Continually making new rules has downsides, both in administration attention and also in negative impacts for bystanders. I think those downsides outweigh the benefits of just making new rules in many cases.
I wrote a bit about this in Pick Two: Clear, Concise, or Comprehensive. It’s often the case that trying to specifically rule out undesired behavior takes a lot of exasperating, detailed work or is going to involve reserving the ability to make broad judgement calls. For instance, imagine you don’t want people calling each other morons, so you make a rule saying don’t do that. Ten minutes later Bella calls Carl an idiot, so you make a rule not to call people idiots either. Five minutes after that, Carl calls Bella a numbskull, so you make a rule not to call people numbskulls. One minute later, Bella calls Carl a dumbass. They can obviously keep coming up with new rude things to call each other, and eventually the number of banned insults will impede normal communication.
Imagine Carl calls Bella a child, you ban calling people children because this has been going on for weeks and you’re a little bit on autopilot, and then the next day Dean posts a picture of his family where he says “Here’s my husband Evan and our children Frankie and George!” You, in your bountiful wisdom, let this slide, and then later Carl starts arguing that moderation is totally inconsistent, he got in trouble for calling someone a child but for some reason it’s fine when Dean does it.
Okay, so maybe the rule is “no insulting people.”
Well, you’ve given up having a comprehensive list of insults in favour of having more concise rules. You’re now going to have to make moderation judgments about what counts as an insult.
Does calling someone a rat count as an insult? It totally would at a church picnic. It probably doesn’t at a LessWrong meetup.
Does saying someone’s essays are boring count as an insult, or is it an honest review? How about calling them a plagiarist?
The work of coming up with rules to ensure socially beneficial outcomes can be frustrating, because you won’t always get the rules exactly right the first time. You might need to iterate. But it’s a finite and achievable amount of work, not an unwinnable unending battle against the formidable intelligence of an adversary who hates everything your Society stands for, because those mostly aren’t a real thing either.
Okay, so I want to point out that sometimes “a battle against an adversary who hates everything your Society stands for” is a passable description of what’s actually going on. Like, take a look at the relationship between Hamas and the IDF for a second. I’m not saying one side of that is an evil mutant who hates all that is good in the world, but if I was in charge of writing rules (for a ceasefire, for rules of warfare, etc) I would actually be thinking about how someone might argue loopholes in whatever I came up with. That’s an extreme example, sure, but if I imagine spending a year in a conflict like that, trying to write down specifically what I did not want people to do, I can imagine eventually winding up with rules that amounted to “stay out, don’t send anything to the other side, don’t even think about it.” Either that or I’d wind up with a book of rules too big to physically print in one book.
And there’s things that would break a rule (“send normal water to the other side via this river”) which I might still want to happen. I can try and make carveouts and exceptions and more detailed rules, but the thing I really want is for whatever inner generator of ideas and actions they’re using to be a bit more in tune with my preferences for the space. There’s violations that are fine if they happen once or twice and not if they happen all the time[1], there’s violations that are fine because it was done well but are bad if they’re done badly[2], there’s violations that might just get a warning if it’s a small amount but not if it’s a big amount[3] and trying to write that down as a rule in advance rather than leaving it up to moderator judgement sounds . . . maybe still finite and achievable, but it’s finite and achievable for the U.S. government, not random forum administrators.
(Remember, if you want it in advance then you have to write it down for every situation that might come up. If you don’t need to have it in advance, then someone can still get punished for breaking a rule they didn’t know about.)
For spaces I don’t need to be in (e.g. my local YMCA, or my favourite internet forum) I prefer the administration have a more high level strategy than just making a new rule whenever someone does something undesirable.
Don’t constantly ask for money. If once or twice a year when hanging out you go ‘shoot, I forgot my wallet, do you mind covering me?’ this is probably fine. If you never cover your bar tab then people will likely stop going out drinking with you.
Don’t hit on people badly. If you walk up to someone for the first time and say ‘I’m Ted, I want to have sex with you.’ then this will not go well. If after a couple weeks of hanging out and enjoying each other’s company you say ‘hey, I’d like to go on a date with you sometime. Would you like to see a movie next week?’ this is probably fine.
Compare “Man, I feel like you’re being a little dense here” vs “you fucking imbecilic waste of air.” Both insults! Or compare a light punch to the shoulder vs a full power haymaker to the temple. Both are punches! But the former might well correctly get off with an informal warning, while the later would be a pretty strong argument for a ban in many venues.
