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cousin_it comments on Of Exclusionary Speech and Gender Politics - Less Wrong
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Factual nitpick: scientific status doesn't imply sexual status, in fact I gut-feel the real-world correlation is negative when controlled for income, though of course I don't have enough data.
Value nitpick: if we manage to find important truths at the price of collectively looking like sex-starved nerds, I for one am willing to pay that price. Those of us who aren't can always conceal their identities with nicknames.
The question is whether that's necessary (or helpful) for finding important truths. You implicitly assume it is a required cost. More generally, is "writing in a way expected to alienate large numbers of people" a price that we must pay in order for our community to succeed?
Any pervasive trend that results in our community being the sort of place that a Dawkins or Dennett or Pinker would avoid is a trend that we should carefully analyze, and the burden of proof is correspondingly high to show that the net benefits of that sort of behavior warrant allowing it. I don't think anybody has shown that the sort of objectionable writing in question has such benefits or that there aren't alternate ways of communicating the same ideas without being alienating, the primary cost being some extra effort required on the part of the writer.
The categorical goal should not be a "successful community", but rather a truly rationalist community. As such the process of truth-finding should not be compromised by any social "niceties". Now, I can bear some extra effort on the writer's part, but if you feel the pressure to please everyone, it is already a step in the direction of self-censorship, which should not be tolerated. No policy here should step on such a slippery slope, for there is a reason why they are called such.
And an explicit ban on any topic is (of course) categorically not acceptable - be it PUA or whatnot; as such is already a huge slide down on said slope. I am surprised there is not much more of an outcry following such a daring suggestion.
Rationality encompasses all - it has no taboo themes. Neither should you or this community.
There have already been explicit bans on topics. In the early days of Less Wrong, there were bans on discussing the Singularity and artificial intelligence, for fear that without such a ban the conversations about these topics would overwhelm the fledgling site and create an undesireable skewed tone. The ban was lifted after a certain amount of time, when the tone was supposedly established.
If pickup artist discussion is creating a tone that is skewed in ways we don't like, it is not without precedent and not in opposition to rationality to end it.
Fixed it for you.
You might want to read Eliezer's posts on the importance of a healthy community. I will link some later if noone's done it before me.
Here's the link, after a minute's effort. Wasn't it worth that?