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AspiringKnitter comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! - Less Wrong
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Thank you. I was complaining about his use of needless profanity to refer to what I said, and a general "I'm better than you" tone (understandable, if he comes from a place where catching trolls is high status, but still rude). I not only approve of being told that I've done something wrong, I actually thanked him for it. Crocker's rules don't say "explain things in an insulting way", they say "don't soften the truths you speak to me". You can optimize for information-- and even get it across better-- when you're not trying to be rude. For instance,
That would not convey less truth if it weren't vulgar. You can easily communicate that someone is tugging people's heartstrings by presenting as a highly sympathetic damsel in distress without being vulgar.
Also, stuff like this:
That makes it quite clear that nyan_sandwich is getting a high from this and feels high-status because of behavior like this. While that in itself is fine, the whole post does have the feel of gloating to it. I simultaneously want to upvote it for information and downvote it for lowering the overall level of civility.
Here's my attempt to clarify how I wish to be engaged with: convey whatever information you feel is true. Be as reluctant to actively insult me as you would anyone else, bearing in mind that a simple "this is incorrect" is not insulting to me, and nor is "you're being manipulative". "This is crap" always lowers the standard of debate. If you spell out what's crappy about it, your readers (including yours truly) can grasp for themselves that it's crap.
Of course, if nyan_sandwich just came from 4chan, we can congratulate him on being an infinitely better human being than everyone else he hangs out with, as well as on saying something that isn't 100% insulting, vulgar nonsense. (I'd say less than 5% insulting, vulgar nonsense.) Actually, his usual contexts considered, I may upvote him after all. I know what it takes to be more polite than you're used to others being.
That doesn't sound right. Here's a quote from Crocker's rules:
Another quote:
Quote from our wiki:
There's a decision theoretic angle here. If I declare Crocker's rules, and person X calls me a filthy anteater, then I might not care about getting valuable information from them (they probably don't have any to share) but I refrain from lashing out anyway! Because I care about the signal I send to person Y who is still deciding whether to engage with me, who might have a sensitive detector of Crocker's rules violations. And such thoughtful folks may offer the most valuable critique. I'm afraid you might have shot yourself in the foot here.
I think this is generally correct. I do wonder about a few points:
If I am operating on Crocker's Rules (I personally am not, mind, but hypothetically), and someone's attempt to convey information to me has obvious room for improvement, is it ever permissible for me to let them know this? Given your decision theory point, my guess would be "yes, politely and privately," but I'm curious as to what others think as well. As a side note, I presume that if the other person is also operating by Crocker's Rules, you can say whatever you like back.
Do you mean improvement of the information content or the tone? If the former, I think saying "your comment was not informative enough, please explain more" is okay, both publicly and privately. If the latter, I think saying "your comment was not polite enough" is not okay under the spirit of Crocker's rules, neither publicly nor privately, even if the other person has declared Crocker's rules too.
When these things are orthogonal, I think your interpretation is clear, and when information would be obscured by politeness the information should win - that's the point of Crocker's Rules. What about when information is obscured by deliberate impoliteness? Does the prohibition on criticizing impoliteness win, or the permit for criticizing lack of clarity? In any case, if the other person is not themselves operating by Crocker's Rules, it is of course important that your response be polite, whatever it is.
Basically, no. If you want to criticize people for being rude to you just don't operate by Crocker's rules. Make up different ones.
Question: do Crocker's rules work differently here than I'm used to? I'm used to a communication style where people say things to get the point across, even though such things would be considered rude in typical society, not for being insulting but for pointless reasons, and we didn't do pointless things just to be typical. We were bluntly honest with each other, even (actually especially) when people were wrong (after all, it was kind of important that we convey that information accurately, completely and as quickly as possible in some cases), but to be deliberately insulting when information could have been just as easily conveyed some other way (as opposed to when it couldn't be), or to be insulting without adding any useful information at all, was quite gauche. At one point someone mentioned that if we wanted to invoke that in normal society, say we were under Crocker's rules.
So it looks like the possibilities worth considering are: 1. Someone LIED just to make it harder for us to fit in with normal society! 2. Someone was just wrong. 3. You're wrong. 4. Crockering means different things to different people.
Which do you think it is?
The impression I have is that calling Crocker's rules being never acting offended or angry at the way people talk to you, with the expectation that you'll get more information if people don't censor themselves out of politeness.
Some of your reactions here are not those I expect from someone under Crocker's rules (who would just ignore anything insulting or offensive).
So maybe what you consider as "Crocker's rules" is what most people here would consider "normal" discussion, so when you call Crocker's rules, people are extra rude.
I would suggest just dropping reference to Crocker's rules, I don't think they're necessary for having a reasonable discussion, and they they put pressure on the people you're talking to to either call Crocker's rules too (giving you carte blanche to be rude to them), otherwise they look uptight or something.
