It’s not obvious to me whether access to Eugine’s deleted comments is a net benefit to the LW readership.
Reading something has a cost (in time, attention, etc.) as well as whatever benefits it brings, and a lot of the things we might read are rubbish; so we seek out various sorts of probably-better-than-average writing. Removing something from a given corpus of writing may well be beneficial, if the thing removed is of notably lower quality than the rest of the corpus and isn’t required in order to make sense of the rest of it. (This applies even if the thing, in absolute terms, isn’t so bad.) Or if, in absolute terms, it’s not interesting enough to be worth the trouble of reading it.
It is plausible to me that Eugine’s mod-deleted comments are in fact of notably lower quality than the rest of the mod-deleted comments, if only because they are so damn repetititititititive.
“Quality” here means “whatever it is that one might be looking for in reading through deleted LW comments”. That might be much the same as quality of ordinary comments, if you’re reading the deleted ones for fear of missing something good. (In that case, my guess is that Eugine’s comments are better than average for deleted comments—at least, if there were some mechanism for collapsing the vast numbers of dupes. But I doubt many people will be reading the deletion log on the off chance of finding hidden gems.) It might be amount of information about moderator decisions. (Eugine’s deleted comments are very low in such information, because they all reflect a single decision to delete all his comments.) Etc.
Let’s suppose arguendo that the ability to read Eugine’s deleted comments is on average of benefit. I’d like to note that it wouldn’t follow from that that they should be made accessible, because e.g. the deterrent value of having it be known that if you behave like Eugine then you are liable to be maximally excluded from the LW community might be sufficient to outweigh that benefit. (If someone commits a serious crime and is imprisoned for it, this greatly reduces others’ access to conversation with them, to their ideas, etc. You could call this “punishing the entirety of the rest of the world for the transgression of the one person”, but that seems to me an unhelpful way to look at it.)
To recap this comment and an earlier one of mine, I suggest three reasons why it may be reasonable for Eugine’s comments to be permanently destroyed. (1) To reduce his incentive to make them. (2) To deter future Eugines. (3) Because including them may be of negative net benefit because they’re particularly uninteresting even among deleted comments on LW. On the other side, I guess we have (a) the merits of a policy of never deleting comments permanently, for the sake of transparency, and (b) the possibility that to some people Eugine’s comments might be very interesting or valuable. It’s not obvious to me how (1,2,3) weigh up against (a,b), but it does seem obvious to me that it isn’t obvious that (a,b) massively outweigh (1,2,3). Do you agree?
(I ask the last question because one impression I get from your comments on this is of incredulity, as if you find it baffling that anyone would think it makes sense to delete Eugine’s comments permanently. I’m not sure whether I’m imagining that, nor whether if I’m not the incredulity is real rather than adopted; if it’s real, then I hope to have made it less baffling that some people want Eugine’s comments nuked.)
It’s not obvious to me whether access to Eugine’s deleted comments is a net benefit to the LW readership.
Reading something has a cost (in time, attention, etc.) as well as whatever benefits it brings, and a lot of the things we might read are rubbish; so we seek out various sorts of probably-better-than-average writing. Removing something from a given corpus of writing may well be beneficial, if the thing removed is of notably lower quality than the rest of the corpus and isn’t required in order to make sense of the rest of it. (This applies even if the thing, in absolute terms, isn’t so bad.) Or if, in absolute terms, it’s not interesting enough to be worth the trouble of reading it.
It is plausible to me that Eugine’s mod-deleted comments are in fact of notably lower quality than the rest of the mod-deleted comments, if only because they are so damn repetititititititive.
“Quality” here means “whatever it is that one might be looking for in reading through deleted LW comments”. That might be much the same as quality of ordinary comments, if you’re reading the deleted ones for fear of missing something good. (In that case, my guess is that Eugine’s comments are better than average for deleted comments—at least, if there were some mechanism for collapsing the vast numbers of dupes. But I doubt many people will be reading the deletion log on the off chance of finding hidden gems.) It might be amount of information about moderator decisions. (Eugine’s deleted comments are very low in such information, because they all reflect a single decision to delete all his comments.) Etc.
Let’s suppose arguendo that the ability to read Eugine’s deleted comments is on average of benefit. I’d like to note that it wouldn’t follow from that that they should be made accessible, because e.g. the deterrent value of having it be known that if you behave like Eugine then you are liable to be maximally excluded from the LW community might be sufficient to outweigh that benefit. (If someone commits a serious crime and is imprisoned for it, this greatly reduces others’ access to conversation with them, to their ideas, etc. You could call this “punishing the entirety of the rest of the world for the transgression of the one person”, but that seems to me an unhelpful way to look at it.)
To recap this comment and an earlier one of mine, I suggest three reasons why it may be reasonable for Eugine’s comments to be permanently destroyed. (1) To reduce his incentive to make them. (2) To deter future Eugines. (3) Because including them may be of negative net benefit because they’re particularly uninteresting even among deleted comments on LW. On the other side, I guess we have (a) the merits of a policy of never deleting comments permanently, for the sake of transparency, and (b) the possibility that to some people Eugine’s comments might be very interesting or valuable. It’s not obvious to me how (1,2,3) weigh up against (a,b), but it does seem obvious to me that it isn’t obvious that (a,b) massively outweigh (1,2,3). Do you agree?
(I ask the last question because one impression I get from your comments on this is of incredulity, as if you find it baffling that anyone would think it makes sense to delete Eugine’s comments permanently. I’m not sure whether I’m imagining that, nor whether if I’m not the incredulity is real rather than adopted; if it’s real, then I hope to have made it less baffling that some people want Eugine’s comments nuked.)