> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. This is the one we most desperate

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. This is the one we most desperately need a reminder of. The frequent cascades of strawmanning after strawmanning are exhausting to read. And too often it looks like voting on comments is used for simple agree/disagree, as if we’re a committee needing to form consensus. More often than not, the answer to something is “it’s complicated” and we’d have more meaningful discussions if we had the discipline to judge contributions by helpful/unhelpful.