Why is there not a full official explanation from the mod team about the manipulative epistemic tactics?
I can tell you why I didn’t write one; I believe other people on the mod team are interested in writing one, and so there may be one soon.
First, cost. This post already went through something like 10-human hours of effort (maybe 20 depending on how you count meeting time that preceded writing it), and I think a recounting of what specifically went wrong and why we think it was wrong might take something like an additional 20 human-hours of effort.
Second, incompleteness. Suppose one of the big updates that I made came from a private conversation with ialdabaoth, and I ask him if I can quote him on a post here, and he says no. My private beliefs don’t change, but my public case changes significantly, and someone who is trying to infer how I’m reasoning from my public case might end up with less accurate beliefs. For example, one of the reasons why I didn’t link to the allegations is because if I said “epistemic concerns and [linked allegations]”, the weight of the text would lean much more towards the allegations.
Is it better to say 20% than 5%? Unclear. Both are definitely less satisfying for an observer than 100%, but my current sense is that those are the numbers we’re picking between, instead of 20% and 80%. [If I thought I could say 80% of my evidence, I might feel very differently about this; as is, it feels like I’ll be able to give detailed labels but not sufficient reason for you to think those labels correspond to reality, in a way that just passes the buck on where the ‘trust me’ weight lands.]
Third, scope. There’s just so much to say, in a way that gives similar incompleteness concerns. A much simpler standard is an explanation of his manipulative epistemic goals, like “he acted in a way that seems intended to give him room to operate” (by which I mean, encouraged people who could resist his tactics or point them out to leave him alone with those who couldn’t or didn’t), but this is a subjective interpretation that might or might not follow from the observed tactics. And what tactics I personally observed is a function of how I behaved around him and what his plans were for me; one of the elements of the semi-public conversation that moved my estimate significantly was one of ialdabaoth’s defenders realizing that ialdabaoth had been carefully not behaving in a particular way around the defender, such that the defender’s estimate of how ialdabaoth behaved would be substantially different from everyone else’s. What evidence filtered evidence, and all that.
Fourth, costs of inaction. The decision to implement a ban was made on Monday, and yet the post didn’t go up until Thursday, and it seemed better to delay the ban and finish the post then ban him on Monday and have an unannounced ban for however many days. I think several previous moderation scenarios have gone poorly because the team thought they had longer to contemplate the issue than they actually had.
I’m less worried about “cancel culture” becoming a thing on LW than in EA (because we seem naturally more opposed to that kind of thing), but I’m still a bit worried. I think having mods be obligated to explain all non-trivial banning decisions (with specifics instead of just pointing to broad categories like “manipulative”) would be a natural Schelling fence to protect against a potential slippery slope, so the costs involved may be worth paying from that perspective.
I can tell you why I didn’t write one; I believe other people on the mod team are interested in writing one, and so there may be one soon.
First, cost. This post already went through something like 10-human hours of effort (maybe 20 depending on how you count meeting time that preceded writing it), and I think a recounting of what specifically went wrong and why we think it was wrong might take something like an additional 20 human-hours of effort.
Second, incompleteness. Suppose one of the big updates that I made came from a private conversation with ialdabaoth, and I ask him if I can quote him on a post here, and he says no. My private beliefs don’t change, but my public case changes significantly, and someone who is trying to infer how I’m reasoning from my public case might end up with less accurate beliefs. For example, one of the reasons why I didn’t link to the allegations is because if I said “epistemic concerns and [linked allegations]”, the weight of the text would lean much more towards the allegations.
Is it better to say 20% than 5%? Unclear. Both are definitely less satisfying for an observer than 100%, but my current sense is that those are the numbers we’re picking between, instead of 20% and 80%. [If I thought I could say 80% of my evidence, I might feel very differently about this; as is, it feels like I’ll be able to give detailed labels but not sufficient reason for you to think those labels correspond to reality, in a way that just passes the buck on where the ‘trust me’ weight lands.]
Third, scope. There’s just so much to say, in a way that gives similar incompleteness concerns. A much simpler standard is an explanation of his manipulative epistemic goals, like “he acted in a way that seems intended to give him room to operate” (by which I mean, encouraged people who could resist his tactics or point them out to leave him alone with those who couldn’t or didn’t), but this is a subjective interpretation that might or might not follow from the observed tactics. And what tactics I personally observed is a function of how I behaved around him and what his plans were for me; one of the elements of the semi-public conversation that moved my estimate significantly was one of ialdabaoth’s defenders realizing that ialdabaoth had been carefully not behaving in a particular way around the defender, such that the defender’s estimate of how ialdabaoth behaved would be substantially different from everyone else’s. What evidence filtered evidence, and all that.
Fourth, costs of inaction. The decision to implement a ban was made on Monday, and yet the post didn’t go up until Thursday, and it seemed better to delay the ban and finish the post then ban him on Monday and have an unannounced ban for however many days. I think several previous moderation scenarios have gone poorly because the team thought they had longer to contemplate the issue than they actually had.
I’m less worried about “cancel culture” becoming a thing on LW than in EA (because we seem naturally more opposed to that kind of thing), but I’m still a bit worried. I think having mods be obligated to explain all non-trivial banning decisions (with specifics instead of just pointing to broad categories like “manipulative”) would be a natural Schelling fence to protect against a potential slippery slope, so the costs involved may be worth paying from that perspective.