1.) A comment including the term “intellectual riff-raff” (and some similar comments on the same thread that were not blatantly elitist but may or may not be interpreted that way).
2.) The intellectual riff-raff comment was never moderated even though I pointed it out to Luke.
5.) This post, Elitist Jerks: A Well-Kept Garden , is smearing the site as “elitist”, with “We’re (a site called elitistjerks.com) exactly the sort of ‘well-kept garden’ that EY’s post is about.”—and the post is popular.
You’re stretching the truth. All but the last example were reactions to discussions you started. If you start a discussion on a forum, you should expect some people to disagree with you.
And if you had actually read the Elitist Jerks article past the title, you would have realized that its purpose is to question whether an “elitist” style of moderation is a good idea on another website.
And if you had actually read the Elitist Jerks article past the title, you would have noticed this sentence:
“We’re (a site called elitistjerks.com) exactly the sort of ‘well-kept garden’ that EY’s post is about.”
Interpreting that to mean “LessWrong is a bunch of elitist jerks.” is likely to be a common interpretation.
Kindly, when it comes to how the outside world perceives LessWrong and members like myself who are (tentatively) choosing to associate myself with you guys (possibly not for long, because of this) it does not matter one rat’s behind how you interpret things like that. Those kinds of statements upset people.
I feel like you’re arguing with strawmen here, and it’s starting to get old.
Even if my interpretation is wrong, I’d bet that my interpretation was common, so we’ve lost sight of the point which was that this comment makes LessWrong look like elitists. Changes comment because the relevant thing is not whether that interpretation is valid, what’s relevant is whether it would be common.
I’d expect a site calling itself “Elitist Jerks” to be doing so at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek, like most self-deprecation of that species. Inferring based on this that the site’s actually full of elitist jerks is questionable. Inferring based on that and a comparison of forum management styles that LW is likewise full of elitist jerks is very questionable.
I’m going to ignore the Elitist Jerks article if you don’t mind, because really the only association it has with the topic at hand is the name of a community in no way affiliated with Less Wrong, and moreover a casual visitor is unlikely to ever read it.
Besides that, you are mainly seeing reactions to your own posts related to elitism, and I think you’re misreading those reactions. In particular, other people don’t read comments on the “pro-or-anti-elitist” scale, and their upvotes and downvotes don’t reflect that. (See here for why I think your post was downvoted.)
You’re unaware of what all I’m reacting to:
1.) A comment including the term “intellectual riff-raff” (and some similar comments on the same thread that were not blatantly elitist but may or may not be interpreted that way).
2.) The intellectual riff-raff comment was never moderated even though I pointed it out to Luke.
3.) A comment saying “LessWrong is elitist:” … “I wish LessWrong was more elitist!” got 20 upvotes. Note: That’s 21 people expressing this perspective, not one.
4.) My post Elitism isn’t necessary for refining rationality. was voted down so hard that Michael Porter said it was one of the most unpopular posts in LessWrong discussion.
5.) This post, Elitist Jerks: A Well-Kept Garden , is smearing the site as “elitist”, with “We’re (a site called elitistjerks.com) exactly the sort of ‘well-kept garden’ that EY’s post is about.”—and the post is popular.
You’re stretching the truth. All but the last example were reactions to discussions you started. If you start a discussion on a forum, you should expect some people to disagree with you.
And if you had actually read the Elitist Jerks article past the title, you would have realized that its purpose is to question whether an “elitist” style of moderation is a good idea on another website.
And you’re missing my point. That looks bad. It doesn’t matter how you interpret it, Kindly, when people say something like “LessWrong is elitist:” … “I wish LessWrong was more elitist!” and it gets 20 upvotes, that looks really bad.
And if you had actually read the Elitist Jerks article past the title, you would have noticed this sentence:
“We’re (a site called elitistjerks.com) exactly the sort of ‘well-kept garden’ that EY’s post is about.”
Interpreting that to mean “LessWrong is a bunch of elitist jerks.” is likely to be a common interpretation.
Kindly, when it comes to how the outside world perceives LessWrong and members like myself who are (tentatively) choosing to associate myself with you guys (possibly not for long, because of this) it does not matter one rat’s behind how you interpret things like that. Those kinds of statements upset people.
I feel like you’re arguing with strawmen here, and it’s starting to get old.
No. No it is not.
Even if my interpretation is wrong, I’d bet that my interpretation was common, so we’ve lost sight of the point which was that this comment makes LessWrong look like elitists. Changes comment because the relevant thing is not whether that interpretation is valid, what’s relevant is whether it would be common.
I’d expect a site calling itself “Elitist Jerks” to be doing so at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek, like most self-deprecation of that species. Inferring based on this that the site’s actually full of elitist jerks is questionable. Inferring based on that and a comparison of forum management styles that LW is likewise full of elitist jerks is very questionable.
I’m going to ignore the Elitist Jerks article if you don’t mind, because really the only association it has with the topic at hand is the name of a community in no way affiliated with Less Wrong, and moreover a casual visitor is unlikely to ever read it.
Besides that, you are mainly seeing reactions to your own posts related to elitism, and I think you’re misreading those reactions. In particular, other people don’t read comments on the “pro-or-anti-elitist” scale, and their upvotes and downvotes don’t reflect that. (See here for why I think your post was downvoted.)