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> Criticism of published work should assume basic competence What this is saying is that even if egregious blunders are made it is against the rules to call th

> Criticism of published work should assume basic competence What this is saying is that even if egregious blunders are made it is against the rules to call that out - how can I point out incompetence if I have to assume competence? I host a medical journal club - statistical incompetence in the life sciences is bountiful. > Comments dismissing established findings I’m sure defining established isn’t difficult to do/open for abuse. /s Those aren’t “strict” rules - they are poorly defined rules open up to tremendous interpretation. Reddit is a cesspool for honest intellectual debate.

andy_ppp 4y ago
It’s better to say I think the authors should have thought about X rather the author is a moron and incompetent for not doing X. You can still say it by critiquing the actions not the character of the person. Similar rules exist in the Houses of parliament around accusations of lying simply because everyone would decend into that as a method of argument. It’s harder to call people out but still possible in my opinion.
- fuckstick 4y ago
  Ok, but that’s not what the rule is saying (be civil, no ad hominem, etc). If that were the case I would have no issue. Maybe that would be a reasonable rule - and it is on many forums. It’s saying that criticism must “assume competence” - that’s very different - and as a moderator I can twist any kind of criticism into a violation of this rule. And why do I have to assume competence anyway - shouldn’t the work stand on its own merits? And let’s get something straight - “being a moron” is not equivalent to being incompetent (in an area of expertise). One is just name calling the other is a specific legitimate criticism.
  - andy_ppp 4y ago
    The community is 95% less competent than the researchers so I think this rule is fine.
    - Mordisquitos 4y ago
      The same can be said for any community discussing politics, technology, or entertainment. An overwhelming majority of online commenters are ignorant of those fields and the myriad of factors that have to be taken into account by the experts who are making the decisions that are being discussed. So, should comments in those subreddits "assume competence" of legislators, software businesses and TV producers, lest they be deleted?
      - andy_ppp 4y ago
        If you are as competent as the researchers you’re perfectly capable of pointing out the mistakes made in the research without insults like competency or stupidity. As it says in the rules for hacker news: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." That these rules are not enforced by deleting content but the comments largely disappearing from view (based on community voting) is not a hugely different outcome IMO. It’s also worth noting that you don’t have to participate in such a community if you don’t want to. Their space and their rules.
        Mordisquitos 4y ago
        I absolutely agree with you that comments should not explicitly cast doubt on the authors competency, nor insult them or their reasonings. However, that is not the rule we are criticising. The rule is: > Criticism of published work should assume basic competence That rule for example would bar a commenter from critiquing the work for not taking into account a confounding factor, or for using a non-representative WEIRD [0] population sample to reach overly broad conclusions. Taking these issues into account can be argued to be "basic competence", but they are too often ignored in many the most headline-worthy social science papers that attract the most upvotes. [0] western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_psychology#WEIRD_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_psychology#WEI...
    - adammarples 4y ago
      That's why I go to the comments, for the 1% of commenter who do know better and can add something. That's why HN is still quite good, there are real experts here commenting on stuff below the line. Imagine if HN ruled that every article posted must be assumed correct - HN as a commentary would have no value for me any more.
- mhuffman 4y ago
  >It’s better to say I think the authors should have thought about X rather the author is a moron and incompetent for not doing X. It is probably less being a moron or incompetent than having an agenda would be the likely complaint ... depending on the subject matter that is. I suspect this is much more of a problem is social sciences than, say, pure mathematics.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  It doesn't matter to the mods of r/science how politely you put it if you are suggesting that not considering X would have significantly changed the conclusions of "the science." As an aside, most of the mods are toward the "soft" side of science (biology, medicine, social science), and likely do not understand statistics very well. Papers with glaring issues regularly make it to the top because their conclusions are cool, not because they are truly good/impactful works.
jules 4y ago
I once simply pointed out how an equation in a climate science paper didn't make sense because there was a unit error (there was exp(x) where x was not unitless) => removed.
- nullc 4y ago
  Better than r/legaladvice where many of the moderators are law enforcement officers and aggressively remove good advice (including from actual attorneys) and aggressively push bad "cop law" that instructs people to take actions which are highly prejudicial to their own interests. :) Ever once in a while I ponder how many people are unnecessarily stuck in jail because of that one subreddit then feel ill and have to stop thinking about it.
  - boppo1 4y ago
    Is there an article that exposes this? How do you know?
    - nullc 4y ago
      The weird behavior there first came to my attention after hearing an attorney I know griping about their standard advice being removed in favor of "go turn yourself in" messages. It's fairly well known at this point, I see multiple relevant threads on the first page of https://www.google.com/search?q=reddit+r%2Flegaladvice+moderators+are+law+enforcement https://www.google.com/search?q=reddit+r%2Flegaladvice+moder...
mariusor 4y ago
This particular subreddit is not for actual debates. Everyone in this thread seems to forget about that.

