After more reflection, I now think that this moderation comment was too harsh. First, the parts I think I should have done differently:
Realized that who reads commenting guidelines anyways, let alone expects them to be enforced?
Realized that it’s probably ambiguous what counts as “charitable” or not, even though (illusion of transparency) it felt so obvious to me that this counted as “not that.”
Realized that predictably I would later consider the incident to be less upsetting than in the moment, and that John may not have been aware that I find this kind of situation unusually upsetting.
Therefore, I should have said something like “I think you raise a valuable object-level point here, which I haven’t yet made up my mind on. That said, I think this meta-level commentary is unpleasant and mostly wrong. I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t speculate on my thought process like that, and would appreciate if you could edit the tone-relevant parts.”
I’m striking the original warning, putting in (4), and I encourage John to unredact his comments (but that’s up to him).
I’ve thought more about what my policy should be going forward. What kind of space do I want my comment section to be? First, I want to be able to say “This seems wrong, and here’s why”, and other people can say the same back to me, and one or more of us can end up at the truth faster. Second, it’s also important that people know that, going forward, engaging with me in (what feels to them like) good-faith will not be randomly slapped with a moderation warning because they annoyed me.
Third, I want to feel comfortable in my interactions in my comment section. My current plan is:
If someone comment something which feels personally uncharitable to me (a rather rare occurrence, what with the hundreds of comments in the last year since this kind of situation last happened), then I’ll privately message them, explain my guidelines, and ask that they tweak tone / write more on the object-level / not do the particular thing.[1]
If necessary, I’ll also write a soft-ask (like (4) above) as a comment.
In cases where this is just getting ignored and the person is being antagonistic, I will indeed post a starker warning and then possibly just delete comments.
After more reflection, I now think that this moderation comment was too harsh. First, the parts I think I should have done differently:
Realized that who reads commenting guidelines anyways, let alone expects them to be enforced?
Realized that it’s probably ambiguous what counts as “charitable” or not, even though (illusion of transparency) it felt so obvious to me that this counted as “not that.”
Realized that predictably I would later consider the incident to be less upsetting than in the moment, and that John may not have been aware that I find this kind of situation unusually upsetting.
Therefore, I should have said something like “I think you raise a valuable object-level point here, which I haven’t yet made up my mind on. That said, I think this meta-level commentary is unpleasant and mostly wrong. I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t speculate on my thought process like that, and would appreciate if you could edit the tone-relevant parts.”
I’m striking the original warning, putting in (4), and I encourage John to unredact his comments (but that’s up to him).
I’ve thought more about what my policy should be going forward. What kind of space do I want my comment section to be? First, I want to be able to say “This seems wrong, and here’s why”, and other people can say the same back to me, and one or more of us can end up at the truth faster. Second, it’s also important that people know that, going forward, engaging with me in (what feels to them like) good-faith will not be randomly slapped with a moderation warning because they annoyed me.
Third, I want to feel comfortable in my interactions in my comment section. My current plan is:
If someone comment something which feels personally uncharitable to me (a rather rare occurrence, what with the hundreds of comments in the last year since this kind of situation last happened), then I’ll privately message them, explain my guidelines, and ask that they tweak tone / write more on the object-level / not do the particular thing.[1]
If necessary, I’ll also write a soft-ask (like (4) above) as a comment.
In cases where this is just getting ignored and the person is being antagonistic, I will indeed post a starker warning and then possibly just delete comments.
I had spoken with John privately before posting the warning comment. I think my main mistake was jumping to (3) instead of doing more of (1) and (2).