tldr: a Demon Thread is a discussion where everything is subtly warping towards aggression and confusion (i.e. as if people are under demonic influence), even if people are well intentioned and on the same 'side.' You can see a demon thread coming in advance, but it's still hard to do anything about.

("Flame Wars" are similar but I felt the connotation was more like "everything has already gone to hell, and people aren't even pretending to be on the same side")

I kept wanting to reference this post when discussing internet discussion policy, and I kept forgetting that nobody has written it yet. So here it is.

Suggested Background Reading:

Politics is Hard Mode (Rob Bensinger)
Civility is Never Neutral (Ozy)
Writing that Provokes Comments (me)
Musings on Double Crux and Productive Disagreement (me)

If someone in the future linked you to this post, it's probably because a giant sprawling mess of angry, confused comments is happening - or is about to happen - and it's going to waste a lot of time, make people upset, and probably less likely to listen to each other about whatever the conversation ostensibly is about.

I have some ideas on what to do instead, which I discuss in this followup post.

But for now, this post is meant to open a discussion, explore the mechanics of how demon threads work, and then in the comments brainstorm solutions about how to handle them.

Wrong On the Internet

I find “Someone Is Wrong On the Internet” to be a weird, specific feeling.

It's distinct from someone being factually wrong - people can be wrong, point it out, and hash out their disagreements without a problem. But a common pattern I’ve witnessed (and experienced) is to notice someone being wrong in a way that feels distinctly bad, like if you don’t correct them, something precious will get trampled over.

This is when people seem most prone to jump into the comments, and it’s when I think people should be most careful.

Sometimes there actually is an important thing at stake.

There usually isn’t.

It often feels like there is, because our social intuitions were honed for tribes of a hundred or two, instead of a world of 7 billion. We live in a different world now. If you actually want to have an impact on society, yelling at each other on the internet is almost certainly not the best way to do so...

Eldritch Analogies