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by martin-t 2y ago

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blovescoffee 2y ago
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DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
How do I know you're reasoning, and not just simulating reasoning (imperfectly)?
dang 2y ago
Please don't cross into personal attack and please don't post in the flamewar style, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We're trying for the opposite here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- martin-t 2y ago
  The issue with this approach to moderation is that it targets posts based on visibility of "undesired" behavior instead of severity. For example, many manipulative tactics (e.g. the fake sorry here, responding to something else than was said, ...) and lying can be considered insults (they literally assume the reader is not smart enough to notice, hence at least as severe as calling someone an idiot) but it's hard for a mod to notice without putting in a lot of effort to understand the situation. Yet when people (very mildly) punish this behavior by calling it out, they are often noticed by the mod because the call out is more visible.
  - dang 2y ago
    I hear this argument a lot, but I think it's too complicated. It doesn't explain any more than the simple one does, and has the disadvantage of being self-serving. The simple argument is that when you write things like this: > I am unwilling to invest any more time into arguing with someone unwilling to use reasoning ...you're bluntly breaking the rules, regardless of what another commenter is doing, be it subtly or blatantly abusive. I agree that there are countless varieties of passive-aggressive swipe and they rub me the wrong way too, but the argument that those are "just as bad, merely less visible" is not accurate. Attacking someone else is not justified by a passive-aggressive "sorry", just as it is not ok to ram another vehicle when a driver cuts you off in traffic.
    - martin-t 2y ago
      I've thought about this a lot because in the past few years I've noticed a massive uptick in what I call "fake politeness" or "polite insults" - people attacking somebody but taking care to stay below the threshold of when a mod would take action, instead hoping that the other person crosses the threshold. This extends to the real world too - you can easily find videos of people and groups (often protesters and political activists) arguing, insulting each other (covertly and overtly) and hoping the other side crosses a threshold so they can play the victim and get a higher power involved. The issue is many rules are written as absolute statements which expect some kind of higher power (mods, police, ...) to be the only side to deal punishment. This obviously breaks in many situations - when the higher power is understaffed, when it's corrupt or when there is no higher power (war between nation states). I would like to see attempts to make rules relative. Treat others how you want to be treated but somebody treating you badly gives you the right to also treat them badly (within reason - proportionally). It would probably lead to conflict being more visible (though not necessarily being more numerous) but it would allow communities to self-police without the learned helplessness of relying on a higher power. Aggressors would gain nothing by provoking others because others would be able to defend themselves. Doing this is hard, especially at scale. Many people who behave poorly towards others back off when they are treated the same way but there also needs to be a way to deal with those who never back down. When a conflict doesn't resolve itself and mods step in, they should always take into account who started it, and especially if they have a pattern of starting conflict. There's another related issue - there is a difference between fairness/justice and peace. Those in power often fight for the first on paper but have a much stronger incentive to protect the second.
      - dang 2y ago
        > people attacking somebody but taking care to stay below the threshold of when a mod would take action, instead hoping that the other person crosses the threshold I agree, it is a problem—but it is (almost by definition) less of a problem than aggression which does cross the threshold. If every user would give up being overtly abusive for being covertly abusive, that wouldn't be great—but it would be better, not least because we could then raise the bar to make that also unacceptable. (I'm not sure this analogy is helpful, but to me it's comparable to the difference between physical violence and emotional abuse. Both are bad, but society can't treat them the same way—and that despite the fact emotional abuse can actually be worse in some situtations.) > somebody treating you badly gives you the right to also treat them badly (within reason - proportionally) I can tell you why that doesn't work (at least not in a context like HN where my experience is): because everyone overestimates the provocations and abuses done by the other, and underestimates the ones done by themselves. If you say the distortion is 10x in each case, that's a 100x skew in perception [1] As a result, no matter how badly people are behaving, they always feel like the other person started it and did worse, and always feel justified. In other words, to have that as a rule would amount to having no rule. In order to be even weakly effective, the rule needs to be: you can't be abusive in comments regardless of what other commenters are doing or you feel they are doing [2]. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22100x%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20regardless&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[flagged]

blovescoffee 2y ago

[flagged]

