Basically yes, although I note I said a lot of other words here that were all fairly important, including the links back to previous comments. For example, it’s important that I think you are factually incorrect about there being “normatively correct general principles” that people who don’t engage with your comments “should be interpreted as ignorant”.
Well, no doubt most or all of what you wrote was important, but by “important” do you specifically mean “forms part of the description of what you take to be ‘the problem’, which this moderation action is attempting to solve”?
For example, as far as the “normatively correct general principles” thing goes—alright, so you think I’m factually incorrect about this particular thing I said once.[1] Let’s take for granted that I disagree. Well, and is that… a moderation-worthy offense? To disagree (with the mods? with the consensus—established how?—of Less Wrong? with anyone?) about what is essentially a philosophical claim? Are you suggesting that your correctness on this is so obvious that disagreeing can only constitute either some sort of bad faith, or blameworthy ignorance? That hardly seems true!
Or, take the links. One of them is clearly meant to be an example of the thing you described (and which I quoted). The others… don’t seem to be.[2] Are they just examples of things where you disagree with me? Again, fine and well, but is “being (allegedly) wrong about some non-obvious philosophical point” a moderation-worthy offense…? How do these other links fit into a description of what problem you’re solving?
And, perhaps just as importantly… how does any of this fit into… well, anything that has happened recently? All of your links are to discussions that took place three years ago. What is the connection of any of that to recent events? Are you suggesting that I have recently written comments that would give people the impression that Less Wrong has a social norm that imputes on post authors an obligation to respond to comments on their posts?
I ask these things not because I want to persuade you that there isn’t a problem, per se (I think there are many problems but of course my opinion differs from yours about what they are)—but, rather, because I can hardly comply with the rules, either in letter or in spirit or in any other way, when I don’t know what the rules are. From my perspective, what I seem to see the mods doing is the equivalent of the police stopping a person who’s walking down the street, saying “we’re taking you in for speeding”, and, in response to the confused citizen’s protests, explaining that he got a speeding ticket three years ago, and now they’re arresting him for exceeding the speed limit. Is this a long-delayed punishment? Is there a more recent offense? Is there some other reason for the arrest? Or what?
I think my actual crux “somehow, at the end of the day, people feel comfortable ignoring and/or downvoting your comments if they don’t think they’ll be productive to engage with.”
I think that people should feel comfortable ignoring and/or downvoting anyone’s comments if they don’t think engagement will be productive! Certainly I should not be any sort of exception to this. (Why in the world would I be? Of course you should engage only if you have some expectation that engaging will be productive, and not otherwise!)
If I write a comment and you think it is a bad comment (useless, obviously wrong, etc.), by all means downvote and ignore. Why not? And if I write another comment that says “you have an obligation to reply!”—I wouldn’t say that, because I don’t think that, but let’s say that I did—downvote and ignore that comment, too! Do this no matter who the commenter is!
Anyhow, if the problem really is essentially as I’ve summarized it, plus or minus some nuances and elaborations, then:
I really don’t see what any recent event have to do with anything, or how the rate limit solves it, or… really, this entire situation perplexes me, from that perspective. But,
If the worry is that other Less Wrong participants might get the wrong idea about site norms from my comments, then let me assure you that my comments certainly shouldn’t be taken to imply that said norms are anything other than what the moderators say they are. If anyone gets any other impression from my comments, that can only be a misunderstanding. I solemnly promise that if anyone questions me on this point (i.e., asks whether I am claiming the existence of some norms which the moderators have disclaimed), I will, in response, clearly reaffirm this view. (I encourage anyone, moderators or otherwise, to link to this comment in answer to any commenters or authors who seem at all confused on this point.)
Is that… I mean, does that solve the problem…?
Actually, you somewhat misconstrue the comment, by taking it out of context. That’s perhaps not too important, but worth noting. In any case, it’s a comment I wrote three years ago, in the middle of a long discussion, and as part of a longer and offhandedly-written description, spread over a number of comments, of my view—and which, moreover, takes its phrasing directly from the comment it was a reply to. These are hardly ideal conditions for expressing nuances of meaning. My view is that, when writing comments like this in the middle of a long discussion, it is neither necessary nor desirable to agonize over whether the phrasing and formulation is ideal, because anyone who disagrees or misunderstands can just reply to indicate that, and the confusion or disagreement can be hammered out in the replies. (And this is largely what happened in the given case.[3]) ↩︎
In particular, I can’t help but note that you link to a sub-thread which begins with me saying “This comment is a tangent, and I haven’t decided yet if it’s relevant to my main points or just incidental—”, i.e., where I pretty clearly signal that engagement isn’t necessarily critical, as far as the main discussion goes. ↩︎
Perhaps you missed it, but I did write a comment in that discussion where I very explicitly wrote that “I’m not saying that there’s a specific obligation for a post author to post a reply comment, using the Less Wrong forum software, directly to any given comment along the lines I describe”. Was that comment, despite my efforts, somehow unclear? That’s possible! These things happen. But is that a moderation-worth offense…? ↩︎
Update: Ruby and I have posted moderator notices for Duncan and Said in this thread. This was a set of fairly difficult moderation calls on established users and it seems good for the LessWrong userbase to have the opportunity to evaluate it and respond. I'm stickying this post for a day-or-so.
Recently there's been a series of posts and comment back-and-forth between Said Achmiz and Duncan Sabien, which escalated enough that it seemed like site moderators should weigh in.
For context, a quick recap of recent relevant events as I'm aware of them are. (I'm glossing over many details that are relevant but getting everything exactly right is tricky)
LessWrong moderators got together for ~2 hours to discuss this overall situation, and how to think about it both as an object-level dispute and in terms of some high level "how do the culture/rules/moderation of LessWrong work?".
I think we ended up with fairly similar takes, but, getting to the point that we all agree 100% on what happened and what to do next seemed like a longer project, and we each had subtly different frames about the situation. So, some of us (at least Vaniver and I, maybe others) are going to start by posting some top level comments here. People can weigh in the discussion. I'm not 100% sure what happens after that, but we'll reflect on the discussion and decide on whether to take any high-level mod actions.
If you want to weigh in, I encourage you to take your time even if there's a lot of discussion going on. If you notice yourself in a rapid back and forth that feels like it's escalating, take at least a 10 minute break and ask yourself what you're actually trying to accomplish.
I do note: the moderation team will be making an ultimate call on whether to take any mod actions based on our judgment. (I'll be the primary owner of the decision, although I expect if there's significant disagreement among the mod team we'll talk through it a lot). We'll take into account arguments various people post, but we aren't trying to reflect the wisdom of crowds.
So if you may want to focus on engaging with our cruxes rather than what other random people in the comments think.