Blueberry comments on On Enjoying Disagreeable Company - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Alicorn 26 May 2010 01:47AM

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Comment author: jimrandomh 26 May 2010 05:16:02AM *  22 points [-]

EDIT: I've reconsidered this, and what I wrote here is unfair to SilasBarta. What really happened here, I think, is that Alicorn's actions inadvertantly set up a feedback loop, which no one understood well enough to shut down before it blew up here. In this post, I chided Silas for not recognizing and disarming that feedback loop - but the truth is, there were plenty of people, including both Alicorn and myself, who could've repaired the situation with a little more awareness, and this comment really didn't help.

And to clarify - what started this whole thing was Alicorn asking Silas not to respond to any of her comments, which was a strange and hostile thing to ask. In this comment, I interpreted that request by rounding it to the nearest non-strange request, which more than I thought. Unfortunately, when asked to clarify, Alicorn clarified it as literally "don't reply to comments", rather than "don't try to initiate conversations", as she should have.

Original comment below:

Ok, this has gotten painful to watch, and since no one has explained it properly, I feel I ought to overcome the bystander effect and step in. SilasBarta, you have dramatically misunderstood what is happening here. You are flagrantly violating a social norm that you do not seem to understand. Alicorn has acted in a way that is fully determined by your behavior towards her, and anyone else would do the same in her place.

When you speak someone's name and know that they can hear you, you are, in effect, attempting to summon them. It effectively forces them to listen; if in public, they may need to step in to defend their reputation, and if in private they know they're specifically being addressed. Attempts to initiate conversation are a social primitive; neurotypicals track a statistical overview of the nature, frequency, and response given to conversations with each person, and expect each other to do the same.

If you attempt to initiate conversation with someone, they give you a negative response, and you knew or should have known that they would give you a negative response, then you are pestering them. By "negative response", I mean visible irritation, anger, or an attempt to push you out of their sphere of attention without using a pretext. If you repeatedly pester someone who has specifically asked you not to, and you don't have a sufficiently suitable and important pretext, then you are harrassing them. Pestering someone is frowned upon. Harrassing someone is frowned upon, and can also be illegal if it either carries an implied threat or is sufficiently flagrant. Also, our culture assigns additional penalty points for this if you are male and the person you're harrassing is female.

So here is the story, as I understand it. After an interaction that did not go well, Alicorn asked you not to reply to her comments. This means "don't pester me" (or more succinctly, "go away"). This is one of a small number of standard messages which all neurotypicals expect each other to be able to recognize reliably and to pick out of subtext. You continued to participate in conversations Alicorn was involved in, by responding to other commenters, but every time you did so you spoke Alicorn's name, even when you had no pretext for doing so. You interpreted her request in a literal-minded but incorrect way; you failed to generalize from "don't respond to my comments" to "don't try to pull me into a conversation with you by any means".

Comment author: Blueberry 26 May 2010 02:30:45PM *  12 points [-]

I'm curious now about this community's perceptions of a person A's requests for a person B not to reply to A's comments. (Note: I'm using letters A and B because this isn't about the particular situation or the individuals in question, and I don't want the individuals' identities to distract from the issue here.)

I posted a comment stating that it wasn't reasonable to ask someone not to reply, which got downvoted. I'm assuming this got downvoted because people disagree.

One person replied stating that A's original request was not to avoid replying to any of A's comments, but to stop making comments that specifically single A out. However, this was not B's interpretation of the request. B seems to think, possibly incorrectly, that A asked B not to reply to any of A's comments on LW.

For people who think this is a reasonable request, here's a hypothetical: suppose C and D are enrolled in a philosophy class together. C and D have an unpleasant interaction, and C requests that D not raise her hand in class and participate in class discussion after C has made a comment. Do people agree that this would be an unreasonable request, unlike, say, "please don't call or email me"? If so, why is a request to not reply to someone's LW comments substantially different?

Comment author: jimrandomh 26 May 2010 03:03:48PM 0 points [-]

In a classroom setting, the right to ask people to leave or to not participate is reserved exlusively for the professor; a student could not ask another student to shut up without the teacher's express consent. On a blog, however, no such authority exists, so anyone can make such requests - but only in response to breaking certain social norms without a good excuse.

Comment author: Blueberry 26 May 2010 03:23:33PM 4 points [-]

On a blog, however, no such authority exists

Well, blogs do have administrators, who hold a similar authority. I believe Eliezer has banned several people from LW for making only poor quality or trollish posts, for instance.

anyone can make such requests - but only in response to breaking certain social norms without a good excuse.

Well, yes, anyone can make such requests, just like I can request that LW commentors refrain from using the word "the" because I find it incredibly offensive. The point is that it isn't a reasonable request. If someone's violated enough of the community norms to be banned, that's a matter for the administrator, but that's different than an individual requesting "please don't reply to my comments in a public discussion forum" as if it were comparable to "please don't email or call me."

Comment author: RichardKennaway 26 May 2010 02:51:44PM 0 points [-]

suppose C and D are enrolled in a philosophy class together. C and D have an unpleasant interaction, and C requests that D not raise her hand in class and participate in class discussion after C has made a comment. Do people agree that this would be an unreasonable request

It depends on whether D's intention in responding to a comment of C is to contribute to the class discussion or to needle C.

Comment author: Blueberry 26 May 2010 03:05:11PM *  4 points [-]

No, the request we're talking about is "don't comment at all in reply to my comments."

Edited to fix link.

ETA: Also see here