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steven0461 comments on LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance - Less Wrong
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That's not how Crocker's Rules work; they're supposed to be declared by the listener, who thereby takes responsibility for any hurt feelings caused by the content. You can't declare Crocker's rules on behalf of others.
That's why I called it Crocker's Warning and not Crocker's Rules. I am implying that by reading the content you are agreeing to Crocker's Rules. It's just a way of saying that the submitters were told not to hold back, and if you want it sugar-coated, you shouldn't read it.
Upon consideration, I think I have pinpointed what bothers me about the bit in the post about Crocker's Rules. It's the imposition on the reader, not just of potentially offensive content, but also of a waiver of the right to object to the content as being offensive.
That is, I don't object to this part:
Fine and well. A good warning.
But this part seems to suggest that by reading this, I'm waiving my right to say, e.g., "Wait a bit, this isn't just impolite, this is offensive! This reads like an insult!" It seems like the warning is saying: "If you find this offensive, too bad. By reading this, you're agreeing to shut up and take it" — and I don't think that prefacing your post with that is conducive to good discussion, not at all.
Note: I don't actually think any of the anecdotes in this post are offensive.
Me neither. I think the post needs a more specific set of ground rules, something like "the anonymous submitters are putting themselves out on the line here, and in order to have the most honest and useful discussion, they were told not to hold back for politeness...but they'll probably be reading all your comments and replies, so in order to encourage future honest and useful discussions, please don't respond angrily or rudely, since that will discourage submitters in the future from being honest." Which isn't quite in the spirit of Crocker's Rules. (I don't know if 'Crocker's Warning' is a concept that has actually been elaborated...is it?)
These ground rules seem reasonable.
In general when people say "I want to tell you something, but you have to promise not to get angry/offended/etc.", my response is along the lines of:
"I can't and won't promise that. I do promise that I will make an effort to temper any knee-jerk reaction I might have, and to give thought to your words and to my response before I say anything. I try to do this in all of my interactions with people whom I respect, but in this case I promise to make a special effort."
And if that's not good enough... well, then it seems my interlocutor doesn't care that much about telling me whatever it is they wish to tell me.
Neat, can I put one of those on my comments feed?
"You can speak to me candidly and I won't throw a fit" is a concession. "I'm about to speak candidly" is a warning. "I'm about to speak candidly, and that might upset you, but you have to be nice when you respond anyway, and if you're not going to be nice, then I don't want to play with you" is an ultimatum. "I'm about to speak candidly, so you're going to agree to not throw a fit" is an ultimatum with extra squick factor.
You might want to try reading what I actually wrote, instead of putting words in my mouth.
What you think I said:
These are not at all what I said. Your own definition of a warning ("I'm about to speak candidly') is pretty much exactly what I said (with the addendum that I added in the grandparent "so if you don't want to hear candidness, don't read it.")
So let's look exactly at what I said:
Notice how I DON'T AT ALL say the types of ultimatums you seem to think I said.
I am tapping out of the Crocker's Warning discussion, because I feel like it has fallen to logical rudeness
I think the confusion comes from your use of the phrase "Crocker's Rules" in the explanation (the word "Crocker" shows up twice; I'm referring to the second time). If what you meant was "these are candid comments; if you consider candidness impolite, I suggest you not read this post," then you should have just said that.
As it is, the warning seems incoherent, because you refer to a known concept (Crocker's Rules) incorrectly. When I first read it, the impression I got was that we could respond to the anonymous anecdotes without any consideration for politeness, which seemed really bizarre.
It was especially bizarre because, for this post at least, there doesn't seem to be anything about LW in particular. There's just a reasonable explanation of inferential distance and anecdotes about people being mistreated in their day to day lives to lower that distance.
Thank you. I think that this comment is the most constructive criticism on the topic, and have edited my post to include your wording.
You're welcome! Glad I could help.
I thought that my last examples were, respectively, a fair paraphrasing of social consequences for not respecting the warning and a fair desugaring of your original statment when "Crocker's rules" is tabooed. However, this is not the first time I have been accused of putting words into others' mouths, so I will provisionally accept that I have acted rudely.
I am sorry that I misrepresented your position, and misrepresented it to your disadvantage. My prior comment is retracted.
Suppose a hypothetical LW user wanted to say something very racist, or bigoted against some other group.Would it suffice for her to avoid censure for her to preface her comments with such a warning?
Suppose someone posted a comment that implied kicking puppies was good. Responses that only made that premise explicit would be unhelpful and probably hostile. Daenerys' warning might be sufficient to ward of those responses. But substantive engagement with the argument - including criticism - would be welcome and normal in this community.
I think the concept is that content is included from trusting volunteers who were told to expect Crocker's Rules in the audience, and if you're not willing to abide by that trust, you shouldn't read.
If true, that (telling the volunteers to expect Crocker's Rules in the audience) seems at worst disingenuous and at best unwarranted. Taken literally, it translates to:
"I promise that the audience which will read your writings will consist entirely of people who don't get offended by anything you say, up to and including things almost universally considered to be directly and personally insulting." (Because that's what Crocker's Rules are, yes?)
And in general I don't think that "I have things to say, but I'm only going to say them to people who promise not to be offended by anything I say" is in the spirit of Crocker's Rules. I also don't think that it's a good attitude to take, period.
ETA (from http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Crocker's_rules):
So it sounds like the content can't be posted under Crocker's rules, because it's unreasonable to unilaterally exempt oneself from all ordinary social norms of politeness, even when people (sort of) have the option not to read; and the content can't be posted not under Crocker's rules, because the authors were promised that if it were posted, it would be under Crocker's rules. Maybe that means that if we're serious about upholding norms, it means daenerys has torpedoed her own project by making a promise she couldn't keep.