But… unless people are actually in agreement about a meta-frame that would actually resolve it, mostly it seems like a massive, net negative time sink.
Why does it need to be a time sink for you? You could pair off people who disagree with one another and say: “If you two are able to think up an experiment such that you both agree that experiment would allow us to discover who is right about the kind of culture that’s good for LessWrong, we will consider performing that experiment.” You could even make them settle on a procedure for judging the results of the experiment. Or threaten to ignore their views entirely if they can’t come to any kind of agreement.
Archipelago hasn’t worked, but, well “Real Archipelago hasn’t even been attempted”. But I’m not sure it actually helps. There’s a few key unresolved questions like ‘what are the default norms for users that haven’t set moderation guidelines’ which more or less necessitate solving the first option. There’s also the issue wherein at least some ongoing debates have people who prefer different norms.
I think you’re overthinking this. Why not randomize the default norms for each new user and observe which norms users tend to converge on over time?
The latter can maybe be addressed by setting a stronger meta-norm of “if you think the discussion on Post X is important but has counterproductive norms, you can create you own post about it”, possibly encouraging people more to create short posts that just say “this is my discussion for topic X, with norm Y”. Something about that still feels unsatisfying.
Yes, the solution you describe is unsatisfying, but I wonder if the empirical data you gather from it will get you to a perfect solution more effectively than armchair philosophizing.
I mean, among other things, *I’m* one of the people who’s disagreeing with someone(s), and a major issue is disagreement or confusion about what are even the right frames to be evaluating things through.
Why not randomize the default norms for each new user and observe which norms users tend to converge on over time?
I don’t currently expect that to really do anything. Most of the users doing any kind of deliberate norm setting are longtime users who are more bringing their own expectations of what they thought the norms already were, vs people reading the text we wrote in the moderation guidelines.
Find a person or people you both respect with relevant expertise. Do a formal debate where you both present your case. Choose a timed debate format so things can’t take forever. At the end, agree to abide by the judgement of the debate audience (majority vote if necessary).
Figure out whose vision for LessWrong is least like Facebook and implement that vision. The person whose vision is more similar to Facebook can just stay on Facebook.
Why does it need to be a time sink for you? You could pair off people who disagree with one another and say: “If you two are able to think up an experiment such that you both agree that experiment would allow us to discover who is right about the kind of culture that’s good for LessWrong, we will consider performing that experiment.” You could even make them settle on a procedure for judging the results of the experiment. Or threaten to ignore their views entirely if they can’t come to any kind of agreement.
I think you’re overthinking this. Why not randomize the default norms for each new user and observe which norms users tend to converge on over time?
Yes, the solution you describe is unsatisfying, but I wonder if the empirical data you gather from it will get you to a perfect solution more effectively than armchair philosophizing.
I mean, among other things, *I’m* one of the people who’s disagreeing with someone(s), and a major issue is disagreement or confusion about what are even the right frames to be evaluating things through.
I don’t currently expect that to really do anything. Most of the users doing any kind of deliberate norm setting are longtime users who are more bringing their own expectations of what they thought the norms already were, vs people reading the text we wrote in the moderation guidelines.
Hm. More ideas which probably won’t help:
Find a person or people you both respect with relevant expertise. Do a formal debate where you both present your case. Choose a timed debate format so things can’t take forever. At the end, agree to abide by the judgement of the debate audience (majority vote if necessary).
Figure out whose vision for LessWrong is least like Facebook and implement that vision. The person whose vision is more similar to Facebook can just stay on Facebook.