I also don’t think it is incoherent, just that it seems to me there is some tension.
I understand both the general norms and the moderation as some kind of bounded-optimization problems. In case of general norms, as I see it (which may be different from DPB), big reason of why not to care about micro-things is, people are limited in attention and cognitive capacity. If they were orders of magnitude less limited, maybe they should care about subtler effects.
I assume the current LessWrong moderators are also attention and time constrained. What I quoted seems to me like a call to invest a lot of effort into improving details, mostly by creating negative feedback loops. I would agree this may be what should be done, given order or two increase in moderation resources. With the current capabilities IMO what is more important is high level steering and creating positive feedback loops.
I think the current moderation is within 30% to the constrained optimum I can imagine, and I also think there is cheaper room of improvement is in different directions than you point toward.
Cruxes and/or models? The assertion is good on its own, since it allows people to vote their agreement or disagreement, but it doesn’t really move us toward convergence.
What is my baseline … there actually is a place rather unlike Facebook or 4chan or other places you mention, which was quite successful in its stated purpose—building highly usable body of aggregated NPOV knowledge, and community around it: Wikipedia and it’s community. IMO there is actually a lot to learn from their rules and norms, so whenever community norms of WP and LW differ, IMO it’s worth to look into more details. Some differences arise because different purposes, some because rationality, some are random broken-symmetry effects, but I suspect significant part is just because LW is orders of magnitude smaller and did not have time to develop something, or LW is getting it wrong. (Part of WP norms and culture is in turn based on knowledge developed previously on MeatBall)
Ok...back to the original question, one of the important directions where LW is IMO suboptimal is
Reason why is this neglected is that while if you are wronged on LW, you e.g. write a blogpost, talk to people, etc. (and people notice, because it’s you!), if a random, bright, somewhat argumentative mathematician is “bitten” in her first interaction with LW community, she just bounces, without leaving much trace. The counterfactual damage is much less visible.
In contrast things like one very experienced, high status person writing something wrong, harming other experienced, high status person (which is my picture of the cause of the current debate—with the caveat that I read just about 1⁄3 of the discussion and may be dont understand it) … actually in my view point toward the need of have some “conflict resolution process”
I like this frame, and agree that there’s a lot of value in comparing LW and WP.
I think having more defense for the bitten or bite-vulnerable is a big part of my emotional motivation here, though it’s because of empathy rather than game theory (it seems justifiable under either).
I also don’t think it is incoherent, just that it seems to me there is some tension.
I understand both the general norms and the moderation as some kind of bounded-optimization problems. In case of general norms, as I see it (which may be different from DPB), big reason of why not to care about micro-things is, people are limited in attention and cognitive capacity. If they were orders of magnitude less limited, maybe they should care about subtler effects.
I assume the current LessWrong moderators are also attention and time constrained. What I quoted seems to me like a call to invest a lot of effort into improving details, mostly by creating negative feedback loops. I would agree this may be what should be done, given order or two increase in moderation resources. With the current capabilities IMO what is more important is high level steering and creating positive feedback loops.
Would you argue that current moderation is ideal (or at least very close), given constraints and tradeoffs?
I think the current moderation is within 30% to the constrained optimum I can imagine, and I also think there is cheaper room of improvement is in different directions than you point toward.
Cruxes and/or models? The assertion is good on its own, since it allows people to vote their agreement or disagreement, but it doesn’t really move us toward convergence.
I’ll try to write something explicitly but 1) it may take some time 2) I’m afraid part of my models is now in “intuition” black-box form. Generally my background in this is my past self participating in translating, trying to design and implement norms in cs.wikipedia community, a long time ago.
What is my baseline … there actually is a place rather unlike Facebook or 4chan or other places you mention, which was quite successful in its stated purpose—building highly usable body of aggregated NPOV knowledge, and community around it: Wikipedia and it’s community. IMO there is actually a lot to learn from their rules and norms, so whenever community norms of WP and LW differ, IMO it’s worth to look into more details. Some differences arise because different purposes, some because rationality, some are random broken-symmetry effects, but I suspect significant part is just because LW is orders of magnitude smaller and did not have time to develop something, or LW is getting it wrong. (Part of WP norms and culture is in turn based on knowledge developed previously on MeatBall)
Ok...back to the original question, one of the important directions where LW is IMO suboptimal is
Please do not bite the newcomers
Reason why is this neglected is that while if you are wronged on LW, you e.g. write a blogpost, talk to people, etc. (and people notice, because it’s you!), if a random, bright, somewhat argumentative mathematician is “bitten” in her first interaction with LW community, she just bounces, without leaving much trace. The counterfactual damage is much less visible.
In contrast things like one very experienced, high status person writing something wrong, harming other experienced, high status person (which is my picture of the cause of the current debate—with the caveat that I read just about 1⁄3 of the discussion and may be dont understand it) … actually in my view point toward the need of have some “conflict resolution process”
I like this frame, and agree that there’s a lot of value in comparing LW and WP.
I think having more defense for the bitten or bite-vulnerable is a big part of my emotional motivation here, though it’s because of empathy rather than game theory (it seems justifiable under either).