which generally will actually have any shot at improving the record and discourse in reasonable ways compared to nested comment replies
I would believe this iff banned users were nonetheless allowed (by moderator fiat) to type up a comment saying “I have written a response to this post at [insert link],” which actually shows up in the comment section of the original post.
Otherwise, I’d suspect a large part of the readers of the post will not even know there is such a response disagreeing with the original (because they just stumbled upon the post, or they clicked on a link to it from elsewhere on LW, or were just browsing some tag or the “recent activity” tab, etc).
(Not to mention that posts don’t even have a sticker at the bottom saying “the author has banned the following users from commenting on their posts: [...]”, which should absolutely appear if the point of allowing authors to ban commenters was actually to improve the record and discourse.
You have to know to click on a whole different link (which basically gets advertised precisely nowhere on the front page) to gather that info, and unironically I don’t even currently remember what that link is… and I think I’m pretty well-acquainted with this site!)
It just asks those critics to make a top-level post
Trivial inconveniences in theory are often nontrivial inconveniences in practice. Also, “just make a post” is definitely a nontrivial inconvenience even in theory; many disagreeing comments would be too short or informal or otherwise not meet the current site-wide standards for a full post, while still being perfectly fine comments.
“You keep using the word [X] in your post; I counted you used it 10 times. But it seems to just be a mere substance-free applause light, and indeed we have covered this matter extensively back in the Sequences [insert link to sequences post]. If you think I’m wrong, give some examples to illustrate what I’m missing.”
What I wrote above seems like an excellent disagreeing comment to me (if appropriate in context), but would make basically no sense as a stand-alone post...
I would believe this iff banned users were nonetheless allowed (by moderator fiat) to type up a comment saying “I have written a response to this post at [insert link],” which actually shows up in the comment section of the original post.
Oh, also just for the record, we have a pingback section at the bottom of every post, above the comment section, which basically achieves exactly this. If you write a popular response to a post, it will show up right below the post for anyone to see!
I find that feature extremely helpful a lot of old sequence posts are outdated or have detailed expansions which often ping the original post, that alongside with precise tagging makes lesswrong easier. I don’t know how feasible this is, and how much usage it will garner but a pingback, tagging or bookmark feature for shortforms— since people are resorting to expanding various ideas in this format— would be useful, whereas in early era of lesswrong there were extremely short posts, which makes searching for them much easier.
(Or alternatively make shortforms more like twitter and add a low character limit)
Otherwise, I’d suspect a large part of the readers of the post will not even know there is such a response disagreeing with the original (because they just stumbled upon the post, or they clicked on a link to it from elsewhere on LW, or were just browsing some tag or the “recent activity” tab, etc).
I think some UI thing in the space wouldn’t be crazy. If banning was going to be used more frequently, it’s something I would consider building (I would put it at the bottom of the comment section, but that’s still a reasonable place to find it).
(Not to mention that posts don’t even have a sticker at the bottom saying “the author has banned the following users from commenting on their posts: [...]”, which should absolutely appear if the point of allowing authors to ban commenters was actually to improve the record and discourse.
We have something kind of close. At the bottom of every comment section you see a link to the moderation log, which allows you to see who is banned from whose posts. If banning was a thing that happened reasonably frequently, changing it to say “Moderation Log (3 users banned from this post, 2 comments deleted)” or something like that, would be reasonable to me. But it happens so rarely that I currently don’t think it’s worth the development effort (but if people really care, I would accept a PR that adds something like that).
We have something kind of close. At the bottom of every comment section you see a link to the moderation log, which allows you to see who is banned from whose posts.
With respect, this is not close at all.
The UI element should explicitly list which users have been banned, without making anyone click on anything.
(And the list of deleted comments should explicitly list the authors of those comments, and link to the text of those comments in the moderation log.)
I agree with @sunwillrise: the current design is absolutely not what the feature would look like if it were actually designed to serve readers and improve discussions.
