Because we don’t have the ability to punch each other in the face over the internet and only meet in person in the location where we physically exist it is the norms of that location that are relevant. Such a norm does not belong here.
Eh, I could see us having a norm of thinking poorly of people who are known to have punched third parties in the face, which is how I was parsing that one.
I could see us having a norm of thinking poorly of people who are known to have punched third parties in the face, which is how I was parsing that one.
I personally would be thinking poorly of people who are known to advocate a norm of thinking poorly of those known to have punched third parties in the face. Primarily because this isn’t church but also because it encourages a short-sighted and incomplete understanding of social dynamics and ethics.
short-sighted and incomplete understanding of social dynamics and ethics.
Still nitpicking here, but this seems to me to be related to the most important difference between norms and rules: Norms apply to normal situations and leave room for personal judgement; rules apply to all situations and generally don’t.
I expect that it is normally not a good thing to punch someone in the face—that something more than 60% of a random sampling of non-consensual face-punches would generally be considered on reflection to have been a bad idea. If that’s true (and I’ll grant that I’m not terribly confident of it), then having a norm of reacting to the information that a given person has punched someone in the face as if that’s indicative of a significant lapse in judgement seems reasonable. If there are extenuating circumstances, then that can be taken into account, and it’s not ‘breaking a rule’ to do so and conclude that the normal response is inappropriate. It doesn’t even disprove the usefulness of the norm, whereas finding a situation where a rule leads to poor results can be taken to prove that the rule needs changing.
(I don’t necessarily advocate this specific norm here, though. I haven’t thought enough about it to weigh in one way or the other.)
Expand? I’m not sure why you think that, but it’s entirely possible that I’m just failing to notice something.
I am confused (perhaps?). One is a codified norm—the sort of thing that people will link to or cite. Another is an individual (but common) expectation that a given punch was a suboptimal move and somewhat of an indicator of undesired traits. They just seem… entirely different to me. ie. One is highly unpleasant and the other is blatantly obvious.
I’m still lost. We write things down and link to them and cite them all the time; I don’t see why you think that’s bad in this case. It does add the implication that the cited norm is generally agreed on, but if we’ve talked the norms over and only listed ones where that’s the case that doesn’t seem likely to be a problem—and, even in that case, citing a listed norm only seems to me to carry about equivalent conversational weight to someone posting “[behavior] is normal here; you should have expected it” and getting upvoted in agreement a couple of times. Plus, it gives new people an opportunity to learn those norms more quickly, and also allows us to explicitly not count certain things as norms even if they’re common habits, if they’re things we want to allow anyway.
There is some context that might be notable, here: Alicorn and I happen to have been working on a house norms list for the last several days, since we decided to offer CronoDAS the opportunity to come stay with us for a while. That’s been going quite well, and appears to have several advantages over a house rule list—the flexibility mentioned above is one, and the fact that norms can semi-contradict each other in ways that rules mostly can’t is another, for example. So I have some positive affect built up around the concept, where I suspect that you have some negative affect around it because of how the concept came up here.
Huh. You probably have even more experience with it than I do, then. What about that experience makes you think it won’t work here, since it’s apparently something you find useful enough at home (given that you ‘do’, rather than ‘have done’)?
Eh, I could see us having a norm of thinking poorly of people who are known to have punched third parties in the face, which is how I was parsing that one.
I’m mostly nitpicking, though.
I personally would be thinking poorly of people who are known to advocate a norm of thinking poorly of those known to have punched third parties in the face. Primarily because this isn’t church but also because it encourages a short-sighted and incomplete understanding of social dynamics and ethics.
Still nitpicking here, but this seems to me to be related to the most important difference between norms and rules: Norms apply to normal situations and leave room for personal judgement; rules apply to all situations and generally don’t.
I expect that it is normally not a good thing to punch someone in the face—that something more than 60% of a random sampling of non-consensual face-punches would generally be considered on reflection to have been a bad idea. If that’s true (and I’ll grant that I’m not terribly confident of it), then having a norm of reacting to the information that a given person has punched someone in the face as if that’s indicative of a significant lapse in judgement seems reasonable. If there are extenuating circumstances, then that can be taken into account, and it’s not ‘breaking a rule’ to do so and conclude that the normal response is inappropriate. It doesn’t even disprove the usefulness of the norm, whereas finding a situation where a rule leads to poor results can be taken to prove that the rule needs changing.
(I don’t necessarily advocate this specific norm here, though. I haven’t thought enough about it to weigh in one way or the other.)
There is a difference between thinking that on average punching people in the face is a dumbass move and codifying a norm to the effect.
Expand? I’m not sure why you think that, but it’s entirely possible that I’m just failing to notice something.
I am confused (perhaps?). One is a codified norm—the sort of thing that people will link to or cite. Another is an individual (but common) expectation that a given punch was a suboptimal move and somewhat of an indicator of undesired traits. They just seem… entirely different to me. ie. One is highly unpleasant and the other is blatantly obvious.
I’m still lost. We write things down and link to them and cite them all the time; I don’t see why you think that’s bad in this case. It does add the implication that the cited norm is generally agreed on, but if we’ve talked the norms over and only listed ones where that’s the case that doesn’t seem likely to be a problem—and, even in that case, citing a listed norm only seems to me to carry about equivalent conversational weight to someone posting “[behavior] is normal here; you should have expected it” and getting upvoted in agreement a couple of times. Plus, it gives new people an opportunity to learn those norms more quickly, and also allows us to explicitly not count certain things as norms even if they’re common habits, if they’re things we want to allow anyway.
There is some context that might be notable, here: Alicorn and I happen to have been working on a house norms list for the last several days, since we decided to offer CronoDAS the opportunity to come stay with us for a while. That’s been going quite well, and appears to have several advantages over a house rule list—the flexibility mentioned above is one, and the fact that norms can semi-contradict each other in ways that rules mostly can’t is another, for example. So I have some positive affect built up around the concept, where I suspect that you have some negative affect around it because of how the concept came up here.
That is something that I do when I live in shared accommodation as well.
Huh. You probably have even more experience with it than I do, then. What about that experience makes you think it won’t work here, since it’s apparently something you find useful enough at home (given that you ‘do’, rather than ‘have done’)?