Random832 comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: FAWS 11 April 2012 03:39AM

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Comment author: Random832 12 April 2012 12:48:10PM 0 points [-]

From doing some searching, this thread contains at least nine positively scored comments I classify as mentioning the spoiler. here and here are representative examples.

Full list of the "nine": 6azo 6ar5 6amx 6al7 6as6 6all 6anm 6ait 6alr. Some of these are weaker than others, but the overall impression I have is that people have no problem writing posts as if it is a fact with no spoiler obfuscation.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 12 April 2012 01:05:19PM * 2 points [-]

It's not treating it a fact that's frowned upon, same way that it's not frowned upon to treat Hat&Cloak as Quirrel, or Dumbledore as Santa Claus - we don't ask that people treat their conclusions as if they're spoilers.

What's against the rules is to reveal the specific announcements that have been "unrevealed".

Is this too fine a distinction for you to understand? Here's a clue, none of those nine comments say anything about what Eliezer has or hasn't revealed in retracted Authorial Notes.

So give it a rest already.

Comment author: thomblake 12 April 2012 02:42:00PM 0 points [-]

I have is that people have no problem writing posts as if it is a fact with no spoiler obfuscation.

That is correct. The policy does not require that those comments be obfuscated.

You need to obfuscate "Eliezer said X" and you don't need to obfuscate "X".

For example, I would have to obfuscate "Eliezer told me that the true source of magic is really a supercomputer in Atlantis" (not spoilered here because he didn't really) but I would not have to obfuscate an assertion / guess / assumption "the true source of magic is really a supercomputer in Atlantis".

The policy is very clear - if you don't think the policy is clear on this, please point to how the wording can be improved.

Comment author: Random832 comment score below threshold [+] (12 children)

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 12 April 2012 03:04:34PM 2 points [-]

Your whole argument seems to be "if someone might potentially get spoiled, then by golly everyone should be".

We realize the rule can't prevent all spoilage. But it can reduce it, and (it being simple and specific) it's extremely easy to follow for anyone who is a non-jerk.

Comment author: Random832 12 April 2012 03:10:59PM * -2 points [-]

I don't think the rule right now prevents any spoilage. It is implausible that anyone learns anything from hearing "Eliezer said X" that they don't already have (including the inevitable conclusion that Eliezer must have, in fact, said X) from seeing everyone else treat X as unquestioned fact. The rule should, if anything, be expanded to require people to either rot13 those parts of these posts, go through the motions of treating it as a hypothesis, and at the very least avoid casually tossing off allusions to X when it's not central to what they're posting about.

P.S. "it's extremely easy to follow" of course it is, that's the problem - it's easy to follow because it is written to avoid inconveniencing people except for people who don't know the secret handshake. A real rule that actually had a chance of preventing people from being spoiled would impose inconvenience on people who actually matter and might get pushback from people whose karma you can't wipe out.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 12 April 2012 03:14:10PM * 2 points [-]

I don't think the rule right now prevents any spoilage.

Unless you argue that it actually causes spoilage (which is implausible), it's highly implausible that it's effect is exactly zero.

Such guidelines as you suggest are perhaps nice to be followed voluntarily, but obliging people to follow them would impose an additional cost and burden -- when it seems that atleast two people in this thread have a problem with the rule being as much of a burden on them as it currently is.

Comment author: loserthree 12 April 2012 04:40:35PM * 3 points [-]

Unless you argue that it actually causes spoilage (which is implausible)...

I'll argue that it causes spoilage.

Create a new account. On the day after a chapter goes up, post a complaint about someone saying that Dhveeryy vf Ibyqrzbeg and ask how anyone knows. Even if all the replies to you are ciphered, you will still know that people know. And if you were not already-in-the-know, you would be spoiled. And any non-posting lurker who has already seen this happen a half donzen times but was not in the know and did not decipher anything also has been spoiled.

The cipher rule makes people comfortable talking about spoilers, so they do talk about spoilers. But the rule doesn't prevent the spoilage that occurs because of the talk about spoilers, just what occurs because of the spoilers themselves.

Sensitization is complicated. That's one reason censorship is so popular.

Comment author: Random832 12 April 2012 04:43:33PM * 0 points [-]

I refrained from making this argument (even though it is in essence the same as my argument that it prevents nothing) specifically because it only makes the case as compared to a general rule against posting spoilers, not as compared to a general rule allowing it. Is your contention that in the absence of any rule on the subject people would tend to self-censor spoilers (even this one, out of all spoilers)? I wasn't comfortable making that claim.

OH, COME ON! What'd I say HERE that earned a downvote?

Comment author: thomblake 12 April 2012 06:40:57PM * -1 points [-]

OH, COME ON! What'd I say HERE that earned a downvote?

This. </snark>

Comment author: wedrifid 12 April 2012 06:50:00PM 2 points [-]

OH, COME ON! What'd I say HERE that earned a downvote?

This. </snark>

More fun with pictures!

Comment author: thomblake 12 April 2012 06:54:48PM -1 points [-]

Is your contention that in the absence of any rule on the subject people would tend to self-censor spoilers (even this one, out of all spoilers)

The rule on Less Wrong aside from HP:MOR threads is that you shouldn't spoil anything unless you're really sure it's common knowledge, and anyone claiming it's not common knowledge is usually good enough evidence that it's not common knowledge. So you can say "C3P0 is Luke Skywalker's father" in a post about rationality, but if anyone complains then it should probably be changed to "Spoiler for Empire Strikes Back (ROT13): blahblahblah", and "last week's episode of Buffy" should always be concealed.

This rule is directly enforced by Eliezer when necessary; he is very anti-spoilers. Unfortunately, I don't think the policy is stated directly anywhere other than here.

Comment author: loserthree 12 April 2012 04:58:33PM 0 points [-]

Is your contention that in the absence of any rule on the subject people would tend to self-censor spoilers (even this one, out of all spoilers)?

No. People do self-censor, but I'll be damned if I can tell when.

I'm arguing that the rot13 rule leads to spoilage in a way that a no-spoilers-full-stop rule would not.

Comment author: thomblake 12 April 2012 06:44:36PM * 0 points [-]

I'll argue that it causes spoilage.

I completely agree with the plausibility of your scenario, but think that on net it causes less spoilage than no policy at all.

My original stance was that spoily things shouldn't be talked about at all in the clear, but that was overruled by majority plus Eliezer. That policy resulted in much more time spent correcting / arguing about corrections than the current policy, so I agree it was worse on net.

Comment author: loserthree 13 April 2012 12:54:29AM 0 points [-]

I ... think that on net it causes less spoilage than no policy at all.

I agree that there is almost certainly less spoilage with this policy than there would be with no policy at all.

Comment author: loserthree 12 April 2012 04:33:51PM * 1 point [-]

Thanks for the mention. It's nice to hear that my contributions have been noted.

Just an FYI, I said almost the same thing in my very first post, "Mr. Hat-and-Cloak, who we are to understand is most certainly Quirrell" The difference is that you know a spoiler about the one, and don't know a spoiler about the other. In both cases there are sufficient in-text cues for me to speak as confidently as I do.

Random832 comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84 - Less Wrong

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