In general, I am extremely suspicious of claims that things are just fine the way they are. But this is one of those cases where I’m in that color.
A recent series of posts by a well-meaning troll
Doesn’t this summarize lots of good reasons to keep imposing sharp costs on politics talk at Less Wrong? Looking at that guy’s comment history makes me want to be even more aggressive at keeping it elsewhere.
Yeah, but the guy was obviously an idiot, and everyone could have easily just ignored him, and he got downvoted into oblivion.
If the experienced members of the site generally don’t post about politics, then the people who post about politics are less likely to be sensible, coherent, and/or intelligent.
Yeah, but the guy was obviously an idiot, and everyone could have easily just ignored him, and he got downvoted into oblivion.
In my experience, when everyone could ignore an obvious idiot/troll who get downvoted into oblivion, some people don’t actually ignore it, and low quality discussion ensues.
Unless a group is highly coordinated, it doesn’t seem useful ask what the group could do, what actions are available to the group. The group is not an coherent agent that considers its available actions and chooses one. You could ask usefully what a group member could do, but then the actions of other group members are a fact about the environment, there is no “could” about it.
I follow the policy of downvoting replies to worthless comments, regardless of replies’ quality. More people following this policy would quench the worthless discussions of that kind.
In general, I am extremely suspicious of claims that things are just fine the way they are. But this is one of those cases where I’m in that color.
Doesn’t this summarize lots of good reasons to keep imposing sharp costs on politics talk at Less Wrong? Looking at that guy’s comment history makes me want to be even more aggressive at keeping it elsewhere.
Yeah, but the guy was obviously an idiot, and everyone could have easily just ignored him, and he got downvoted into oblivion.
If the experienced members of the site generally don’t post about politics, then the people who post about politics are less likely to be sensible, coherent, and/or intelligent.
In my experience, when everyone could ignore an obvious idiot/troll who get downvoted into oblivion, some people don’t actually ignore it, and low quality discussion ensues.
Unless a group is highly coordinated, it doesn’t seem useful ask what the group could do, what actions are available to the group. The group is not an coherent agent that considers its available actions and chooses one. You could ask usefully what a group member could do, but then the actions of other group members are a fact about the environment, there is no “could” about it.
I follow the policy of downvoting replies to worthless comments, regardless of replies’ quality. More people following this policy would quench the worthless discussions of that kind.