So, despite it being close to site-consensus that authors do not face obligations to respond to each and every one of Said’s questions, on any given post, there is basically nothing to be done to build common knowledge of this.
Please could you write a policy regarding what obligations/duties/commitments/responsibilities people DO have by contributing LessWrong, regarding responding to comments? This could be a top-level post similar to Policy for LLM Writing on LessWrong.
After reading Banning Said Achmiz..., and associated comments, I thought that I understood LessWrong policy. However, the next thing I noticed on this topic was Sabien’s Obligated to Respond, which was then curated. After reading this and associated comments, I am no longer confident. In any case I don’t really want to read Banning Said Achmiz every time this topic arises. So I request a policy post with more clarity, less drama, and fewer words.
My suggested policy is something like:
LessWrong authors do not have a duty to respond to comments and questions. By posting a top-level essay or quick take, authors do not commit to answer questions, respond to criticism, or otherwise engage with commenters.
In the same way, by posting a comment, commenters are not obligated to continue to participate in that conversation.
Do not demand responses to comments, or criticize someone for not responding. If you think a comment is important and that a response would be valuable, you could vote it up.
Of course this doesn’t mean that there are no consequences in choosing not to respond, that you will never feel pressured to respond, or that people in the audience won’t be swayed by unanswered comments. However, LessWrong admins and moderators do not support these dynamics and will work to reduce them.
An example of a different policy a site might have is:
When posting a top-level essay or quick-take, you are inviting comments, including questions and critiques. Please budget some time to respond to a selection of comments. If you will be too busy to respond, please note this at the end of your essay so readers know what to expect.
In the same way, by posting a comment, you are inviting replies, and especially replies by the author. Please do not post comments if you do not want the author to respond. If you have a minor comment or question that does not warrant an author response, please keep it to yourself.
I think that would be worse, but I would still appreciate the clarity. Or a hybrid policy could be maximally top-level-author-friendly:
LessWrong authors do not have a duty to respond to comments and questions. By posting a top-level essay or quick take, authors do not commit to answer questions, respond to criticism, or otherwise engage with commenters.
However, by posting a comment to a top-level essay, you are still implicitly demanding a response from the author. The author may feel pressured or obligated to respond, driving them away from LessWrong. If you have a minor comment or question that does not warrant an author response, please keep it to yourself.
As it stands I have a few ideas for top-level essays and I am unsure what exactly I would be signing up for in terms of reader-interaction. Conversely, if every comment is implicitly demanding an author response, I will make dramatically fewer comments, possibly none.
I think it’s a bit weird since the obligation isn’t really something we could authoritatively determine using site policy, but I agree that clarifying our best guess of the prevailing norms more would be good.
FWIW, I think the policy I would choose is something like:
You do not have the obligation to respond to any individual commenter. If you find any specific kind of commenter annoying, you should feel free to ignore them (and downvote them). You do have some kind of obligation to respond to something like the aggregate of all comments on LessWrong, like in as much as there are a lot of people asking the same kind of question, it is good form to respond. That obligation isn’t absolute, and doesn’t need to happen in the comments (it can e.g. happen across multiple posts instead).
There are more thoughts I have on this, but figured I would leave this short comment with some initial thoughts.
Thanks for replying. I would prefer the policy you describe to the status quo of people having different ideas what the norms are. Perhaps this would be combined with a policy statement on “Do not try to win arguments by fights of attrition”.
I don’t think it’s a weird subject to have a policy on. Thinking of the Policy on LLM Writing:
The policy states what obligations people have to LessWrong itself. These obligations are notable for having some moral and legal force, and having moderator enforcement.
Of course any random person may think I have an obligation to do more, or less. But that has no moral force.
In the absence of a policy, we get debates as on Deontic Explorations in Paying to Talk to Slaves about (in part) whether certain content is acceptable on LessWrong. After the policy, there is an objective answer to that question, and fewer debates.
I think a policy on responding to comments would be similarly helpful. For example, as I read through the section “But why ban someone, can’t people just ignore Said?” above, it only really works as a debate in the absence of a site policy. Achmiz says:
If no response is provided to… simple requests for clarification …, the author should be interpreted as ignorant.
That line of argument doesn’t work if there is a site policy that authors are not expected to respond to comments. Firstly, the attack itself is subject to moderation. Secondly, anyone, not just the author, can defuse it by linking to the site policy, which conveniently has a space where the policy can be discussed. Certainly site policy can’t stop Achmiz thinking I’m ignorant. But it can reduce the extent to which Achmiz can convince the rest of the audience that I’m ignorant.
