But this kind of phrasing isn't helpful:
Yeah, I get that a lot.
Then again, I think a lot of other people's phrasing isn't helpful. I think many of their ideas are positively harmful. But in any group, I don't always expect to get my way.
It's funny that all the people bemoaning his karma bombing of others where he perceives their irrationality, have little compunction about karma bombing my posts here so that I have to spend karma to not be rude and leave people hanging who took the time and effort to respond to me.
I've made arguments all the way through here. Anyone here saying I'm simply irrational? Not making any points? Can't put an argument together?
Not that I've seen. It's all tone. It's all about hurt feelings. It's all about having different values. If I were karma voting on those terms, I'd get carpal tunnel syndrome in a week. Click click click click click.
Look upthread at my -6, followed by your 100% +9. So, in your estimate, is that an accurate evaluation of our comparative rationality in those two posts? I was abysmally irrational, and you're pristinely rational and insightful?
Looking at the pattern of votes, I think it's unlikely that even the majority of my downvotes came from people who actually read each of my posts. A lot of people are just signaling disapproval. Like Eugine was doing.
Eugine is at least downvoting people on his perception of their rationality quotient.
Who's really cheating here?
But is there anyone sharpening the tines of their pitchforks for these new cheaters? Strange how the pitchforks magically align to ideological north, instead of cheating north.
Reducing this level of misbehaviour to "feelings were hurt" is entirely misleading.
Hurt feelings are the crux of the matter. The "cheating" business is a minor transgression serving as rationalization for the picthforks, and as we've seen, a rationalization hardly consistently applied.
Turn all of Eugine's downvotes to upvotes. Still "cheating". Should provoke the same outrage, if the outrage was really about cheating. Do you maintain upvotes would have provoked the same outrage?
I think, people would have disapproved a little, but there would have nowhere near the level of stink about it, and he would not have been banned.
Hyperbole?
Yep. He was a minor annoyance that people blew up into major drama that was much more destructive.
Meanwhile, he was also a poster with 9000 karma. Seems like he was producing a good deal of value for some people. Not anymore.
As to what I'd really want - to be God Emperor, of course, but the Universe shows no sign of obliging any time soon. So I'm putting those plans on hold for the near future, and likewise don't expect a list with a lot of people with very different values and preferences than mine to conform themselves to what I really want. Or even kind of want.
And that's the difference. Live and let live. Even with assholes, who largely are just people with different values. I thought Eugine was being a dick, but . The world is an imperfect place. Other people are being karma dicks here, but . I'd rather we kept our powder dry for things that really mattered.
I do see a problem with that strategy, but I don't know that you're going to like the solution. Basically, people who give others slack are great when they get together. They have a nice buffer from real conflict. Throw in a few random slack takers, and they're annoying, but the preponderance of slackers can easily mitigate the damage and dissuade the assholes through numbers, if not intensity.
But when with enough slack takers, and particularly those pulling in the same direction, slack givers are just giving out more and more slack until the slack takers hang them with it. A few random slack takers like Eugine aren't a problem, but a large contingent of slack takers pulling in the same direction are. Against them, slack givers may have to hold the line on slack.
Again, not what I really want, but maybe what I should be doing.
As previously discussed, on June 6th I received a message from jackk, a Trike Admin. He reported that the user Jiro had asked Trike to carry out an investigation to the retributive downvoting that Jiro had been subjected to. The investigation revealed that the user Eugine_Nier had downvoted over half of Jiro's comments, amounting to hundreds of downvotes.
I asked the community's guidance on dealing with the issue, and while the matter was being discussed, I also reviewed previous discussions about mass downvoting and looked for other people who mentioned being the victims of it. I asked Jack to compile reports on several other users who mentioned having been mass-downvoted, and it turned out that Eugine was also overwhelmingly the biggest downvoter of users David_Gerard, daenarys, falenas108, ialdabaoth, shminux, and Tenoke. As this discussion was going on, it turned out that user Ander had also been targeted by Eugine.
I sent two messages to Eugine, requesting an explanation. I received a response today. Eugine admitted his guilt, expressing the opinion that LW's karma system was failing to carry out its purpose of keeping out weak material and that he was engaged in a "weeding" of users who he did not think displayed sufficient rationality.
Needless to say, it is not the place of individual users to unilaterally decide that someone else should be "weeded" out of the community. The Less Wrong content deletion policy contains this clause:
Although the wording does not explicitly mention downvoting, harassment by downvoting is still harassment. Several users have indicated that they have experienced considerable emotional anguish from the harassment, and have in some cases been discouraged from using Less Wrong at all. This is not a desirable state of affairs, to say the least.
I was originally given my moderator powers on a rather ad-hoc basis, with someone awarding mod privileges to the ten users with the highest karma at the time. The original purpose for that appointment was just to delete spam. Nonetheless, since retributive downvoting has been a clear problem for the community, I asked the community for guidance on dealing with the issue. The rough consensus of the responses seemed to authorize me to deal with the problem as I deemed appropriate.
The fact that Eugine remained quiet about his guilt until directly confronted with the evidence, despite several public discussions of the issue, is indicative of him realizing that he was breaking prevailing social norms. Eugine's actions have worsened the atmosphere of this site, and that atmosphere will remain troubled for as long as he is allowed to remain here.
Therefore, I now announce that Eugine_Nier is permanently banned from posting on LessWrong. This decision is final and will not be changed in response to possible follow-up objections.
Unfortunately, it looks like while a ban prevents posting, it does not actually block a user from casting votes. I have asked jackk to look into the matter and find a way to actually stop the downvoting. Jack indicated earlier on that it would be technically straightforward to apply a negative karma modifier to Eugine's account, and wiping out Eugine's karma balance would prevent him from casting future downvotes. Whatever the easiest solution is, it will be applied as soon as possible.
EDIT 24 July 2014: Banned users are now prohibited from voting.