.
As you know, I don’t think your punishment is proportional to what you’ve actually done. But sometimes people are going to be unfair to you, and often the best solution is to just move on and live your life.
absolutlly, I like to shop the $1 bin at the used shop. all kinds of nice stuff too big for a hipster. I keep fresh by cycling my cheap stuff to the DAV for the “gifting thrill”
Not to commit an act of terrorism or anything, but I have had similar experiences—some of what I get a lot of compliments about were “diamonds in the rough”.
The way to not do a thing is by not doing that thing, not by saying that you don’t want or intend to do the thing and then doing it anyway.
Comment deleted… What on earth did I just miss?
The context you’re missing is that I have asked SilasBarta not to reply directly to my comments or PM me (summarized as “leave me alone”). Occasionally he does anyway, referring to it sarcastically as an “act of terrorism” or similar. Today I have chosen to delete the comment he replied to, because the thread didn’t seem like it needed my comment to make sense and that was a viable option. It wasn’t an interesting comment in itself; it boiled down to “yay thrift stores!”
And up to here (and only up to here) this is entirely appropriate. I can think of half a dozen commenters that I would like to prevent from being able to reply to me (either because they are bad at thinking or tend to behave as social adversaries), but that is not a privilege that we have, and that is a good thing. Being able to influence the public discourse while picking and choosing which replies may be heard would be a mind killing disaster!
Replies to a comment aren’t like talking to the author of the parent. In this comment, for example, I am not addressing Alicorn at all. I am commenting to the blog about something that is prompted by what happens to be in a comment made by Alicorn. If this were a literal historic forum with Romans and togas I would not be facing Alicorn I would be directing my voice to whichever element of the crowd I was most interested in engaging with or influencing.
But that part is foolish and impractical. All the worse because I know I personally have explained to Silas several times why buying into the villain frame and then getting sarcastic about it is shooting himself in both feet.
If something doesn’t work don’t do it!
If we had a decently sophisticated comment system (trn! trn!), it would be feasible for people to choose to not see comments (and answers to those comments) from posters they wanted to avoid.
As far as I can tell, that sort of feature didn’t damage usenet, though killfiling trolls means that a newsgroup (forum) could be made tolerable for existing members while becoming increasingly unattractive to new members.
Yes, writing a greasemonkey script for that purpose is on my todo list. It wouldn’t even be that complicated. A few lines added to and remove from the old kibitzer script would do it. But I’ll probably not bother until the next obnoxious person gets on my nerves.
.… Wait.… did I just give anyone who wants that feature a motive to flame me? Bother.
Incidentally I would probably include an extra category for people whose comments I want to see except for when they are replying for me. In some cases people can be good at coming up with their own ideas but poor at understanding and replying to those of others. In those cases a coarse mechanism to pick the potentially best without expecting the frustration of predictable straw men would be handy.
I think that the one of the best meta-parts of LW is that we deal with differences in temper and disagreement in a way that always tries to take into account Rationality even when its unattainable. This tool would avoid disagreement for some but wouldn’t really limit much on a wide scale.
I cringed.
Spam filters aren’t intended to prevent spam from happening. They just keep it out of your inbox.
;)
The whole point was that it’s not an act of terrorism—and one should avoid blowing things out of proportion.
If you think what I did was an act of terrorism, then please stand up and be counted.
I know that Alicorn considers it harassment, and you observably know that. Given the subjective nature of the emotions at hand, that seems sufficient for me.
Compare: I have minor-to-moderate tactile sensitivity. Being touched, even gently and in socially normal ways, is often painful to me. If I tell you this, and you acknowledge that you understand it, and then you intentionally touch me in a way that you know is likely to cause me pain, claiming that your intention was not to cause pain does not excuse the action.
(Edit: I apparently misremembered Alicorn’s position on the issue.)
Given some people’s willingness to abuse our deference to their subjective experiences, no, it’s not. My comment was not “use or threat of violence against non-combatants to induce fear as a means of pursuing political or social goals”. This isn’t even debatable.
People have criticized me for the extreme comparisons. I hope they can now see what I’m dealing with. If Alicorn really has such terror at seeing a general comment under her posts with my name on it, she should have thought about that before posting in “my” thread, not when her Machiavellian instincts kicked in and saw a chance to play victim.
Get some perspective, please.
I don’t think your comment was an act of terrorism, nor do I think you needed to suggest that it might be. Couldn’t you just have said:
Thanks for the input, but unfortunately, no, I couldn’t have.
It’s an unfortunate consequence of the reddit interface that you can’t join any conversational thread in which she is the last person to post, without your comment having to be a reply to her that shows up in her messages… even if you aren’t even trying to interact with her. I’m worried about the precedence of non-moderators on LW essentially having the power to ban people they’ve had conflict with out of interesting discussions. [Edit: realized that Alicorn is currently a moderator. My point was to discuss the potential problems from User A requiring that User B never reply to them on a Reddit-style interface, and how it can effectively become an unofficial thread-ban, not just a reply-ban, even when mod powers are not used.]
The ideal solution in my mind is if it’s OK by Alicorn for you to respond to anything that she posts (at least, when you don’t ask for a reply), and she has no obligation to reply to you. (Of course, you must limit these replies to be abstract, and resist any urge to make them personal or snide.) Given your past interactions with Alicorn, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to reply to her and attempt any discussions, but it seems a bit steep if you can’t reply to comments by her, even when you aren’t trying to have a discussion with her, because that potentially locks you out of threads that others are reading.
Failing that, the next best solution is probably to just take the high road and not respond directly to any comment by her, due to the conflict and status hits incurred to both you (and her) in the eyes of various observers every time this comes up, particularly when you make “terrorism” comments. If she posts something interesting, often other people will reply to it, and you can reply to them.
If you must respond to a comment by her simply out of interest in the topic, I suggest that you keep it impersonal and neutral, and she can simply ignore it.
As you know, I don’t think your punishment is proportional to what you’ve actually done. But sometimes people are going to be unfair to you, and often the best solution is to just move on and live your life.
absolutlly, I like to shop the $1 bin at the used shop. all kinds of nice stuff too big for a hipster. I keep fresh by cycling my cheap stuff to the DAV for the “gifting thrill”