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It does make a difference when you believe that the reason Dash is making this kind of argument is because of his life experiences (or lack thereof). The gener

It does make a difference when you believe that the reason Dash is making this kind of argument is because of his life experiences (or lack thereof). The general point Dash is trying to make about moderating communities is fine. But it's easy to preach about not allowing assholes when you don't consider yourself to be one. The day the zeitgeist shifts considerably in the favor of assessing him as an asshole, I suspect Dash might sing a very different tune about site moderation policies.

braythwayt 7y ago
The comment said he shouldn't make the argument. That's one kind of ad hominem, a tu quoque You're (possibly unwittingly) making another, an ad hominem circumstantial, by questioning his motives. It's always best to just debate the argument itself and leave the author's character and motives and misconceptions out of it. Otherwise we end up spending a lot of time discussing Mr. Dash, instead of discussing moderation of online communities,.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  It really is as simple as Dash’s online behavior being “assholish”. It’s on the topic of the post, he’s just an extreme example of the behavior he’s lambasting.
  - braythwayt 7y ago
    Whether I agree or disagree with your characterization of him, what does that have to do with whether people who run online communities should be responsible for moderating them? It isn't on topic, unless you want to say, "Since Dash is an asshole, that is proof that there exists at least one asshole on the internet, which supports part of the argument he makes." The premise of the argument is that moderation is a moral imperative. Nothing about Mr. Dash's character supports or refutes that argument.
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      It matters because his calls for centralizing control of the discussion on a site through strong moderation gives him a lever to pull through social media outrage. Without all of the moderation tools he suggests in this post, he could try to shame the site owners to silence a point of view he doesn't like (which he does regularly) and they wouldn't technically be able to do anything about it. The more moderation tools he can get people to put in place, the easier it will be to lead the mobs to the front door of the moderators.
      - braythwayt 7y ago
        That is a reasonable argument to make, but it is made better by leaving him out of it. Simply state, "The problem with moderation is that it can be used as a hammer to ban dissent, &c. &c." Put like that, there is no ad hominem, and it can be debated on its merits. By the way, the most amusing thing about that argument is that we would be debating it on a moderated platform, that we both use precisely because it is moderated. If HN was unmoderated, it would cease to be valuable to the people currently using HN.
        malvosenior 7y ago
        I have to admit that when I first commented it was just on my gut telling me "this is awful and I know Dash's history and this bugs me". Through this discussion I actually narrowed in on why it was bothering me, so I probably should have made this point up front (but it wasn't cogent then). > that we both use precisely because it is moderated. That's not true, I'd prefer if HN was unmoderated.
        braythwayt 7y ago
        _I'd prefer if HN was unmoderated._ That is very interesting. You do not seem naïve, so I infer you you are well aware of the social dynamics at play in an unmoderated forum. On such a site, if I say that attacking Mr. Dash for being an asshole itself is an ad hominem, somebody is going to say, "STFU, Nigger!" A bunch of other people, whether because they're racists, or just enjoy the spectacle, will upvote that comment and downvote me to obscurity. Somebody else will say, "Incorrect. He's not a nigger, he's a mulatto." A third person will play along as the straight man. "What's the difference?" The reply will come by swift rickshaw: "About twelve dollars in confederate scrip," and will get upvotes galore. A follow-up will say, "Nigger, mulatto, whatever, they're all going to the ovens if they won't relocate out of the white settlements." Communities that stop moderating quickly become toxic, because even the smallest amount of toxicity drives un-toxic people away, and attracts toxic people, and without anything to stop it, the trend accelerates, until the site is dumpster fire. And it's not just the comments. People would get away with positing all sorts of political and social stuff, "because unmoderated." Many of the people who come here for the tech would leave, because this would no longer be tech-heavy. The "truthiness" of the front page would slide rapidly as the site becomes an echo chamber, until it would be unrecognizable as Hacker News in anything except name. I presume you know that, so I also presume that what you mean is, you prefer a site where we would never have this conversation, because I would no longer be here. In fact, nobody would have this conversation, because everybody here would be united in their contempt of Mr. Dash, anyone like him, and anyone who doesn't immediately denounce anything he says on the basis of him saying it. --- I am tempted to indulge in a little fallacious reasoning myself and say that what you want is not a "True Hacker News," because it would quickly become a completely different site with different people, talking about different things, in a completely different tone of voice. But perhaps I am wrong, and what you want is all the same people, talking about the same things, but without anybody getting banned or any posts being killed. If so... I don't think that is a stable state. Moderation is a local maxima, dumpster fire is another local maxima, and everything in between eventually gets pulled to one of the two stable states.
- asfarley 7y ago
  Social policies are usually not as rigorously-defined as things like programming rules. Thus, it is important to consider the motives of people who may end up enforcing them, because there's potentially a large difference between the law-as-intended and the law-as-enforced. If the difference is large enough, it's worthwhile to examine how the personality of the enforcer may bias the outcome. I think your argument might be valid in extremely rigorous fields like quantum mechanics - who cares who submitted the proof? But when we're talking about enforcing free speech, the person who is enforcing it has a big effect on the outcome.

