I think all it implies is that creepiness could be a problem. There have been a number of recent instances—much discussed online—where it seems to have been, in the SF and atheist communities; that seems to me plenty enough to explain Douglas’s decision to bring it up.
I don’t find the analogy with suggesting that an unpopular person shower more very convincing. The main (though not the only) reason is that the dynamics of giving and taking offence seem to me quite different in the two cases, on account of the difference between saying something to one person and saying it to a whole community.
Consider: rather a large fraction of LW’s content consists of articles saying “Here is a mistake it’s possible to make when thinking. You should probably try not to do that.” If you go up to an individual person and say something like that then they’re likely to think you’re accusing them of making that mistake, and they may well take offence. If you say it publicly to the whole community then no one is being accused of anything and empirically it seems that people don’t take offence. Similarly, no one takes the LW articles about akrasia as personal accusations of Not Getting Stuff Done, etc. For that matter, since you use it as an analogy: I’ve seen articles in LW that said explicitly: “Some people, more of them among people of the sort LW attracts, have poor personal hygiene: you should shower regularly.” And, as it turns out, no one seems to have been offended; I don’t recall any responses saying “How dare you accuse me of having poor personal hygiene?”.
Why take a statement of the form “Some people in our community may do such-and-such a bad thing; let’s avoid it” as a personal attack and take offence? It just isn’t a personal attack. Not even if it really does mean “Some people in our community actually do do such-and-such a bad thing”. -- Not unless someone thinks that actually they, personally, are being attacked (or that someone close to them is) and that the generalized some-people-in-our-community stuff is just a cover. But I haven’t heard anyone suggest that anything like that is going on here.
I personally agree that creepiness could be a problem in this community, and was not offended by the article, but I don’t see it as unreasonable defensiveness for someone to be offended by the implication that this is a significant problem in the absence of evidence.
This is an issue which, I suspect, a significant number of our members are very conscious of, and take pains to avoid. One effective way to offend people, indeed the way in which I have most recently personally been significantly offended, is lecturing them in the assumption that they’re unaware of an error which they have actually gone to significant effort to correct.
Since this is a particularly touchy subject, it helps to take pains not to offend people. Maybe this article “just isn’t” a personal attack, but then many creepy behaviors “just aren’t” making inappropriate advances, but still set off the triggers of people who, after all, can only read behaviors, not intentions.
I think all it implies is that creepiness could be a problem. There have been a number of recent instances—much discussed online—where it seems to have been, in the SF and atheist communities; that seems to me plenty enough to explain Douglas’s decision to bring it up.
I don’t find the analogy with suggesting that an unpopular person shower more very convincing. The main (though not the only) reason is that the dynamics of giving and taking offence seem to me quite different in the two cases, on account of the difference between saying something to one person and saying it to a whole community.
Consider: rather a large fraction of LW’s content consists of articles saying “Here is a mistake it’s possible to make when thinking. You should probably try not to do that.” If you go up to an individual person and say something like that then they’re likely to think you’re accusing them of making that mistake, and they may well take offence. If you say it publicly to the whole community then no one is being accused of anything and empirically it seems that people don’t take offence. Similarly, no one takes the LW articles about akrasia as personal accusations of Not Getting Stuff Done, etc. For that matter, since you use it as an analogy: I’ve seen articles in LW that said explicitly: “Some people, more of them among people of the sort LW attracts, have poor personal hygiene: you should shower regularly.” And, as it turns out, no one seems to have been offended; I don’t recall any responses saying “How dare you accuse me of having poor personal hygiene?”.
Why take a statement of the form “Some people in our community may do such-and-such a bad thing; let’s avoid it” as a personal attack and take offence? It just isn’t a personal attack. Not even if it really does mean “Some people in our community actually do do such-and-such a bad thing”. -- Not unless someone thinks that actually they, personally, are being attacked (or that someone close to them is) and that the generalized some-people-in-our-community stuff is just a cover. But I haven’t heard anyone suggest that anything like that is going on here.
I personally agree that creepiness could be a problem in this community, and was not offended by the article, but I don’t see it as unreasonable defensiveness for someone to be offended by the implication that this is a significant problem in the absence of evidence.
This is an issue which, I suspect, a significant number of our members are very conscious of, and take pains to avoid. One effective way to offend people, indeed the way in which I have most recently personally been significantly offended, is lecturing them in the assumption that they’re unaware of an error which they have actually gone to significant effort to correct.
Since this is a particularly touchy subject, it helps to take pains not to offend people. Maybe this article “just isn’t” a personal attack, but then many creepy behaviors “just aren’t” making inappropriate advances, but still set off the triggers of people who, after all, can only read behaviors, not intentions.