participants in a personal feud should not have moderator powers.
I pretended not to, until I convinced another moderator to approve a certain algorithm. (Surely bothering Eliezer on a per-case basis would not be the best choice, if there is such an algorithm and he in fact approves it.)
Yes: generally, one important rationalist skill is recognizing when your bias is rendering your judgment unusable while there are others you can turn to—for must the same reason that a rationalist should be able to understand “Do not murder for the good of the tribe, even for the good of the tribe” without their head exploding.
(For a while—though I seem to have been near alone in this—I avoided voting on subthreads in which I was an active, arguing participant, recognizing that this would compromise my judgment.)
I still feel a bit uncomfortable if it’s Bob’s friend who makes the judgement call. Wouldn’t a “some stated policy + judgement calls per basis” system be preferable to a “judgement calls per basis” system in terms of preventing abuse?
I took it to mean, “should not have moderator powers with respect to their feud”. If Eliezer and some other guy are fighting, Eliezer’s not allowed to ban that guy not matter how badly he behaves—he has to prevail on e.g. lukeprog to do it.
Additionally, he should not pick moderators over which he has unusually high influence—for an extreme example, if he’s the dominatrix (atror?) for that moderator. (I don’t know if that applies to lukeprog, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t...)
I will note that the rule I intended was not “no Less Wrong moderator shall ever be involved in a conflict with another human being”. Crucial details of the present situation are that (1) SilasBarta is himself a prominent and respectable member of the LW community, with exactly 7700 karma at the time of writing; and (2) Alicorn’s issue with him originated on LW and predates Alicorn’s being made a moderator.
So we’re not talking about a situation where e.g. some troll with a longstanding feud with EY from outside LW comes onto the site to make trouble.
Per fezzwig, it just means, “Hey, other moderator, I’m not close enough to impartial here, so look at this thread and make the judgment on it.”
That would mean that if moderator A nobly “avoided” getting another moderator, but then picked a moderator B, over which A has unusual influence, and did it precisely “when it actually mattered [to A]”, that would also not be kosher.
For obvious reasons, participants in a personal feud should not have moderator powers.
I pretended not to, until I convinced another moderator to approve a certain algorithm. (Surely bothering Eliezer on a per-case basis would not be the best choice, if there is such an algorithm and he in fact approves it.)
Yes: generally, one important rationalist skill is recognizing when your bias is rendering your judgment unusable while there are others you can turn to—for must the same reason that a rationalist should be able to understand “Do not murder for the good of the tribe, even for the good of the tribe” without their head exploding.
(For a while—though I seem to have been near alone in this—I avoided voting on subthreads in which I was an active, arguing participant, recognizing that this would compromise my judgment.)
I still feel a bit uncomfortable if it’s Bob’s friend who makes the judgement call. Wouldn’t a “some stated policy + judgement calls per basis” system be preferable to a “judgement calls per basis” system in terms of preventing abuse?
What if someone gets into a feud with Eliezer? Does he have to step down? This doesn’t seem like a very practical rule.
I took it to mean, “should not have moderator powers with respect to their feud”. If Eliezer and some other guy are fighting, Eliezer’s not allowed to ban that guy not matter how badly he behaves—he has to prevail on e.g. lukeprog to do it.
Additionally, he should not pick moderators over which he has unusually high influence—for an extreme example, if he’s the dominatrix (atror?) for that moderator. (I don’t know if that applies to lukeprog, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t...)
I will note that the rule I intended was not “no Less Wrong moderator shall ever be involved in a conflict with another human being”. Crucial details of the present situation are that (1) SilasBarta is himself a prominent and respectable member of the LW community, with exactly 7700 karma at the time of writing; and (2) Alicorn’s issue with him originated on LW and predates Alicorn’s being made a moderator.
So we’re not talking about a situation where e.g. some troll with a longstanding feud with EY from outside LW comes onto the site to make trouble.
Per fezzwig, it just means, “Hey, other moderator, I’m not close enough to impartial here, so look at this thread and make the judgment on it.”
That would mean that if moderator A nobly “avoided” getting another moderator, but then picked a moderator B, over which A has unusual influence, and did it precisely “when it actually mattered [to A]”, that would also not be kosher.