However, I did not find the specific examples given for the ban persuasive. E.g., the example given under
When Said is at his worst, he writes comments like this:
did not seem remotely ban-worthy to me.
The key claim which, if true, would justify a ban, was:
Said has been by far the most complained user on the site, with many top authors citing him as a top reason for why they do not want to post on the site, or comment here
If Said is driving away many top authors, then he is at the very least guilty of being a bad cultural fit. And if someone chooses to act in a way that imposes costs on the website, and those costs are greater than the benefits he provides, he has no right to complain when you ban him.
But the key piece of information missing from the post is: which top authors did Said drive away?
The only example I am aware of is Duncan, but he doesn’t count. Habryka explicitly said:
there is basically no engagement with Duncan that played any kind of substantial role in any of this.
My honest best guess is that we would have banned Said somewhat earlier if not for the Duncan thread …. My experience was that Said’s behavior in the Duncan thread was among the most understandable cases of him behaving badly (because I too have found myself ending up drawn into conflicts with Duncan that end up quite aggressive and at least tempt me to behave badly).
So which top authors left? Of course, anyone who permanently left the site would not have left any comments on the post. But a few top authors[1] did mention bad personal experiences with Said:
Matt Goldenberg (5,600 karma) found Said’s comments unpleasant.
Like seemingly many others, I found Said a mix of “frequently incredibly annoying, seemingly blind to things that are clear to others, poorly calibrated with the confidence level he expresses things, [...]” and “occasionally pointing out the-Emperor-has-no-clothes in ways that are valuable and few other people seem to do”.
(I had banned him from my personal posts, but not from my frontpaged posts.)
Gordon Seidoh Worley (10,000 karma) also describes a mix of good and bad experiences:
Also FWIW, I’ve had some genuinely positive interactions with Said in the last couple weeks. I was surprised as anyone. I don’t know if it’s because he was trying to be on his best behavior or what, but if that was how Said commented on everything, I’d be very happy to see him unbanned (I had even had the idea that if we continued to have positive interactions I would unban him after whatever felt like enough time for me to believe in the new pattern).
Several other top authors defended Said[2]. I was not able to find, in either the post or the comments, any firsthand or secondhand examples of top authors who left because of Said. This question has been asked before, by Said himself:
You’re positing a person who is posting things that aren’t, like… vulgarity, or personal insults, or anything bad or crazy like that (because if he were doing that, then the mods would presumably ban him outright—or should, anyway!). And he’s not doing anything else that is rightly ban-worthy (like, say, persistently lying about his interlocutors’ claims, or something along those lines). Yet, despite this, there are authors who find this person’s very presence in a discussion so “unpleasant” that… it’s enough to discourage them from posting on LW altogether?
And yet, despite this, these authors somehow are capable of making useful contributions to the site? Who are these authors??
Can you give some examples of such people? (Are you one of them?)
My guess is something like more than half of the authors to this site who have posted more than 10 posts that you commented on, about you, in particular. Eliezer, Scott Alexander, Jacob Falkovich, Elizabeth Van Nostrand, me, dozens of others. This is not a rare position. I would have to dig to give you an exact list, but the list is not short, and it includes large fractions of almost everyone who one might consider strong contributors to the site.
You are making false claims. Two of these claims about the views of specific individuals are clearly contradicted by those individuals’ own statements
Scott Alexander, when asked about Said, said:
I have no direct opinion on him. I have heard his name as someone who’s very confrontational, and I agree that this can make a website less pleasant, but I can’t remember having any personal experience.
The fact that two of the examples on the list were incorrect, throws the rest of the list into doubt.
So the question remains: Which top authors cite Said as a reason they “do not want to post on the site, or comment here”?
Said is a popular author, with 17,000 karma. Someone whose comments and posts are generally well-received should not be banned lightly. But if someone compiles a list of authors[3] who left the site because of Said (with direct quotes to that effect), and if those authors collectively have more than 17,000 karma, then that is at the very least a strong argument for banning him.
Alicorn (30,000 karma) is disappointed and dismayed by the ban:
I don’t think it will really affect you if I stay or go. But if I do absentmindedly navigate here out of sixteen year habit I’m going to have a bad taste in my mouth about it.
Responding here briefly, though I would really like to make people understand I am not going to generally respond to things like this, as I really don’t want to spend even more time on this and am far beyond my allotted 10 hours.
The only example I am aware of is Duncan, but he doesn’t count. Habryka explicitly said:
there is basically no engagement with Duncan that played any kind of substantial role in any of this.
This totally misrepresents what I said! I even clarify directly in the comments on this post:
My guess is this is clear to most readers, but to clarify, I said “but there is basically no engagement [of Said] with Duncan that played any kind of substantial role in any of this”. I.e. I don’t think your comments in any threads with Duncan played much into this decision.
Duncan’s complaints about you also preceded his direct conflict with you, as far as I can remember. The quote I dug up for you just happened to have been made in that context (which shouldn’t be very surprising, as people rarely publicly complain about other users on LessWrong in the precise way you were asking about).
