I do really want to avoid this becoming a recurring topic with lots of disconnected top-level posts doing relitigation, so I'll by-default move this to a top-level comment on the Said banning post (I think this is the right choice for stuff like this, though feel free to argue with me about this, and a top-level shortform post complaining about that policy will not be moved and is something I am happy to debate on).
Also, I've spent much much more than my allotted 10 hours answering questions and digging into things here, so I won't respond much more on the Said topic, though this random thread I had with Said is probably worth reading and has a few examples of other public comments to this effect, though I'll again reiterate that most comments on this topic have been in private (including comments I remember from both Scott and Jacob Falkovich to this effect, which I mention in the relevant thread with Zack).
Edit: This is now done. I unlisted this post, e.g. it still exists but is only accessible via link, since that seemed like the simplest way to maintain any context I might have forgot to move over.
Sting, the author of the post, thought a top-level question post was the right choice. If you think the algorithm should deprioritize showing other people Sting's post because you think it's bad, you have a strength-10 strong downvote. Why isn't that enough? On any other topic, if someone makes a post about something other people have also made posts about, you don't demote later posts to comments. Why is this topic different?
I mean, the algorithm is like one line of math, why would we assume it covers all possible edge-cases? It's extremely common for forum-moderation to do lots of moving of comments and posts and to concentrate discussion of a topic in a single place in any forum on the internet (see the many times a week dang at hackernews does the same thing with overlapping discussions, or similar meta-topics), or the many times we've done the same on LW.
Separately, I don't think it would be appropriate for this post to get downvoted! The post is asking a reasonable question, just one I think is best asked in the context of all the other discussion on the topic. I don't think downvoting is the appropriate operation for this.
The default equilibrium of internet discussion like this is that stuff gets eternally relitigated because people show up who don't want to read the previous context and are looking for some kind of drama, or get drawn in by someone else presenting some isolated facet of the context. The whole reason why I spent 60+ hours writing the previous post is to avoid that exact dynamic. Allowing lots of top-level posts will inevitably then cause me to have to spend another 100+ hours on this, which I do not want to do. Indeed, in this case there are a lot of comments on the banning post that directly address questions in this post, and I strongly expect any discussion situated in that context to go a lot better.
Habryka recently decided to ban Said Achmiz. He wrote an extensive post explaining the decision. There were some very good things about this decision at the meta level, such as having one person make the decision and take full responsibility for it, explaining the reasoning in detail, and giving Said a comment thread under which he can respond.
However, I did not find the specific examples given for the ban persuasive. E.g., the example given under
When Said is at his worst, he writes comments like this:
did not seem remotely ban-worthy to me.
The key claim which, if true, would justify a ban, was:
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
If Said is driving away many top authors, then he is at the very least guilty of being a bad cultural fit. And if someone chooses to act in a way that imposes costs on the website, and those costs are greater than the benefits he provides, he has no right to complain when you ban him.
But the key piece of information missing from the post is: which top authors did Said drive away?
The only example I am aware of is Duncan, but he doesn't count. Habryka explicitly said:
there is basically no engagement with Duncan that played any kind of substantial role in any of this.
And even more strongly:
My honest best guess is that we would have banned Said somewhat earlier if not for the Duncan thread .... My experience was that Said's behavior in the Duncan thread was among the most understandable cases of him behaving badly (because I too have found myself ending up drawn into conflicts with Duncan that end up quite aggressive and at least tempt me to behave badly).
So which top authors left? Of course, anyone who permanently left the site would not have left any comments on the post. But a few top authors[1] did mention bad personal experiences with Said:
Matt Goldenberg (5,600 karma) found Said's comments unpleasant.
philh (7,800 karma) had mixed experiences:
Like seemingly many others, I found Said a mix of "frequently incredibly annoying, seemingly blind to things that are clear to others, poorly calibrated with the confidence level he expresses things, [...]" and "occasionally pointing out the-Emperor-has-no-clothes in ways that are valuable and few other people seem to do".
(I had banned him from my personal posts, but not from my frontpaged posts.)
Gordon Seidoh Worley (10,000 karma) also describes a mix of good and bad experiences:
Also FWIW, I've had some genuinely positive interactions with Said in the last couple weeks. I was surprised as anyone. I don't know if it's because he was trying to be on his best behavior or what, but if that was how Said commented on everything, I'd be very happy to see him unbanned (I had even had the idea that if we continued to have positive interactions I would unban him after whatever felt like enough time for me to believe in the new pattern).
Several other top authors defended Said[2]. I was not able to find, in either the post or the comments, any firsthand or secondhand examples of top authors who left because of Said. This question has been asked before, by Said himself:
You’re positing a person who is posting things that aren’t, like… vulgarity, or personal insults, or anything bad or crazy like that (because if he were doing that, then the mods would presumably ban him outright—or should, anyway!). And he’s not doing anything else that is rightly ban-worthy (like, say, persistently lying about his interlocutors’ claims, or something along those lines). Yet, despite this, there are authors who find this person’s very presence in a discussion so “unpleasant” that… it’s enough to discourage them from posting on LW altogether?
And yet, despite this, these authors somehow are capable of making useful contributions to the site? Who are these authors??
Can you give some examples of such people? (Are you one of them?)
To which habryka responded (emphasis added):
My guess is something like more than half of the authors to this site who have posted more than 10 posts that you commented on, about you, in particular. Eliezer, Scott Alexander, Jacob Falkovich, Elizabeth Van Nostrand, me, dozens of others. This is not a rare position. I would have to dig to give you an exact list, but the list is not short, and it includes large fractions of almost everyone who one might consider strong contributors to the site.
To which Zack replied:
You are making false claims. Two of these claims about the views of specific individuals are clearly contradicted by those individuals' own statements
Scott Alexander, when asked about Said, said:
I have no direct opinion on him. I have heard his name as someone who's very confrontational, and I agree that this can make a website less pleasant, but I can't remember having any personal experience.
And Jacob Falkovich's view of Said is positive.
The fact that two of the examples on the list were incorrect, throws the rest of the list into doubt.
So the question remains:
Which top authors cite Said as a reason they "do not want to post on the site, or comment here"?
Said is a popular author, with 17,000 karma. Someone whose comments and posts are generally well-received should not be banned lightly. But if someone compiles a list of authors[3] who left the site because of Said (with direct quotes to that effect), and if those authors collectively have more than 17,000 karma, then that is at the very least a strong argument for banning him.
I am not sure what constitutes a top author, but I will tentatively define it as someone with over 5000 karma.
Alexander Gietelink Oldenziel (5,800 karma) found his comments valuable.
Wei Dai (41,000 karma) will also miss him.
Richard_Kennaway (7,800 karma) is sad that Said was banned.
Alicorn (30,000 karma) is disappointed and dismayed by the ban:
I don't think it will really affect you if I stay or go. But if I do absentmindedly navigate here out of sixteen year habit I'm going to have a bad taste in my mouth about it.
Excluding Duncan