DiogenesKynikos 2y ago

How do I know you're reasoning, and not just simulating reasoning (imperfectly)?

dang 2y ago

Please don't cross into personal attack and please don't post in the flamewar style, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We're trying for the opposite here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

martin-t 2y ago
The issue with this approach to moderation is that it targets posts based on visibility of "undesired" behavior instead of severity. For example, many manipulative tactics (e.g. the fake sorry here, responding to something else than was said, ...) and lying can be considered insults (they literally assume the reader is not smart enough to notice, hence at least as severe as calling someone an idiot) but it's hard for a mod to notice without putting in a lot of effort to understand the situation. Yet when people (very mildly) punish this behavior by calling it out, they are often noticed by the mod because the call out is more visible.
- dang 2y ago
  I hear this argument a lot, but I think it's too complicated. It doesn't explain any more than the simple one does, and has the disadvantage of being self-serving. The simple argument is that when you write things like this: > I am unwilling to invest any more time into arguing with someone unwilling to use reasoning ...you're bluntly breaking the rules, regardless of what another commenter is doing, be it subtly or blatantly abusive. I agree that there are countless varieties of passive-aggressive swipe and they rub me the wrong way too, but the argument that those are "just as bad, merely less visible" is not accurate. Attacking someone else is not justified by a passive-aggressive "sorry", just as it is not ok to ram another vehicle when a driver cuts you off in traffic.
  - martin-t 2y ago
    I've thought about this a lot because in the past few years I've noticed a massive uptick in what I call "fake politeness" or "polite insults" - people attacking somebody but taking care to stay below the threshold of when a mod would take action, instead hoping that the other person crosses the threshold. This extends to the real world too - you can easily find videos of people and groups (often protesters and political activists) arguing, insulting each other (covertly and overtly) and hoping the other side crosses a threshold so they can play the victim and get a higher power involved. The issue is many rules are written as absolute statements which expect some kind of higher power (mods, police, ...) to be the only side to deal punishment. This obviously breaks in many situations - when the higher power is understaffed, when it's corrupt or when there is no higher power (war between nation states). I would like to see attempts to make rules relative. Treat others how you want to be treated but somebody treating you badly gives you the right to also treat them badly (within reason - proportionally). It would probably lead to conflict being more visible (though not necessarily being more numerous) but it would allow communities to self-police without the learned helplessness of relying on a higher power. Aggressors would gain nothing by provoking others because others would be able to defend themselves. Doing this is hard, especially at scale. Many people who behave poorly towards others back off when they are treated the same way but there also needs to be a way to deal with those who never back down. When a conflict doesn't resolve itself and mods step in, they should always take into account who started it, and especially if they have a pattern of starting conflict. There's another related issue - there is a difference between fairness/justice and peace. Those in power often fight for the first on paper but have a much stronger incentive to protect the second.
    - dang 2y ago
      > people attacking somebody but taking care to stay below the threshold of when a mod would take action, instead hoping that the other person crosses the threshold I agree, it is a problem—but it is (almost by definition) less of a problem than aggression which does cross the threshold. If every user would give up being overtly abusive for being covertly abusive, that wouldn't be great—but it would be better, not least because we could then raise the bar to make that also unacceptable. (I'm not sure this analogy is helpful, but to me it's comparable to the difference between physical violence and emotional abuse. Both are bad, but society can't treat them the same way—and that despite the fact emotional abuse can actually be worse in some situtations.) > somebody treating you badly gives you the right to also treat them badly (within reason - proportionally) I can tell you why that doesn't work (at least not in a context like HN where my experience is): because everyone overestimates the provocations and abuses done by the other, and underestimates the ones done by themselves. If you say the distortion is 10x in each case, that's a 100x skew in perception [1] As a result, no matter how badly people are behaving, they always feel like the other person started it and did worse, and always feel justified. In other words, to have that as a rule would amount to having no rule. In order to be even weakly effective, the rule needs to be: you can't be abusive in comments regardless of what other commenters are doing or you feel they are doing [2]. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22100x%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20regardless&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...