The thing I am saying here is that Said’s engagements with Duncan in that comment thread are not the cause of me banning him. It doesn’t say anything about Duncan’s complaints which long preceded that engagement!
Separately, I also clarify a bunch of times in this comment section that no author complaints were load-bearing for this banning decision. I would make the same decision even if no prominent authors had complained. I had much more than enough direct engagement with Said, and seen many more than enough comments of his on my own to understand the consequences of his commenting style first-hand. Author complaints are not a load-bearing part of any of this decision-making, that’s why it really isn’t emphasized much in the post above and why I instead give detailed models for 10,000+ words! I think it’s totally fine for someone to be uncompelled by that, but excluding datapoints about which author “counts” by your own lights, based on whether they played a role in the banning decision is confused, because no author complaints ended up load-bearing for the banning decision.
To me, by far the most compelling reason for the ban was:
Said has been by far the most complained user on the site, with many top authors citing him as a top reason for why they do not want to post on the site, or comment here
I don’t want to take up a significant amount of your time, but can you at least answer the yes-or-no question, of whether you still stand by this claim (the bolded part)?
Sure, I definitely stand by it (though I will again reiterate for like the 15th time that the vast majority of complaints about other users are not made in public but are made privately either through Intercom or direct conversation in user interviews we conduct, though there are definitely some that are public, some of which I quote in the thread mentioned above).
The thing I am saying here is that Said’s engagements with Duncan in that comment thread are not the cause of me banning him. It doesn’t say anything about Duncan’s complaints which long preceded that engagement!
If that’s your position, fine, but it does not straightforwardly follow from what you wrote. You were responding to Alexander Gietelink Oldenziel’s comment:
The examples in this post don’t seem compelling at all. One of the primary examples seems to be Duncan who comes off [from a distance] as thin-skinned and obscurantist, emotionally blowing up at very fair criticism.
This is my view too. I remember once trying (I think on Facebook) to gently talk him out of being really angry at someone for making what I thought was a reasonable criticism, and he ended up getting mad at me too.
I don’t think I link to a single Duncan/Said interaction in any of the core narratives of the post. I do link the moderation judgement of the previous Said/Duncan thread, but it’s not the bulk of this post.
Like none of these comments:
[image of comments]
link to any threads between Said and Duncan.
And the moderation judgement in the Said/Duncan also didn’t really have much to do with Said’s conduct in that thread, but with his conduct on the site in general.
You might still not find the examples compelling, but there is basically no engagement with Duncan that played any kind of substantial role in any of this.
Based on both your comment and the context, it looked like you were referring to Duncan/Said interactions in general, not to a specific thread.
I even clarify directly in the comments on this post:
Your clarification does not appear anywhere under Alexander’s original top-level comment. The comments total over 70,000 words, so I do not think it is fair to accuse me of misrepresenting you because I missed a clarification elsewhere.
excluding datapoints about which author “counts” by your own lights, based on whether they played a role in the banning decision is confused, because no author complaints ended up load-bearing for the banning decision.
Fair enough. My true reason for not counting Duncan is that he appears to be an unusually sensitive individual, who often gets mad at people without good reason. I was quoting you to establish (as a non-controversial, “bipartisan” point) that Said’s interactions with Duncan were not ban-worthy.
Sure, I am not saying your misreading of what I intended to convey was totally unreasonable, but it definitely wasn’t accurate to what I meant to convey and things I said in other places. I didn’t mean to imply much of any malice in you doing so and am sorry if it came across that way!
I personally think what I wrote was reasonably clear, but communication is hard, especially in a sprawling comment thread like this. Seems like we mostly cleared it up (and I can edit the OP comment with any edits, or transfer ownership fully over to you, if you want to change what you wrote in response to that).
Edit: Maybe a misunderstanding in this and other threads is that somehow you expect most people who complain about Said did so after they had comment threads with Said? That’s definitely not the case! Most people who complain about Said never had a long back-and-forth with him, they formed their impressions from his engagements with other people. Most effects from Said are chilling effects, not something that you should have any expectations to chase back to a specific comment thread (as is the case with most cultural effects, as well as effects from moderation).
Moving this top-level question by @Sting to this comment thread:
Which top authors did Said Achmiz drive away?
Habryka recently decided to ban Said Achmiz. He wrote an extensive post explaining the decision. There were some very good things about this decision at the meta level, such as having one person make the decision and take full responsibility for it, explaining the reasoning in detail, and giving Said a comment thread under which he can respond.
However, I did not find the specific examples given for the ban persuasive. E.g., the example given under
did not seem remotely ban-worthy to me.
The key claim which, if true, would justify a ban, was:
If Said is driving away many top authors, then he is at the very least guilty of being a bad cultural fit. And if someone chooses to act in a way that imposes costs on the website, and those costs are greater than the benefits he provides, he has no right to complain when you ban him.
But the key piece of information missing from the post is: which top authors did Said drive away?
