Frankly, it’s a bit difficult to believe such a moral standard would be obeyed in practice for anywhere close to 100% of the readerbase.
I’m not saying that I expect everybody to refrain from defamation as a matter of morality. It’s just that that wouldn’t be a very effective response in that particular case, and it’s not the most obvious way that I would expect anybody to respond to that particular issue “in the heat of the moment”.
It wouldn’t be effective because if A posts that B and C are the same person, B coming back right away and saying that A is a squirrel molester is too obviously retaliatory, won’t be believed, and is probably going to make A’s original claim more credible.
Regardless of effectiveness, in my experience it seems as though most people who resort to smear campaigns do it because of a really fixed hatred for somebody. It’s true that publishing the list could be the start of a long-term enmity, and that that could end with speading lies about a person, but usually that only happens after a long history of multiple different incidents.
Even so, I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen… just that it seems strange to single it out among all the things that could happen. I would expect righteous-indignation types of responses much more often.
Maybe that would be differently if 2nd, 3rd, etc., ‘alt’ accounts were explicitly condoned in the site rules. But I’m pretty sure the mods are heavily against anyone making multiple accounts in secret.
Maybe I’m behind the times, but my understanding is that the norm on Internet forums, especially on non-corporate ones, is that multiple accounts are allowed unless explicitly forbidden. Not multiple abusive accounts, but most multiple accounts aren’t abusive.
Also, if the core team on Less Wrong, specifically, categorically didn’t want people to have multiple accounts, it would be very out of character for them not to write that down, regardless of what other sites do. That’s just not how I’ve seen them to run things. They seem to be all about making sure people understand expectations.
I don’t see anything about it in the FAQ, nor does it seem to appear in at least the first stage of the sign-up process. I do see a rule against using multiple accounts to evade bans. I’d be surprised to see that rule written the specific way it is if the intent were to forbid multiple accounts entirely. I also see rules against gaming the metrics in ways that would really be aided by multiple accounts… and yet those rules don’t specifically mention multiple accounts.
Even if the mods were opposed, though, I think their best response to that sort of thing would be to take it up with the user, and ban either all but one of the accounts, or all of the accounts. And the right response for a non-moderator would be to report it to the mods and let them handle it. Especially because when people do have alternate names, it can often be for reasons that (a) you don’t know about and (b) can involve risks of real harm.
The exception to that would be if there’d been been some kind of egregious activity that would clearly hurt community members if not exposed.
I can’t see mass public disclosure fitting with the general ethos of this particular site. In fact I think this site is the sort of place where it fits least. It feels more in place on Hacker News. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d take it in stride on 4Chan. But on Less Wrong?
I’m not saying that I expect everybody to refrain from defamation as a matter of morality. It’s just that that wouldn’t be a very effective response in that particular case, and it’s not the most obvious way that I would expect anybody to respond to that particular issue “in the heat of the moment”.
It wouldn’t be effective because if A posts that B and C are the same person, B coming back right away and saying that A is a squirrel molester is too obviously retaliatory, won’t be believed, and is probably going to make A’s original claim more credible.
Regardless of effectiveness, in my experience it seems as though most people who resort to smear campaigns do it because of a really fixed hatred for somebody. It’s true that publishing the list could be the start of a long-term enmity, and that that could end with speading lies about a person, but usually that only happens after a long history of multiple different incidents.
Even so, I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen… just that it seems strange to single it out among all the things that could happen. I would expect righteous-indignation types of responses much more often.
Maybe I’m behind the times, but my understanding is that the norm on Internet forums, especially on non-corporate ones, is that multiple accounts are allowed unless explicitly forbidden. Not multiple abusive accounts, but most multiple accounts aren’t abusive.
Also, if the core team on Less Wrong, specifically, categorically didn’t want people to have multiple accounts, it would be very out of character for them not to write that down, regardless of what other sites do. That’s just not how I’ve seen them to run things. They seem to be all about making sure people understand expectations.
I don’t see anything about it in the FAQ, nor does it seem to appear in at least the first stage of the sign-up process. I do see a rule against using multiple accounts to evade bans. I’d be surprised to see that rule written the specific way it is if the intent were to forbid multiple accounts entirely. I also see rules against gaming the metrics in ways that would really be aided by multiple accounts… and yet those rules don’t specifically mention multiple accounts.
Even if the mods were opposed, though, I think their best response to that sort of thing would be to take it up with the user, and ban either all but one of the accounts, or all of the accounts. And the right response for a non-moderator would be to report it to the mods and let them handle it. Especially because when people do have alternate names, it can often be for reasons that (a) you don’t know about and (b) can involve risks of real harm.
The exception to that would be if there’d been been some kind of egregious activity that would clearly hurt community members if not exposed.
I can’t see mass public disclosure fitting with the general ethos of this particular site. In fact I think this site is the sort of place where it fits least. It feels more in place on Hacker News. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d take it in stride on 4Chan. But on Less Wrong?
Have you asked them?
If so, what’s their response regarding these points?
Look upthread a few posts.
Can you link to it?
I don’t see any remarks from the mods posted.
I can now that I’ve noticed the little link icon.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xjuffm5FFphFDvLWF/linking-alt-accounts?commentId=mj73tQhijz3yxYZe8
It appears that is habyrka’s personal opinion. Or at least it would be an odd way of announcing a new/updated/revised rule from the mod team.