I sometimes feel annoyed by some people. Some people sometimes get annoyed by me. This is normal. It’s hard to figure out when an intervention is worth it.
When a single member breaks norms of a social group just slightly, people rarely react in a clearly visible way. It’s just passively endured. This is often somewhat unpleasant, and leads to norm erosion. Sometimes you can let the disapproval show slightly, and hope that the hint goes through. Most of the time it does, and the problem goes away quickly, especially if the norm-breaker didn’t realize they were doing so. Some of the time it doesn’t help, and less subtle communication is required.
Publicly calling out someone for breaking a group norm is a high-stakes play. If you accuse someone but the group doesn’t agree with you, it makes you look bad. There are several ways this could happen: you’ve misunderstood the norm, you don’t have the status to call out someone like this, or perhaps the group is just really conflict-avoidant.
Even in the most clear-cut cases I often feel some resentment towards the person who does the calling out. It’s natural to be suspicious of these kinds of moves. This might be someone playing status games, or perhaps an attempt to establish a new norm unilaterally. That said, they’re also doing a public service by staking their social capital against someone making the world a worse place. I don’t want to disincentivize altruistic behavior, doubly so if I’m the one benefitting from it.
Explaining the problem in private is often a more appropriate way to solve the issue, especially when it’s unlikely to be an intentional one. That burns less social capital on both sides. However, sometimes not stating the norm out loud contributes to the issue.
One thing that helps immensely, especially in online groups where people don’t know each other too well, is having a dedicated moderator. I rarely feel resentment towards moderators taking reasonable actions, like giving a warning or banning someone from a chat. On the other hand, even the tiniest amount of power over others will make a petty dictator out of many typically reasonable people. The dictator part I like, the petty, not so much. Committees and ban votes are not the way to do things, benevolent dictators are. Writing down clear-cut rules will not help much, as reasonable people will rarely argue with reasonable decisions, and unreasonable people are going to be that way no matter what. Of course sometimes the group has specific norms that need to be communicated somehow and especially online some basic guidelines make that easier.
Norms are incentives, not following them is inconvenient. But some norms are bad, feeding them with compliance makes them stronger, and doing so is the more comfortable path.
It can be annoying when some people dare break norms, including bad norms. Sufficiently evolved norms would defend their feeding grounds with enforcement subroutines. So when others are observing norm-breaking behavior, they tend to express disapproval, on pain of starting to feel uncomfortable. This too is an aspect of the norm’s behavioral content.
When a single member breaks norms of a social group just slightly … This is often somewhat unpleasant, and leads to norm erosion. Sometimes you can let the disapproval show slightly, and hope that the hint goes through. Most of the time it does, and the problem goes away quickly, especially if the norm-breaker didn’t realize they were doing so.
So an explicit discussion can be useful to establish if a norm should be endorsed, before the practical considerations of how to either strengthen or weaken it come into play. When a norm is endemic to a wider society, weakening it within a smaller social group could be harder than starting to maintain a norm that’s less generally prevalent.
I sometimes feel annoyed by some people. Some people sometimes get annoyed by me. This is normal. It’s hard to figure out when an intervention is worth it.
When a single member breaks norms of a social group just slightly, people rarely react in a clearly visible way. It’s just passively endured. This is often somewhat unpleasant, and leads to norm erosion. Sometimes you can let the disapproval show slightly, and hope that the hint goes through. Most of the time it does, and the problem goes away quickly, especially if the norm-breaker didn’t realize they were doing so. Some of the time it doesn’t help, and less subtle communication is required.
Publicly calling out someone for breaking a group norm is a high-stakes play. If you accuse someone but the group doesn’t agree with you, it makes you look bad. There are several ways this could happen: you’ve misunderstood the norm, you don’t have the status to call out someone like this, or perhaps the group is just really conflict-avoidant.
Even in the most clear-cut cases I often feel some resentment towards the person who does the calling out. It’s natural to be suspicious of these kinds of moves. This might be someone playing status games, or perhaps an attempt to establish a new norm unilaterally. That said, they’re also doing a public service by staking their social capital against someone making the world a worse place. I don’t want to disincentivize altruistic behavior, doubly so if I’m the one benefitting from it.
Explaining the problem in private is often a more appropriate way to solve the issue, especially when it’s unlikely to be an intentional one. That burns less social capital on both sides. However, sometimes not stating the norm out loud contributes to the issue.
One thing that helps immensely, especially in online groups where people don’t know each other too well, is having a dedicated moderator. I rarely feel resentment towards moderators taking reasonable actions, like giving a warning or banning someone from a chat. On the other hand, even the tiniest amount of power over others will make a petty dictator out of many typically reasonable people. The dictator part I like, the petty, not so much. Committees and ban votes are not the way to do things, benevolent dictators are. Writing down clear-cut rules will not help much, as reasonable people will rarely argue with reasonable decisions, and unreasonable people are going to be that way no matter what. Of course sometimes the group has specific norms that need to be communicated somehow and especially online some basic guidelines make that easier.
Norms are incentives, not following them is inconvenient. But some norms are bad, feeding them with compliance makes them stronger, and doing so is the more comfortable path.
It can be annoying when some people dare break norms, including bad norms. Sufficiently evolved norms would defend their feeding grounds with enforcement subroutines. So when others are observing norm-breaking behavior, they tend to express disapproval, on pain of starting to feel uncomfortable. This too is an aspect of the norm’s behavioral content.
So an explicit discussion can be useful to establish if a norm should be endorsed, before the practical considerations of how to either strengthen or weaken it come into play. When a norm is endemic to a wider society, weakening it within a smaller social group could be harder than starting to maintain a norm that’s less generally prevalent.