andy_ppp 4y ago

It’s better to say I think the authors should have thought about X rather the author is a moron and incompetent for not doing X. You can still say it by critiquing the actions not the character of the person. Similar rules exist in the Houses of parliament around accusations of lying simply because everyone would decend into that as a method of argument. It’s harder to call people out but still possible in my opinion.

fuckstick 4y ago
Ok, but that’s not what the rule is saying (be civil, no ad hominem, etc). If that were the case I would have no issue. Maybe that would be a reasonable rule - and it is on many forums. It’s saying that criticism must “assume competence” - that’s very different - and as a moderator I can twist any kind of criticism into a violation of this rule. And why do I have to assume competence anyway - shouldn’t the work stand on its own merits? And let’s get something straight - “being a moron” is not equivalent to being incompetent (in an area of expertise). One is just name calling the other is a specific legitimate criticism.
- andy_ppp 4y ago
  The community is 95% less competent than the researchers so I think this rule is fine.
  - Mordisquitos 4y ago
    The same can be said for any community discussing politics, technology, or entertainment. An overwhelming majority of online commenters are ignorant of those fields and the myriad of factors that have to be taken into account by the experts who are making the decisions that are being discussed. So, should comments in those subreddits "assume competence" of legislators, software businesses and TV producers, lest they be deleted?
    - andy_ppp 4y ago
      If you are as competent as the researchers you’re perfectly capable of pointing out the mistakes made in the research without insults like competency or stupidity. As it says in the rules for hacker news: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." That these rules are not enforced by deleting content but the comments largely disappearing from view (based on community voting) is not a hugely different outcome IMO. It’s also worth noting that you don’t have to participate in such a community if you don’t want to. Their space and their rules.
      - Mordisquitos 4y ago
        I absolutely agree with you that comments should not explicitly cast doubt on the authors competency, nor insult them or their reasonings. However, that is not the rule we are criticising. The rule is: > Criticism of published work should assume basic competence That rule for example would bar a commenter from critiquing the work for not taking into account a confounding factor, or for using a non-representative WEIRD [0] population sample to reach overly broad conclusions. Taking these issues into account can be argued to be "basic competence", but they are too often ignored in many the most headline-worthy social science papers that attract the most upvotes. [0] western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_psychology#WEIRD_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_psychology#WEI...
  - adammarples 4y ago
    That's why I go to the comments, for the 1% of commenter who do know better and can add something. That's why HN is still quite good, there are real experts here commenting on stuff below the line. Imagine if HN ruled that every article posted must be assumed correct - HN as a commentary would have no value for me any more.
mhuffman 4y ago
>It’s better to say I think the authors should have thought about X rather the author is a moron and incompetent for not doing X. It is probably less being a moron or incompetent than having an agenda would be the likely complaint ... depending on the subject matter that is. I suspect this is much more of a problem is social sciences than, say, pure mathematics.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
It doesn't matter to the mods of r/science how politely you put it if you are suggesting that not considering X would have significantly changed the conclusions of "the science." As an aside, most of the mods are toward the "soft" side of science (biology, medicine, social science), and likely do not understand statistics very well. Papers with glaring issues regularly make it to the top because their conclusions are cool, not because they are truly good/impactful works.

jules 4y ago

I once simply pointed out how an equation in a climate science paper didn't make sense because there was a unit error (there was exp(x) where x was not unitless) => removed.

nullc 4y ago
Better than r/legaladvice where many of the moderators are law enforcement officers and aggressively remove good advice (including from actual attorneys) and aggressively push bad "cop law" that instructs people to take actions which are highly prejudicial to their own interests. :) Ever once in a while I ponder how many people are unnecessarily stuck in jail because of that one subreddit then feel ill and have to stop thinking about it.
- boppo1 4y ago
  Is there an article that exposes this? How do you know?
  - nullc 4y ago
    The weird behavior there first came to my attention after hearing an attorney I know griping about their standard advice being removed in favor of "go turn yourself in" messages. It's fairly well known at this point, I see multiple relevant threads on the first page of https://www.google.com/search?q=reddit+r%2Flegaladvice+moderators+are+law+enforcement https://www.google.com/search?q=reddit+r%2Flegaladvice+moder...

mariusor 4y ago

This particular subreddit is not for actual debates. Everyone in this thread seems to forget about that.