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tl;dr: My recent Question post was censored[1] by habryka. The post was critical of habryka's decision to ban Said Achmiz on current evidence, and requested additional evidence.
I recently read through all 10,309 words of habryka's blog post explaining his decision to ban Said Achmiz. I also read through thousands of words of comments. I did not find the examples given of Said's behavior a compelling reason for a ban, but I did identify a key crux which would justify a ban:
Said has been by far the most complained user on the site, with many top authors citing him as a top reason for why they do not want to post on the site, or comment here
However, nowhere in the post or comments was I able to find a list of "many top authors" citing Said as a reason they no longer wish to post or comment on this site. Therefore, I created a Question post on my personal blog, hoping to crowd-source an answer to the question: "Which top authors did Said Achmiz drive away?" If such a list could be compiled, it would provide a much stronger and more succinct case for the ban than Habryka's original post did[2].
Habryka unlisted my Question post, meaning it is still accessible via the direct link but will no longer appear on the main page or my personal profile. He then reposted it as a comment under his original "Banning Said Achmiz" post. I believe this action breaks with standard LessWrong moderation guidelines for what is acceptable in a personal blogpost.
For instance, when I hover over the "Personal Blog" tag at the top of my post, a tooltip pops up which says, in part:
Members can write whatever they want on their personal blog. Personal blogposts are a good fit for:
- Meta-discussion of LessWrong (site features, interpersonal community dynamics)
And when I click that tag, it redirects to this guide which states:
Posts on practically any topic are welcomed on LessWrong[1].
The footnote in the quote states:
We will remove material of the following types:
- Calls for direct violence against others
- Doxing of people on the internet
- Material we are not legally able to host
- To a very limited degree, material that seriously threatens LessWrong’s long-term values, mission and culture.
Evidently, I cannot write "whatever I want" on my personal blog subject to the stated rules.
Habryka is the LessWrong dictator, and can make any exceptions to the rules that he wants. But he claims that preventing me from posting that question on my personal blog is nothing out of the ordinary:
The guidelines above are primarily about what kind of content we will delete, not about the exact ways we are going to list the content on the frontpage. I would never delete a post like this, and have indeed not done so!
It is true that suppression is a more mild form of censorship than deletion, but it is still censorship. My question is now buried at the bottom of a page with over 80,000 words of text (10,000 words in the blog post plus another 72,000 words of comments). How many people have time to read 80,000 words? What fraction of the exposure will the comment get, that the original question would have gotten were it not unlisted? 5 percent? 1 percent? 0.5 percent?
Habryka claims to believe that the comment will get more visibility than the original post would have:
My best guess is that it will get somewhat more visibility in the long-run as a result of being on the Said post, while getting a bit less visibility in the short run
I feel I am being gaslit. Again, how many people are going to read 72,000 words of comments? When I express my doubts, he offers to bet on it:
If we can find an operationalization, I would take a bet.
To the degree that karma is a proxy for number of readers, the now unlisted post is at 47 karma, and the repost is at 2 karma. I don't expect the repost to ever surpass the karma of the post, even though the post is now unlisted (if it were still listed, its total karma would no doubt be higher). If you think this is a bad proxy, I agree. The lack of good metrics means this is a bet that habryka cannot lose.
Having a single dictator who can ban anyone he wishes, is actually a good policy. (If a committee decides something, no one is responsible. Having a dictator makes power legible.) But when said dictator uses his power to suppress speech critical of his decisions, this is a problem. I would urge habryka to adopt the policy of Frederick the Great:
"My people and I … have come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please."
Edited To Add: I would have made this post on my personal blog, but Habryka did not want me to. He said I could post it here on my shortform, so that is what I have done. I expect this shortform post to get fewer views than a post on my personal blog would have gotten, so in addition to objecting to the original censorship I also object to the meta-censorship.