If that's how he wishes to communicate, by creating a veil for which you have to volunteer to get past, then why doesn't he just use rot13 prefixed with a disclaimer -- that seems more efficient.

Those who contact someone for information will be on average I think more genuinely curious about the answer than a casual reader.

Furthermore optimizing when writing for the public is different than optimizing for private correspondence. More can be said not just because it eliminates all sorts of bothersome social posturing but because the participants can agree to things like Crocker's Rules.

How do they try to counteract that consensus? They post comments with unspoken or obfuscated (WN) reasoning. I think they're afraid of putting their conclusions out there in a more complete and graspable form because of the significant possibility for being wrong and "losing status" (especially WN).

Are we discussing Vladimir M or Will Newsome? Why mix up these two different users? Just because one has cited the other as a favourite poster? I happen to think Multiheaded has turned out an interesting poster worth reading and like him a lot, but one would be gravely mistaken to use one of our positions as a proxy for those of the other.

I have respect for both posters, but they not only do they have quite different views but very different approaches. WN is very much playing the trickster deity, the fool, many of his arguments are educational trolls and should be taken as invitations to Socratic Dialogue. Vladimir_M is more the worldly mysterious man at the back of the tavern who tends to be right when you coax advice out of him, but who you won't manage to get out of retirement since he with a tired heart judges your quest folly.

Like what? Give me something that's true, "counter-productive", and relevant to LW.

"I greatly hate your post because it makes me irrationally infer things about your nature despite my knowledge of relevant biases, which makes me hate your post and you even more, which is irrational. Now let's all discuss this because I don't want to make the effort to go read up and train myself to become stronger."

...seems like a decent enough fictive example. It's true (within the context of the thought experiment), it's directly relevant to LW (it's about the user's rationality), and starting a large discussion about it is very counter-productive since the user in question should just read and practice rationality skills, as that would be much more efficient and productive, and the discussion might slow down other people trying to improve themselves and generate lots of noise.