I am convinced that you are wrong in point of fact. I am telling you this so you can adjust your feelings to fit reality. As long as you feel Alicorn or others are out to get you, or profit by hurting you, you will probably not be able to make a useful contribution to discussions or enjoy them yourself.
From my experience as a longtime reader of the site I can tell you that reputation on LW is not normally gained by attacking anyone, even if everyone else agrees in disliking the target or their comments. We have community values of responding to the factual content of each comment, with clear literal meaning, and without covert signalling. Reputation is gained by contributing to the conversation.
We also require civility, and since people are often bad at predicting how others will react to borderline comments like “dumb”, it’s best to be what may seem to you to be extra-civil just to avoid conversational traps. You have edited the comment that seemed to start this whole subthread, and I haven’t seen the original, so can’t comment more specifically.
I feel as though your comments are now solely directed towards the purpose of gaining reputation.
I am convinced that you are wrong in point of fact. I am telling you this so you can adjust your feelings to fit reality. As long as you feel Alicorn or others are out to get you, or profit by hurting you, you will probably not be able to make a useful contribution to discussions or enjoy them yourself.
From my experience as a longtime reader of the site I can tell you that reputation on LW is not normally gained by attacking anyone, even if everyone else agrees in disliking the target or their comments. We have community values of responding to the factual content of each comment, with clear literal meaning, and without covert signalling. Reputation is gained by contributing to the conversation.
We also require civility, and since people are often bad at predicting how others will react to borderline comments like “dumb”, it’s best to be what may seem to you to be extra-civil just to avoid conversational traps. You have edited the comment that seemed to start this whole subthread, and I haven’t seen the original, so can’t comment more specifically.