braythwayt 7y ago

The comment said he shouldn't make the argument. That's one kind of ad hominem, a tu quoque You're (possibly unwittingly) making another, an ad hominem circumstantial, by questioning his motives. It's always best to just debate the argument itself and leave the author's character and motives and misconceptions out of it. Otherwise we end up spending a lot of time discussing Mr. Dash, instead of discussing moderation of online communities,.

malvosenior 7y ago
It really is as simple as Dash’s online behavior being “assholish”. It’s on the topic of the post, he’s just an extreme example of the behavior he’s lambasting.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  Whether I agree or disagree with your characterization of him, what does that have to do with whether people who run online communities should be responsible for moderating them? It isn't on topic, unless you want to say, "Since Dash is an asshole, that is proof that there exists at least one asshole on the internet, which supports part of the argument he makes." The premise of the argument is that moderation is a moral imperative. Nothing about Mr. Dash's character supports or refutes that argument.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    It matters because his calls for centralizing control of the discussion on a site through strong moderation gives him a lever to pull through social media outrage. Without all of the moderation tools he suggests in this post, he could try to shame the site owners to silence a point of view he doesn't like (which he does regularly) and they wouldn't technically be able to do anything about it. The more moderation tools he can get people to put in place, the easier it will be to lead the mobs to the front door of the moderators.
    - braythwayt 7y ago
      That is a reasonable argument to make, but it is made better by leaving him out of it. Simply state, "The problem with moderation is that it can be used as a hammer to ban dissent, &c. &c." Put like that, there is no ad hominem, and it can be debated on its merits. By the way, the most amusing thing about that argument is that we would be debating it on a moderated platform, that we both use precisely because it is moderated. If HN was unmoderated, it would cease to be valuable to the people currently using HN.
      - malvosenior 7y ago
        I have to admit that when I first commented it was just on my gut telling me "this is awful and I know Dash's history and this bugs me". Through this discussion I actually narrowed in on why it was bothering me, so I probably should have made this point up front (but it wasn't cogent then). > that we both use precisely because it is moderated. That's not true, I'd prefer if HN was unmoderated.
        braythwayt 7y ago
        _I'd prefer if HN was unmoderated._ That is very interesting. You do not seem naïve, so I infer you you are well aware of the social dynamics at play in an unmoderated forum. On such a site, if I say that attacking Mr. Dash for being an asshole itself is an ad hominem, somebody is going to say, "STFU, Nigger!" A bunch of other people, whether because they're racists, or just enjoy the spectacle, will upvote that comment and downvote me to obscurity. Somebody else will say, "Incorrect. He's not a nigger, he's a mulatto." A third person will play along as the straight man. "What's the difference?" The reply will come by swift rickshaw: "About twelve dollars in confederate scrip," and will get upvotes galore. A follow-up will say, "Nigger, mulatto, whatever, they're all going to the ovens if they won't relocate out of the white settlements." Communities that stop moderating quickly become toxic, because even the smallest amount of toxicity drives un-toxic people away, and attracts toxic people, and without anything to stop it, the trend accelerates, until the site is dumpster fire. And it's not just the comments. People would get away with positing all sorts of political and social stuff, "because unmoderated." Many of the people who come here for the tech would leave, because this would no longer be tech-heavy. The "truthiness" of the front page would slide rapidly as the site becomes an echo chamber, until it would be unrecognizable as Hacker News in anything except name. I presume you know that, so I also presume that what you mean is, you prefer a site where we would never have this conversation, because I would no longer be here. In fact, nobody would have this conversation, because everybody here would be united in their contempt of Mr. Dash, anyone like him, and anyone who doesn't immediately denounce anything he says on the basis of him saying it. --- I am tempted to indulge in a little fallacious reasoning myself and say that what you want is not a "True Hacker News," because it would quickly become a completely different site with different people, talking about different things, in a completely different tone of voice. But perhaps I am wrong, and what you want is all the same people, talking about the same things, but without anybody getting banned or any posts being killed. If so... I don't think that is a stable state. Moderation is a local maxima, dumpster fire is another local maxima, and everything in between eventually gets pulled to one of the two stable states.
asfarley 7y ago
Social policies are usually not as rigorously-defined as things like programming rules. Thus, it is important to consider the motives of people who may end up enforcing them, because there's potentially a large difference between the law-as-intended and the law-as-enforced. If the difference is large enough, it's worthwhile to examine how the personality of the enforcer may bias the outcome. I think your argument might be valid in extremely rigorous fields like quantum mechanics - who cares who submitted the proof? But when we're talking about enforcing free speech, the person who is enforcing it has a big effect on the outcome.