TheOtherDave comments on Self-serving meta: Whoever keeps block-downvoting me, is there some way to negotiate peace? - Less Wrong

16 Post author: ialdabaoth 16 November 2013 04:35AM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 19 November 2013 08:03:19PM 3 points [-]

Well, you tell me.

VB's question: "(Say situation X occurs.) How likely is it that the community as a whole would benefit if the user B becomes discouraged by this behavior and leaves?"
My answer: "Unlikely."
Your response: "The first situation that you call unlikely is empirically happening."

If I assume you understood everything properly, then you're claiming that it is empirically demonstrable that the community as a whole is benefiting from user B (I infer daenerys, given your link) getting discouraged and leaving.

But I doubt that's what you meant.

I think it most likely that you misunderstood my "Unlikely" to be a response to something other than the question VB asked... so probably you understood me to mean something like "It is unlikely that there's a user B being discouraged by user A's downvoting behavior."

Would you agree?

Comment author: JoshuaZ 19 November 2013 11:46:57PM *  0 points [-]

I think it most likely that you misunderstood my "Unlikely" to be a response to something other than the question VB asked... so probably you understood me to mean something like "It is unlikely that there's a user B being discouraged by user A's downvoting behavior."

Yes, exactly. Ok. So I didn't misread Viliam's comment. Rather I misinterpreted your statement as a statement that his premise was unlikely. Thanks for clearing that up.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 20 November 2013 12:18:17AM 0 points [-]

You're welcome.

Do you have any thoughts about why it was so difficult for you to notice that "Unlikely" was a response to "How likely is it that X?", rather than an assertion that VB's premise was unlikely?

Comment author: JoshuaZ 20 November 2013 12:22:12AM 0 points [-]

Do you have any thoughts about why it was so difficult for you to notice that "Unlikely" was a response to "How likely is it that X?", rather than an assertion that VB's premise was unlikely?

The most probable explanation is that I engaged in the fairly common failing of reading an opinion which I disagreed with in a way that made it weaker than stronger. Do you have a distinct explanation I should consider?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 20 November 2013 12:23:58AM 1 point [-]

What was the opinion you disagreed with?

Comment author: JoshuaZ 20 November 2013 12:26:02AM 1 point [-]

That this falls into the category that can be reasonably defended as voting up or down based on whether one wants to see more or less of that. Once that involves the author of the comments rather than their content, that really is a hard to defend position.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 20 November 2013 12:51:40AM 0 points [-]

(nods) Cool. Thanks for clarifying.