Continually making new rules has downsides, both in administration attention and also in negative impacts for bystanders. I think those downsides outweigh the benefits of just making new rules in many cases.
I wrote a bit about this in Pick Two: Clear, Concise, or Comprehensive. It’s often the case that trying to specifically rule out undesired behavior takes a lot of exasperating, detailed work or is going to involve reserving the ability to make broad judgement calls. For instance, imagine you don’t want people calling each other morons, so you make a rule saying don’t do that. Ten minutes later Bella calls Carl an idiot, so you make a rule not to call people idiots either. Five minutes after that, Carl calls Bella a numbskull, so you make a rule not to call people numbskulls. One minute later, Bella calls Carl a dumbass. They can obviously keep coming up with new rude things to call each other, and eventually the number of banned insults will impede normal communication.
Imagine Carl calls Bella a child, you ban calling people children because this has been going on for weeks and you’re a little bit on autopilot, and then the next day Dean posts a picture of his family where he says “Here’s my husband Evan and our children Frankie and George!” You, in your bountiful wisdom, let this slide, and then later Carl starts arguing that moderation is totally inconsistent, he got in trouble for calling someone a child but for some reason it’s fine when Dean does it.
Okay, so maybe the rule is “no insulting people.”
Well, you’ve given up having a comprehensive list of insults in favour of having more concise rules. You’re now going to have to make moderation judgments about what counts as an insult.
Does calling someone a rat count as an insult? It totally would at a church picnic. It probably doesn’t at a LessWrong meetup.
Countersignalling exists.
Does saying someone’s essays are boring count as an insult, or is it an honest review? How about calling them a plagiarist?
Okay, so I want to point out that sometimes “a battle against an adversary who hates everything your Society stands for” is a passable description of what’s actually going on. Like, take a look at the relationship between Hamas and the IDF for a second. I’m not saying one side of that is an evil mutant who hates all that is good in the world, but if I was in charge of writing rules (for a ceasefire, for rules of warfare, etc) I would actually be thinking about how someone might argue loopholes in whatever I came up with. That’s an extreme example, sure, but if I imagine spending a year in a conflict like that, trying to write down specifically what I did not want people to do, I can imagine eventually winding up with rules that amounted to “stay out, don’t send anything to the other side, don’t even think about it.” Either that or I’d wind up with a book of rules too big to physically print in one book.
And there’s things that would break a rule (“send normal water to the other side via this river”) which I might still want to happen. I can try and make carveouts and exceptions and more detailed rules, but the thing I really want is for whatever inner generator of ideas and actions they’re using to be a bit more in tune with my preferences for the space. There’s violations that are fine if they happen once or twice and not if they happen all the time[1], there’s violations that are fine because it was done well but are bad if they’re done badly[2], there’s violations that might just get a warning if it’s a small amount but not if it’s a big amount[3] and trying to write that down as a rule in advance rather than leaving it up to moderator judgement sounds . . . maybe still finite and achievable, but it’s finite and achievable for the U.S. government, not random forum administrators.
(Remember, if you want it in advance then you have to write it down for every situation that might come up. If you don’t need to have it in advance, then someone can still get punished for breaking a rule they didn’t know about.)
For spaces I don’t need to be in (e.g. my local YMCA, or my favourite internet forum) I prefer the administration have a more high level strategy than just making a new rule whenever someone does something undesirable.
Don’t constantly ask for money. If once or twice a year when hanging out you go ‘shoot, I forgot my wallet, do you mind covering me?’ this is probably fine. If you never cover your bar tab then people will likely stop going out drinking with you.
Don’t hit on people badly. If you walk up to someone for the first time and say ‘I’m Ted, I want to have sex with you.’ then this will not go well. If after a couple weeks of hanging out and enjoying each other’s company you say ‘hey, I’d like to go on a date with you sometime. Would you like to see a movie next week?’ this is probably fine.
Compare “Man, I feel like you’re being a little dense here” vs “you fucking imbecilic waste of air.” Both insults! Or compare a light punch to the shoulder vs a full power haymaker to the temple. Both are punches! But the former might well correctly get off with an informal warning, while the later would be a pretty strong argument for a ban in many venues.