Possible. I'm inexperienced in talking with neurotypicals. All I know is what was drilled into me by them, which is basically a bunch of things of the form "don't ever convey this piece of information because it's rude" (where the piece of information is like... you have hairy arms, you're wrong, I don't like this food, I don't enjoy spending time with you, this gift was not optimized for making me happy-- and the really awful, horrible dark side where they feel pressured never to say certain things to me, like that I'm wrong, they're annoyed by something I'm doing, I'm ugly, I sound stupid, my writing needs improvement-- it's horrible to deal with people who never say those things because I can never assume sincerity, I just have to assume they're lying all the time) that upon meeting other neurodiverse I immediately proceeded to forget all about. And so did they. And THAT works out well. It's accepted within that community that "Crocker's rules" is how the rest of the world will refer to it.
Anyway, if I'm not allowed to hear the truth without having to listen to whatever insults anyone can come up with, then so be it, I really want to hear the truth and I know it will never be given to me otherwise. But there IS supposed to be something between "you are not allowed to say anything to me except that I'm right about everything and the most wonderful special snowflake ever" and "insult me in every way you can think of", even if the latter is still preferable to the former. (Is this community a place with a middle ground? If so, I didn't think such existed. If so, I'll gladly go by the normal rules of discussion here.)
My experience of LW is that:
* the baseline interaction mode would be considered rude-but-not-insulting by most American subcultures, especially neurotypical ones
* the interaction mode invoked by "Crocker's rules" would be considered insulting by most American subcultures, especially neurotypical ones
* there's considerable heterogeneity in terms of what's considered unacceptably rude
* there's a tentative consensus that dealing with occasional unacceptable rudeness is preferable to the consequences of disallowing occasional unacceptable rudeness, and
* the community pushes back on perceived attempts to enforce politeness far more strongly than it pushes back on perceived rudeness.
Dunno if any of that answers your questions.
I would also say that nobody here has come even remotely close to "insult in every conceivable way" as an operating mode.
You might like this comment.
This should be strongly rejected, if Crocker's Rules are ever going to do more good than harm. I do not mean that it is not the case given existing norms (I simply do not know one way or the other), but that norms should be established such that this is clearly not the case. Someone who is unable to operate according to Crocker's Rules attempting to does not improve discourse or information flow - no one should be pressured to do so.
I agree with you in the abstract.
The problem is, the more a community is likely to consider X a "good" practice, the more it is likely to think less of those who refuse to do do X, whatever X is; so I don't see a good way of avoiding negative connotations to "unable to operate according to Crocker's Rules".
... that is, unless the interaction is not symmetric, so that when one side announces Crocker's rules, there is no implicit expectation that the other side should do the same (with the associated status threat); for example if on my website I mention Crocker's rules next to the email form or something.
But in a peer-to-peer community like this, that expectation is always going to be implicit, and I don't see a good way to make it disappear.
Wikipedia and Google seem to think Eliezer is the authority on Crocker's Rules. Quoting Eliezer on sl4 via Wikipedia:
Also, from our wiki:
Looking hard for another source, something called the DoWire Wiki has this unsourced:
So if anyone is using Crocker's Rules a different way, I think it's safe to say they're doing it wrong, but only by definition. Maybe someone should ask Crocker, if they're concerned.
OK.
FWIW, I agree that nyan-sandwich's tone was condescending, and that they used vulgar words.
I also think "I suppose they can't be expected to behave any better, we should praise them for not being completely awful" is about as condescending as anything else that's been said in this thread.
Yeah, you're probably right. I didn't mean for that to come out that way (when I used to spend a lot of time on places with low standards, my standards were lowered, too), but that did end up insulting. I'm sorry, nyan_sandwich.
A lot of intelligent folks have to spend a lot of energy trying not to be rude, and part of the point of Crocker's Rules is to remove that burden by saying you won't call them on rudeness.
Not all politeness is inconsistent with communicating truth. I agree that "Does this dress make me look fat" has a true answer and a polite answer. It's worth investing some attention into figuring out which answer to give. Often, people use questions like that as a trap, as mean-spirited or petty social and emotional manipulation. Crocker's Rule is best understood as a promise that the speaker is aware of this dynamic and explicitly denies engaging in it.
That doesn't license being rude. If you are really trying to help someone else come to a better understanding of the world, being polite helps them avoid cognitive biases that would prevent them from thinking logically about your assertions. In short, Crocker's Rule does not mean "I don't mind if you are intentionally rude to me." It means "I am aware that your assertions might be unintentionally rude, and I will be guided by your intention to inform rather than interpreting you as intentionally rude.
Right, I wasn't saying anything that contradicted that. Rather, some of us have additional cognitive burden in general trying to figure out if something is supposed to be rude, and I always understood part of the point of Crocker's Rules to be removing that burden so we can communicate more efficiently. Especially since many such people are often worth listening to.