It feels like an argument between a couple where person A says "You don't love me, you never tell me 'I love you' when I say it to you." and the person B responds "What do you mean I don't love you? I make you breakfast every morning even though I hate waking up early!". If both parties insist that their love language is the only valid way of showing love, there is no way for this conflict to be addressed. 

Maybe the person B believes actions speak louder than words and that saying "I love you" is pointless because people can say that even when they don't mean it  And perhaps person B believes that that is the ideal way the world works, where everyone is judged purely based on their actions and 'meaningless' words are omitted, because it removes a layer of obfuscation. But the thing is, the words are meaningless to person B; they are not meaningless to person A. It doesn't matter whether or not the words should be meaningful to person A. Person A as they are right now has a need to hear that verbal affirmation, person A genuinely has a different experience when they hear those words; it's just the way person A (and many people) are wired. 

If you want to have that relationship, both sides are going to have to make adjustments to learn to speak the other person's language. For example, both parties may agree to tapping 3 times as a way of saying "I love you" if Person B is uncomfortable with verbal declarations. 

If both parties think the other party is obliged to adjust to their frame, then it would make sense to disengage; there is no way of resolving that conflict. 

I actually think I prefer Said's frame on the whole, even though my native frame is closer to Duncan's. However, I think Said's commenting behavior is counter-productive to long-term shifting of community norms towards Said's frame. 

I am not familiar with the history, but from what I've read, Said seems to raise good points (though not necessarily expressed productive ways). It's just that the subsequent discussion often devolves into something that's exhausting to read (like I wish people would steelman Said's point and respond to that instead of just responding directly, and I wish people would just stop responding to Said if they felt the discussion is getting nowhere rather than end up in long escalating conflicts, and I don't have a clear idea of how much Said is actually contributing to the dynamics in such conversations because I get very distracted by the maybe-justified-maybe-not uncharitable assumptions being thrown around by all the participants). 

I think there are small adjustments that Said can make to the phrasing of comments that can make a non-trivial difference, that can have positive effects even for people who are not as sensitive as Duncan.

For example, instead of saying "I find your stated reason bizarre to the point where I can’t form any coherent model of your thinking here", Said could have said "I don't understand your stated reason at all". This shifts from a judgment on Duncan's reasoning to a sharing of Said's own experience, which (for me, at least) removes the unnecessary insult^[1]. I suspect other people's judgments have limited impact on Said's self-perception, so this phrasing won't sound meaningfully different to Said, but I think it does make a difference to other people, whether or not it is ideal that this is how they experience the world. And maybe it's important that people learn to care less about other people's judgments, but I don't think it's fair to demand them to just change instantly and become like Said, or to say that people who are unable or refuse to do that simply should not be allowed to participate at all (or like saying sure you can participate, as long as you are willing to stick your hand in boiling water even though you don't have gloves and I do).

Being willing to make adjustments to one's behavior for the sake of the other party would be a show of good faith, and builds trust. At least in my native frame/culture, direct criticism is a form of rudeness/harm in neutral/low-trust relationships and a show of respect in high-trust relationships, and so building this trust would allow the relationship to shift closer to Said's preferred frame.

Of course, this only works if Duncan is similarly willing to accommodate Said's frame. 

I agree that there is something problematic with Said's commenting style/behavior given that multiple people have had similar complaints, and given that it seems to have led to consequences that are negative even within Said's frame. And it is hard to articulate the problem, which makes things challenging. However, it feels like in pushing against Said's behaviors, Duncan is also invalidating Said's frame as a valid approach for the community discourse. This feels unfair to people like Said, especially when it seems like a potentially more productive norm (when better executed, or in certain contexts). That's why it feels unfair to me that Said is unable to comment on the Basics of Rationalist Discourse post. 

It's a bit like there's a group of people who always play a certain board game by its rules, while there's another group where everyone cheats and the whole point is to find clever ways to cheat. To people from the first group, cheating is immoral and an act of bad faith, but to the other group, it's just a part of the game and everyone knows that. One day, someone from the first group gets fed up with people from the second group, and so they decide to declare a set of rules for all game players, that says cheating is wrong. And then they add that the only people who get to vote are people who don't cheat. Of course the results aren't going to be representative! And why does the first group have the authority to decide the rules for the entire community?