LessWrong/Lightcone doesn’t have to weakly clarify its best guess of the prevailing norms. It can state what the norms are, in a self-fulfilling statement that sets the norms to what it states. As long as the stated norms are broadly popular, this just works.
Please could you write a policy regarding what obligations/duties/commitments/responsibilities people DO have by contributing LessWrong, regarding responding to comments? This could be a top-level post similar to Policy for LLM Writing on LessWrong.
After reading Banning Said Achmiz..., and associated comments, I thought that I understood LessWrong policy. However, the next thing I noticed on this topic was Sabien’s Obligated to Respond, which was then curated. After reading this and associated comments, I am no longer confident. In any case I don’t really want to read Banning Said Achmiz every time this topic arises. So I request a policy post with more clarity, less drama, and fewer words.
My suggested policy is something like:
LessWrong authors do not have a duty to respond to comments and questions. By posting a top-level essay or quick take, authors do not commit to answer questions, respond to criticism, or otherwise engage with commenters.
In the same way, by posting a comment, commenters are not obligated to continue to participate in that conversation.
Do not demand responses to comments, or criticize someone for not responding. If you think a comment is important and that a response would be valuable, you could vote it up.
Of course this doesn’t mean that there are no consequences in choosing not to respond, that you will never feel pressured to respond, or that people in the audience won’t be swayed by unanswered comments. However, LessWrong admins and moderators do not support these dynamics and will work to reduce them.
An example of a different policy a site might have is:
When posting a top-level essay or quick-take, you are inviting comments, including questions and critiques. Please budget some time to respond to a selection of comments. If you will be too busy to respond, please note this at the end of your essay so readers know what to expect.
In the same way, by posting a comment, you are inviting replies, and especially replies by the author. Please do not post comments if you do not want the author to respond. If you have a minor comment or question that does not warrant an author response, please keep it to yourself.
I think that would be worse, but I would still appreciate the clarity. Or a hybrid policy could be maximally top-level-author-friendly:
LessWrong authors do not have a duty to respond to comments and questions. By posting a top-level essay or quick take, authors do not commit to answer questions, respond to criticism, or otherwise engage with commenters.
However, by posting a comment to a top-level essay, you are still implicitly demanding a response from the author. The author may feel pressured or obligated to respond, driving them away from LessWrong. If you have a minor comment or question that does not warrant an author response, please keep it to yourself.
As it stands I have a few ideas for top-level essays and I am unsure what exactly I would be signing up for in terms of reader-interaction. Conversely, if every comment is implicitly demanding an author response, I will make dramatically fewer comments, possibly none.
I think it’s a bit weird since the obligation isn’t really something we could authoritatively determine using site policy, but I agree that clarifying our best guess of the prevailing norms more would be good.
FWIW, I think the policy I would choose is something like:
There are more thoughts I have on this, but figured I would leave this short comment with some initial thoughts.
Thanks for replying. I would prefer the policy you describe to the status quo of people having different ideas what the norms are. Perhaps this would be combined with a policy statement on “Do not try to win arguments by fights of attrition”.
I don’t think it’s a weird subject to have a policy on. Thinking of the Policy on LLM Writing:
The policy states what obligations people have to LessWrong itself. These obligations are notable for having some moral and legal force, and having moderator enforcement.
Of course any random person may think I have an obligation to do more, or less. But that has no moral force.
In the absence of a policy, we get debates as on Deontic Explorations in Paying to Talk to Slaves about (in part) whether certain content is acceptable on LessWrong. After the policy, there is an objective answer to that question, and fewer debates.
I think a policy on responding to comments would be similarly helpful. For example, as I read through the section “But why ban someone, can’t people just ignore Said?” above, it only really works as a debate in the absence of a site policy. Achmiz says:
That line of argument doesn’t work if there is a site policy that authors are not expected to respond to comments. Firstly, the attack itself is subject to moderation. Secondly, anyone, not just the author, can defuse it by linking to the site policy, which conveniently has a space where the policy can be discussed. Certainly site policy can’t stop Achmiz thinking I’m ignorant. But it can reduce the extent to which Achmiz can convince the rest of the audience that I’m ignorant.
LessWrong/Lightcone doesn’t have to weakly clarify its best guess of the prevailing norms. It can state what the norms are, in a self-fulfilling statement that sets the norms to what it states. As long as the stated norms are broadly popular, this just works.