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RichardKennaway comments on [moderator action] Eugine_Nier is now banned for mass downvote harassment - Less Wrong
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Comments (366)
I am not party to the conversation that took place between Eugine and Kaj, but there was a conversation and I would be surprised if it was not clear to him that his membership of LessWrong was on the line.
"First time" is not a good description of a persistent pattern of behaviour over a substantial course of time.
He was publicly named some time ago but laid low: he knew that what he was doing was not going down well, and not just with those he was downvoting. No-one has spoken up in favour of his activity; the nearest thing to that is weak remarks about downvoting being about whatever the downvoter wants to see less of, which sounds more like obsessive adherence to an imaginary rule than any positive defence of the practice. I often see people publicly saying that this or that post is downvoteworthy, but I have never seen anyone say that this or that person is, not even the most egregious intruders that lasted no more than weeks or days before being thrown out.
It appears (but is so far unconfirmed) that he is not willing to cease the systematic downvoting of persons even after "banning". If so, how would he have been willing to stop on threat of it?
So no, he had already burned all those bridges before the axe fell.
Sorry, I meant that this was the first rule he had broken. You're right, he was not a "first offender" in the sense that leniency is often extended to first offenders.
True, but there's a significant difference between "this will make me unpopular" and "this will get me permabanned".
What possible benefit could it do him, to stop after being banned for life?
ETA:
Are you serious, or is that some sort of hyperbole?
I am serious. By his activity, I mean specifically his mass downvoting activity. It is possible I have missed someone defending this action. Show me some examples, if there are any.
I have seen people opposing the ban. I have seen people querulously quibbling, "ah, but suppose I find everything a user posts bad and I downvote each of them, is that a bannable offense and if not how are you going to tell, eh?" But I have not yet see anyone saying, Eugine was right to downvote everything that these people posted, regardless of what it was, and everyone else should do the same until they are driven away.
Ah, I see. There's defending it and then there's defending it.
Some people think it's a bad idea to mass-downvote, but not banworthy. Some people think it is/was sometimes a good idea to mass-downvote - that's what I was thinking of.
But you meant more along the lines of "Eugine was right to downvote everything that these people posted, regardless of what it was, and everyone else should do the same until they are driven away"?
You're right, I haven't seen anyone who claimed that.
Ah, but it's not clear that those are different activities, or if they are, whether there's any way in the database or logs to tell the difference. So, when people "quibble" about the first, they're implying (I think) that they believe that in the future someone might be right to downvote everything someone posts, because that person always posts terrible posts.
Part of the reason this is coming up is a lack or perceived lack of transparency as to exactly what patterns "convicted" Eugine_Nier.
In the present case, there was enough evidence to raise a reasonable suspicion, whereupon Kaj approached Eugine, who confirmed that he "was engaged in a "weeding" of users" (quoted from original post).
Rules come from judgement, not judgement from rules.
Any bad post is worth downvoting. If someone writes nothing but bad posts, and there have been a few examples, every one of their posts gets downvoted. Such people are rare and they never last long. When an obvious moron or crank pops up here, I have myself on occasion systematically read their entire comment history (it's never very long) and judged every comment. But I am always voting on the individual comment, never the person. I am certainly not going to downvote a meetup announcement because the poster is a Bad Person who must be spat on wherever they show their face, let alone write a bot to do the spitting for me.
The transparency of how this case has been handled seems sufficient to me.
I wouldn't say that about all of Eugine's targets. There are some other users (or accounts) for which it would have been entirely appropriate. Particularly given that there were no moderators preventing sockpuppet abuse by trolls.