I don't know for certain if this is the right characterization, but here are a few examples why I think it is more of an issue of differing frames rather than something with clear right/wrong: (I am not saying the people were right to comment as they did, just pointing out that the conflict is not just about a norm, there is a deeper issue of frames)

• In a comment thread, Said says something like Duncan banned Said likely because he doesn't like being criticized, even though Duncan explicitly said otherwise. To Duncan, this is a wrongful accusation of lying, (I think) because Duncan believes Said is saying that Duncan-in-particular is wrong about his own motivations. However, I think Said believes that everyone is incapable of knowing their true motivations, and therefore, his claim that Duncan might be motivated by subconscious reasons is just a general claim that has no bearing on Duncan as a person, i.e. it's not intended as a personal attack. It's only a personal attack if you share the same frame as Duncan.
• When clone of saturn said "However, I suspect that Duncan won't like this idea, because he wants to maintain a motte-and-bailey where his posts are half-baked when someone criticizes them but fully-baked when it's time to apportion status.", I read it to mean that "I suspect" applies to the entire sentence, not just the first half. This is because I started out with the assumption that it is impossible for anyone to truly know a person's motivations, and therefore the only logical reading is that "I suspect" also applies to "he wants to maintain a motte-and-bailey". There's no objective true meaning to the sentence (though one may agree on the most common interpretation). It's like some people when they say "I don't like it", it's implied that "and I want you to stop doing it", but for others it just means "I don't like it" and also "that's just my opinion, you do you". Thus, I personally would consider it a tad extreme (though understandable given Duncan's experiences) to call for moderator response immediately without first clarifying with clone of saturn what was meant by the sentence.

While I do think Said is contributing to the problem (whether intentionally or unintentionally), it would be inappropriate to dismiss Said's frame just because Said is such a bad example of it. This does not mean I believe Said and Duncan are obliged to adjust to each other's norms. Choosing to disengage and stay within their respective corners, is in my opinion, a perfectly valid and acceptable solution.

I didn't really want to speak up about the conflicts between Duncan and other members, because I don't have the full picture. However, this argument is spilling out into public space, so it feels important to address the issue.

As someone who joined about a year ago, I have had very positive experiences on LW so far. I have commented on quite a few of Duncan's posts and my experience has always been positive, in part because I trust that Duncan will respond fairly to what I say. Reading Duncan's recent comments, however, made me wonder if I was wrong about that.

Because I am less sensitive than Duncan, it often felt like Duncan was making disproportionately hostile and uncharitable responses. I couldn't really see what distinguished comments that triggered such extreme responses from other comments. That made me worried that if I'd made a genuine mistake understanding Duncan's point, that Duncan would also accuse me of strawmanning or not trying hard enough, or that I was being deliberately obtuse. After all, I do and have misunderstood other people's words before.  Seeing Duncan's explanations on subsequent comments helped me get a better understanding of Duncan's perspective, but I don't think it is reasonable to expect people to read through various threads to get the context behind Duncan's replies. 

This means that from an outsider's perspective, the natural takeaway is that we should not post questions, feedback or criticisms, because we might be personally attacked (accused of bad intentions) for what seems like no reason. It is all the more intimidating/impactful given that Duncan is such an established writer. I know it can be unfair to Duncan (or writers in general) because of the asymmetries, but things continuing as they are would make it harder to nurture healthy conflict at LW, which I believe is also counter to what Duncan hopes for the community. 

To end off more concretely, here are some of the things I think would be good for LW:

• To consider it pro-social (and reward?) when participants actively choose to slow down, step back, or stop when engaged in unproductive, escalating conflicts (e.g. Stopping Out Loud)
• To be acceptable to post half-baked ideas and request gentler criticisms and have such requests respected, e.g. for critics to make their point clear and step back, if it is clear that their feedback is unwanted, so readers can judge for themselves
  • It should be made obvious via the UI if certain people have been blocked, otherwise it gives a skewed perspective.
• When commenting on posts by authors who prefer more collaborative approaches, or for posts that are for half-baked ideas, 
  • commenters to provide more context behind comments (e.g. why you're asking about a particular point, is it because you feel it is a critical gap or are you just curious), because online communication is more error-prone than in-person interactions and also so it is easier to for both parties to reach a shared understanding of the discussion
  • If readers agree with a comment, but the comment doesn't meet the author's preferred requirements, to help refine the comment instead of just upvoting it (might need author to indicate if this is the case though, because sometimes it's not obvious?).
• To be willing to adjust commenting styles or tolerance levels based on who you are interacting with, especially if it is someone you have had significant history with (else just disengage with people you don't get along with)
• If one feels a comment is being unfair, to express that sentiment rather than going for a reciprocal tit-for-tat response so the other has an opportunity to clarify. If choosing to respond in poor form as a tit-for-tat strategy (which I really don't like), to at least make that intent explicit and provide the reasoning.
• To avoid declaring malicious intent without strong evidence or to disengage/ignore the comment when unable to do so. e.g. "You are not trying hard enough to understand me/you are deliberately misunderstanding me.." --> "That is not what I meant. <explanation/request for someone to help explain/choose to disengage>."
• For authors to have the ability to establish the norms they prefer within their spaces, but to be required to respect the wider community norms if it involves the community.
• Common knowledge of the different cultures as well as the associated implications.

1. ^{^}

   Insult here referring to the emotional impact sense that I'm not sure how to make more explicit, not Said's definition of insult.