The poster in question at least wouldn’t be immediately obvious as a troll to outsiders reading only a small part of the discussion, more proactive ways to deal with posters like that would seem to carry a serious risk of making less wrong appear even more cultish (group-think).
For whatever measures we take we should first consider how much ammunition against less wrong they offer, how likely they are to cost us genuinely valuable contributions due to seeming closed to dissent, and whether the expected magnitude of intended effects is worth that.
That includes using the word “troll”. After the various facts about their behavior and motivations there is no additional fact as to whether they are a troll. Using the word troll might easily lead people who only took a quick look to come away with the impression that we generally dismiss non-bayesians as trolls, whereas talking about how to prevent endless discussions not aimed at resolving disagreements seems less dangerous that way.
That includes using the word “troll”. After the various facts about their behavior and motivations there is no additional fact as to whether they are a troll. Using the word troll might easily lead people who only took a quick look to come away with the impression that we generally dismiss non-bayesians as trolls, whereas talking about how to prevent endless discussions not aimed at resolving disagreements seems less dangerous that way.
Indeed. I’m not even sure the user in question was a troll by intention (even if they were one functionally) - being persistent and dense beyond reason is a highly plausible trait of participants in Internet philosophy discussions, after all, particularly when the participant has their very own site all about what they’re talking about.
That is, the label “troll” assigns intent in a way that is not actually all that relevant to the problem, which is the behaviour, when you can accurately describe the problematic behaviour.
“I prefer trolls to cranks, because trolls sometimes rest.”—Alexandre Dumas (fils) (loose translation)
This is a valid point. Approximately for these reasons I have limited my suggestions to altering our individual voting policies, which seems reasonably safe—just don’t upvote a comment if it appears in a nowhere-leading lengthy debate, even if the comment itself is well written and sound. I agree that more proactive methods carry risks which we may not have enough reasons to take now.
Very, very good point. I apply a zero-tolerance approach on my own blog, banning people who even faintly smell of troll because they’re not worth my mental energy, For a site like this (where the deletion of one post caused such an uproar) it would be counterproductive at best,
Re the word troll: Yes, I could have written that without using the word. The reason I did use it was a need for a label, since trolling is not an easily describable phenomenon (it implies not only endless discussions not aimed at resolving disagreements, but also a kind of rude behaviour, use of fallacies, personal attacks on the opponents and excessive amounts of generated text). Since there was a standard label for that kind of behaviour, I used it. I couldn’t think about other standard label with approximately same meaning which lacks the negative connotations, else I would have used it instead.
The poster in question at least wouldn’t be immediately obvious as a troll to outsiders reading only a small part of the discussion, more proactive ways to deal with posters like that would seem to carry a serious risk of making less wrong appear even more cultish (group-think).
For whatever measures we take we should first consider how much ammunition against less wrong they offer, how likely they are to cost us genuinely valuable contributions due to seeming closed to dissent, and whether the expected magnitude of intended effects is worth that.
That includes using the word “troll”. After the various facts about their behavior and motivations there is no additional fact as to whether they are a troll. Using the word troll might easily lead people who only took a quick look to come away with the impression that we generally dismiss non-bayesians as trolls, whereas talking about how to prevent endless discussions not aimed at resolving disagreements seems less dangerous that way.
Indeed. I’m not even sure the user in question was a troll by intention (even if they were one functionally) - being persistent and dense beyond reason is a highly plausible trait of participants in Internet philosophy discussions, after all, particularly when the participant has their very own site all about what they’re talking about.
That is, the label “troll” assigns intent in a way that is not actually all that relevant to the problem, which is the behaviour, when you can accurately describe the problematic behaviour.
“I prefer trolls to cranks, because trolls sometimes rest.”—Alexandre Dumas (fils) (loose translation)
This is a valid point. Approximately for these reasons I have limited my suggestions to altering our individual voting policies, which seems reasonably safe—just don’t upvote a comment if it appears in a nowhere-leading lengthy debate, even if the comment itself is well written and sound. I agree that more proactive methods carry risks which we may not have enough reasons to take now.
Very, very good point. I apply a zero-tolerance approach on my own blog, banning people who even faintly smell of troll because they’re not worth my mental energy, For a site like this (where the deletion of one post caused such an uproar) it would be counterproductive at best,
Re the word troll: Yes, I could have written that without using the word. The reason I did use it was a need for a label, since trolling is not an easily describable phenomenon (it implies not only endless discussions not aimed at resolving disagreements, but also a kind of rude behaviour, use of fallacies, personal attacks on the opponents and excessive amounts of generated text). Since there was a standard label for that kind of behaviour, I used it. I couldn’t think about other standard label with approximately same meaning which lacks the negative connotations, else I would have used it instead.