I stopped by to lesswrong for the first time in a decade and (due to the familiar author) this was the first post that caught my attention in my feed. I’m shocked.
The new policy: * Allows post authors to suppress any disagreement or correction at will.
* STILL does not allow blocking users * Force feeds these private and immune from criticism posts on all participants in a collective feed, with no way to opt out, mute, or block any egregious abusers.
This is a feature combination that isn’t seen on any successful site. For good reason. As others have mentioned sites where authors control participation always rely on readers being able to opt in, then opt out if the author deviates from good faith contribution (in the reader’s view). Forums where you cannot opt out do not allow conflicts of interest in moderation. Anyone moderating on their own disagreements is (and should be) viewed with suspicion.
Honestly, even the refusal to allow users to block and mute each other has always been a toxic trait of lesswrong. But being force fed posts and comments from bad faith debaters with no ability to refute, block or mute would make for a site even worse than x.com, at least in terms of technology for facilitating healthy conversation.
It should have been immediately obvious that as soon as posts become author controlled spaces, readers must be able to choose which authors they follow. How was this able to happen? Were there no adults in the room?
I stopped by to lesswrong for the first time in a decade and (due to the familiar author) this was the first post that caught my attention in my feed. I’m shocked.
The new policy:
* Allows post authors to suppress any disagreement or correction at will.
* STILL does not allow blocking users
* Force feeds these private and immune from criticism posts on all participants in a collective feed, with no way to opt out, mute, or block any egregious abusers.
This is a feature combination that isn’t seen on any successful site. For good reason. As others have mentioned sites where authors control participation always rely on readers being able to opt in, then opt out if the author deviates from good faith contribution (in the reader’s view). Forums where you cannot opt out do not allow conflicts of interest in moderation. Anyone moderating on their own disagreements is (and should be) viewed with suspicion.
Honestly, even the refusal to allow users to block and mute each other has always been a toxic trait of lesswrong. But being force fed posts and comments from bad faith debaters with no ability to refute, block or mute would make for a site even worse than x.com, at least in terms of technology for facilitating healthy conversation.
It should have been immediately obvious that as soon as posts become author controlled spaces, readers must be able to choose which authors they follow. How was this able to happen? Were there no adults in the room?