The only example I am aware of is Duncan, but he doesn’t count. Habryka explicitly said:
And even more strongly:
So which top authors left? Of course, anyone who permanently left the site would not have left any comments on the post. But a few top authors[1] did mention bad personal experiences with Said:
Matt Goldenberg (5,600 karma) found Said’s comments unpleasant.
philh (7,800 karma) had mixed experiences:
Gordon Seidoh Worley (10,000 karma) also describes a mix of good and bad experiences:
Several other top authors defended Said[2]. I was not able to find, in either the post or the comments, any firsthand or secondhand examples of top authors who left because of Said. This question has been asked before, by Said himself:
To which habryka responded (emphasis added):
To which Zack replied:
Scott Alexander, when asked about Said, said:
And Jacob Falkovich’s view of Said is positive.
The fact that two of the examples on the list were incorrect, throws the rest of the list into doubt.
So the question remains:
Which top authors cite Said as a reason they “do not want to post on the site, or comment here”?
Said is a popular author, with 17,000 karma. Someone whose comments and posts are generally well-received should not be banned lightly. But if someone compiles a list of authors[3] who left the site because of Said (with direct quotes to that effect), and if those authors collectively have more than 17,000 karma, then that is at the very least a strong argument for banning him.
I am not sure what constitutes a top author, but I will tentatively define it as someone with over 5000 karma.
Alexander Gietelink Oldenziel (5,800 karma) found his comments valuable.
Wei Dai (41,000 karma) will also miss him.
Richard_Kennaway (7,800 karma) is sad that Said was banned.
Alicorn (30,000 karma) is disappointed and dismayed by the ban:
Excluding Duncan
Responding here briefly, though I would really like to make people understand I am not going to generally respond to things like this, as I really don’t want to spend even more time on this and am far beyond my allotted 10 hours.
This totally misrepresents what I said! I even clarify directly in the comments on this post:
The thing I am saying here is that Said’s engagements with Duncan in that comment thread are not the cause of me banning him. It doesn’t say anything about Duncan’s complaints which long preceded that engagement!
Separately, I also clarify a bunch of times in this comment section that no author complaints were load-bearing for this banning decision. I would make the same decision even if no prominent authors had complained. I had much more than enough direct engagement with Said, and seen many more than enough comments of his on my own to understand the consequences of his commenting style first-hand. Author complaints are not a load-bearing part of any of this decision-making, that’s why it really isn’t emphasized much in the post above and why I instead give detailed models for 10,000+ words! I think it’s totally fine for someone to be uncompelled by that, but excluding datapoints about which author “counts” by your own lights, based on whether they played a role in the banning decision is confused, because no author complaints ended up load-bearing for the banning decision.
To me, by far the most compelling reason for the ban was:
I don’t want to take up a significant amount of your time, but can you at least answer the yes-or-no question, of whether you still stand by this claim (the bolded part)?
Sure, I definitely stand by it (though I will again reiterate for like the 15th time that the vast majority of complaints about other users are not made in public but are made privately either through Intercom or direct conversation in user interviews we conduct, though there are definitely some that are public, some of which I quote in the thread mentioned above).
I don’t think this is a fair accusation.
If that’s your position, fine, but it does not straightforwardly follow from what you wrote. You were responding to Alexander Gietelink Oldenziel’s comment:
Wei Dai then chimed in:
You responded to Alexander (emphasis added):
Based on both your comment and the context, it looked like you were referring to Duncan/Said interactions in general, not to a specific thread.
Your clarification does not appear anywhere under Alexander’s original top-level comment. The comments total over 70,000 words, so I do not think it is fair to accuse me of misrepresenting you because I missed a clarification elsewhere.
Fair enough. My true reason for not counting Duncan is that he appears to be an unusually sensitive individual, who often gets mad at people without good reason. I was quoting you to establish (as a non-controversial, “bipartisan” point) that Said’s interactions with Duncan were not ban-worthy.
Sure, I am not saying your misreading of what I intended to convey was totally unreasonable, but it definitely wasn’t accurate to what I meant to convey and things I said in other places. I didn’t mean to imply much of any malice in you doing so and am sorry if it came across that way!
I personally think what I wrote was reasonably clear, but communication is hard, especially in a sprawling comment thread like this. Seems like we mostly cleared it up (and I can edit the OP comment with any edits, or transfer ownership fully over to you, if you want to change what you wrote in response to that).
Edit: Maybe a misunderstanding in this and other threads is that somehow you expect most people who complain about Said did so after they had comment threads with Said? That’s definitely not the case! Most people who complain about Said never had a long back-and-forth with him, they formed their impressions from his engagements with other people. Most effects from Said are chilling effects, not something that you should have any expectations to chase back to a specific comment thread (as is the case with most cultural effects, as well as effects from moderation).
Yes, your reply makes your position clear. I don’t feel like taking the time to edit my comment, but thank you for offering to edit in any changes.
Also, you definitely have my sympathy for the amount of time you have burned on this! I would not want your job.