Conversation about whether LW Moderators should express individual opinions about mod policy − 2019/​12/​22

Copying over some comments from a different thread so as to continue the conversation here where it’s not off-topic.

[Some relevant context: Speaking for myself (re: how the LW2.0 team communicates)]


Bucky wrote on one of my posts:

My other worry about including this in the 2018 review is a claim of what the default should be. If the post claims that nurture culture should be the default, does that then seem like this is how LW should be? This counts even more as the post is by a member of the LW team.

Included in my (Ruby’s) reply:

My own thinking on the topic has been enriched by my much greater participation in LW discussion, including discussion around communication styles. I’d begun typing a paragraph here of some of my current thoughts, but probably it’s best to hold off till I’ve thought more at length and am speaking alongside the rest of team. (An update in recent discussions of moderation and conversation norms is that the team should be careful to not confuse people by saying different things individually.)

To which Ben Pace responded:

>but probably it’s best to hold off till I’ve thought more at length and am >speaking alongside the rest of team.

I was gonna leave a comment reminding you that you should always feel free to speak for yourself, and then I hit

>(An update in recent discussions of moderation and conversation norms is >that the team should be careful to not confuse people by saying different >things individually.)

If I read you right, this hasn’t been my own update, so I guess I’ll tell you to be careful what you say on behalf of the team without checking for consensus ;-) I agree some users have been confused, but the result mustn’t be to retreat to only saying consensus things. I might be open to adding more disclaimers or something, but overall I really care that I don’t give up the ability to just think for myself out loud on LW on basically all topics relating to LW.

I agree writing about moderation in particular is an unusually careful topic where I want to take extra care to signal what is consensus/​actionable and what is me just thinking aloud. But I still stand by that you should share your own thoughts, saying “I” everywhere (I just edited this very comment to own all of my thoughts more), is still pretty great and it’d be bad if you felt the general need to get team consensus.