The feature was not designed for this purpose, it was mostly designed so that people who are interested in LW can generally see what kind of moderation actions are happening. I agree that if banning was more frequent I would add a more specific list (which is what I said, and you seem to have just ignored).
I don’t think a full list makes sense, just because of clutter, but a number seems pretty reasonable (and ideally some way of highlighting the UI element if indeed there is some kind of relevant thing happening).
I would believe this iff banned users were nonetheless allowed (by moderator fiat) to type up a comment saying “I have written a response to this post at [insert link],” which actually shows up in the comment section of the original post.
Otherwise, I’d suspect a large part of the readers of the post will not even know there is such a response disagreeing with the original (because they just stumbled upon the post, or they clicked on a link to it from elsewhere on LW, or were just browsing some tag or the “recent activity” tab, etc).
(Not to mention that posts don’t even have a sticker at the bottom saying “the author has banned the following users from commenting on their posts: [...]”, which should absolutely appear if the point of allowing authors to ban commenters was actually to improve the record and discourse.
You have to know to click on a whole different link (which basically gets advertised precisely nowhere on the front page) to gather that info, and unironically I don’t even currently remember what that link is… and I think I’m pretty well-acquainted with this site!)
Trivial inconveniences in theory are often nontrivial inconveniences in practice. Also, “just make a post” is definitely a nontrivial inconvenience even in theory; many disagreeing comments would be too short or informal or otherwise not meet the current site-wide standards for a full post, while still being perfectly fine comments.
“You keep using the word [X] in your post; I counted you used it 10 times. But it seems to just be a mere substance-free applause light, and indeed we have covered this matter extensively back in the Sequences [insert link to sequences post]. If you think I’m wrong, give some examples to illustrate what I’m missing.”
What I wrote above seems like an excellent disagreeing comment to me (if appropriate in context), but would make basically no sense as a stand-alone post...
Oh, also just for the record, we have a pingback section at the bottom of every post, above the comment section, which basically achieves exactly this. If you write a popular response to a post, it will show up right below the post for anyone to see!
I find that feature extremely helpful a lot of old sequence posts are outdated or have detailed expansions which often ping the original post, that alongside with precise tagging makes lesswrong easier. I don’t know how feasible this is, and how much usage it will garner but a pingback, tagging or bookmark feature for shortforms— since people are resorting to expanding various ideas in this format— would be useful, whereas in early era of lesswrong there were extremely short posts, which makes searching for them much easier.
(Or alternatively make shortforms more like twitter and add a low character limit)
Advanced search operators would also be welcome! Thanks.
I think some UI thing in the space wouldn’t be crazy. If banning was going to be used more frequently, it’s something I would consider building (I would put it at the bottom of the comment section, but that’s still a reasonable place to find it).
We have something kind of close. At the bottom of every comment section you see a link to the moderation log, which allows you to see who is banned from whose posts. If banning was a thing that happened reasonably frequently, changing it to say “Moderation Log (3 users banned from this post, 2 comments deleted)” or something like that, would be reasonable to me. But it happens so rarely that I currently don’t think it’s worth the development effort (but if people really care, I would accept a PR that adds something like that).
With respect, this is not close at all.
The UI element should explicitly list which users have been banned, without making anyone click on anything.
(And the list of deleted comments should explicitly list the authors of those comments, and link to the text of those comments in the moderation log.)
I agree with @sunwillrise: the current design is absolutely not what the feature would look like if it were actually designed to serve readers and improve discussions.
The feature was not designed for this purpose, it was mostly designed so that people who are interested in LW can generally see what kind of moderation actions are happening. I agree that if banning was more frequent I would add a more specific list (which is what I said, and you seem to have just ignored).
I don’t think a full list makes sense, just because of clutter, but a number seems pretty reasonable (and ideally some way of highlighting the UI element if indeed there is some kind of relevant thing happening).