Skirting a rule is not breaking a rule. There isn’t even a rule about creating a new account which is not blatantly identifiable as an old banned account and which does not display any behavior which the old account was banned for. Let alone “calling someone out” for skirting a rule which doesn’t even exist?
Furthermore, it’s not so much a public outcry for blood as it is a public outcry for something that only moderators can do. Itr’s not the users’ fault that moderators have made examining the evidence of abuse exclusive to themselves and then refuse to actually examine it.
If I want to contact one person and I have their number I don’t do an advert in a newspaper they read, especially if it involves naming and shaming a third party based on personal judgment. Creating a “public pressure on mods” scenario to get them to act, by starting your own witchhunt, in a forum which sees little activity anyways, is (choose one based on your level of charitability: not the best course of action; ill-advised; idiotic).
(It was a rhetorical question. Recognizing it as such could also be called a basic sanity check, but I’ll assume your reply was simply a rhetorical response one level up. The problem is that I trust “the moderators”, even if I don’t always agree: That’s the whole point, that I do not trust just anyone to level accusions publicly (the allure of drama is too damn high), even if they all turned out to be true and warranted. Even in that hypothetical, the public aspect of it—not any moderator action—would be toxic. I trust you see the distinction. It is no viable workaround to “but the mooods don’t respond to PMMMMs”.)
The public aspect is toxic. But so is moderators not doing things, and so is people getting away with causing trouble because moderators are not doing things. It’s a tradeoff.
On this specific case: Now that some clear rules (well, at least comparatively, in the UK “case law” sense) have been established, mass downvoting is a bannable offense. However, the new account (even though it was identified as the same poster) didn’t show any signs of “causing trouble” in the “bannable offense” direction. No justice was served. It was a veteran, probably someone whom LW means a lot to, trying to keep that aspect of his life somewhat intact. I have no special bond to the guy, but he did contribute a number of quality comments over the years, that much I remember. There is no indication he hadn’t learned his lesson (about mass downvotes).
This is a decision for a mod to make. It’s not a cry for help because something obviously bad has happened and urgent action is needed. I disagree with public shaming on principle, but in a muddy case like this, it’s especially abominable, in my opinion. It’s a sort of vague justice porn by someone who “really dislikes people skirting the rules”. Skirting, not even breaking! Queue the denunciation! Coming close to Godwin’ing myself, here.
As you say, it can all be seen as a tradeoff. The scales would be weighed differently if this community weren’t so small, and the frequency of new topics so low.
There is no indication he hadn’t learned his lesson (about mass downvotes).
Apart from the fact that there’s some (albeit weak; no one’s done the database-diving to get strong evidence either way) evidence that Azathoth123 has been engaging in mass-downvoting.
(In particular, I saw some weak evidence that he did it to me—though not on quite the scale that Eugine_Nier did before.)
Fair point, that would certainly change my assessment of the guy and the warranted mod action, albeit not of the public aspect of this. As Jiro mentioned up the comment chain, it certainly is a trade-off. Maybe noone would have put the clues together otherwise (or see their suspicions mirrored by others), and yours is important indeed.
I guess the whole “single someone out publicly in a negative way” is my personal ugh-field (who woulda thunk, right?), which may be why I seem to fall on the other side of the trade-off than apparently most other LW’ers.
Skirting a rule is not breaking a rule. There isn’t even a rule about creating a new account which is not blatantly identifiable as an old banned account and which does not display any behavior which the old account was banned for. Let alone “calling someone out” for skirting a rule which doesn’t even exist?
If I want to contact one person and I have their number I don’t do an advert in a newspaper they read, especially if it involves naming and shaming a third party based on personal judgment. Creating a “public pressure on mods” scenario to get them to act, by starting your own witchhunt, in a forum which sees little activity anyways, is (choose one based on your level of charitability: not the best course of action; ill-advised; idiotic).
Jiro, are you Eugine Nier?
The person who used to post under the handle Eugine_Nier was banned from Less Wrong. Returning with a new account is a violation of that ban.
No, I was his victim, and since you could have figured this out without resort to further moderator actions, it fails a basic sanity check.
Nobody is suggesting that the moderators should be required to do things that fail a basic sanity check, so that’s a strawman.
(It was a rhetorical question. Recognizing it as such could also be called a basic sanity check, but I’ll assume your reply was simply a rhetorical response one level up. The problem is that I trust “the moderators”, even if I don’t always agree: That’s the whole point, that I do not trust just anyone to level accusions publicly (the allure of drama is too damn high), even if they all turned out to be true and warranted. Even in that hypothetical, the public aspect of it—not any moderator action—would be toxic. I trust you see the distinction. It is no viable workaround to “but the mooods don’t respond to PMMMMs”.)
The public aspect is toxic. But so is moderators not doing things, and so is people getting away with causing trouble because moderators are not doing things. It’s a tradeoff.
I agree.
On this specific case: Now that some clear rules (well, at least comparatively, in the UK “case law” sense) have been established, mass downvoting is a bannable offense. However, the new account (even though it was identified as the same poster) didn’t show any signs of “causing trouble” in the “bannable offense” direction. No justice was served. It was a veteran, probably someone whom LW means a lot to, trying to keep that aspect of his life somewhat intact. I have no special bond to the guy, but he did contribute a number of quality comments over the years, that much I remember. There is no indication he hadn’t learned his lesson (about mass downvotes).
This is a decision for a mod to make. It’s not a cry for help because something obviously bad has happened and urgent action is needed. I disagree with public shaming on principle, but in a muddy case like this, it’s especially abominable, in my opinion. It’s a sort of vague justice porn by someone who “really dislikes people skirting the rules”. Skirting, not even breaking! Queue the denunciation! Coming close to Godwin’ing myself, here.
As you say, it can all be seen as a tradeoff. The scales would be weighed differently if this community weren’t so small, and the frequency of new topics so low.
Apart from the fact that there’s some (albeit weak; no one’s done the database-diving to get strong evidence either way) evidence that Azathoth123 has been engaging in mass-downvoting.
(In particular, I saw some weak evidence that he did it to me—though not on quite the scale that Eugine_Nier did before.)
Fair point, that would certainly change my assessment of the guy and the warranted mod action, albeit not of the public aspect of this. As Jiro mentioned up the comment chain, it certainly is a trade-off. Maybe noone would have put the clues together otherwise (or see their suspicions mirrored by others), and yours is important indeed.
I guess the whole “single someone out publicly in a negative way” is my personal ugh-field (who woulda thunk, right?), which may be why I seem to fall on the other side of the trade-off than apparently most other LW’ers.