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MugaSofer comments on [meta] Policy for dealing with users suspected/guilty of mass-downvote harassment? - Less Wrong Discussion

28 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 06 June 2014 05:46AM

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Comment author: MugaSofer 05 July 2014 08:42:15PM *  1 point [-]

and getting mass downvoted isn't stressful?

ahem

It's not fun, but having a single, anonymous individual express dislike through such an abstract means is nowhere near comparable to public shaming by a community you identify with, I assure you.

I'm sorry, was that a rhetorical question intended to slip an unsupported hypothesis?

(For the record, in case it isn't clear: if it weren't for the fact that being mass-downvoted means I'm currently unable to, I would definitely have downvoted your above comment.)

Comment author: drethelin 05 July 2014 09:40:52PM 0 points [-]

sure, that's why it works. Public shaming is supposed to be stressful, in order to get that person to STOP. One is a socially mitigated system of enforcing how the ingroup behaves, whereas mass downvoting someone you own is an individual attempt to enforce how the group behaves. My point was that it being stressful was not a good reason not to do it. If someone identifies with your ingroup and you think they're ruining it, then there is a mismatch between group identities. No group is obligated to associate with anyone who wants to be in it.

Comment author: MugaSofer 05 July 2014 10:00:17PM *  1 point [-]

To be clear: It being stressful is a reason not to do it, but it may be outweighed by the benefits, right?

Two points: one, you pretty openly compared the two. Since they are different by several orders of magnitude, I think it impacts your point somewhat: should we do A Very Bad Thing to punish/disincentivize something far less unethical or harmful?

Two, I'm having a conversation with a mass-downvote-er in another tab. They seem pretty ... corrected. I seriously doubt they will do this again.

And yet, amazingly, this happened without me choosing to so much as hint who they were, let alone "publicly shaming" them.

Comment author: Kawoomba 06 July 2014 05:18:44PM 0 points [-]

Two, I'm having a conversation with a mass-downvote-er in another tab. They seem pretty ... corrected. I seriously doubt they will do this again.

That sounds like a budding bromance. Hopefully not some kind of Stockholm syndrome.

Comment author: drethelin 06 July 2014 01:52:48PM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure why you think your own personal definitions of what's an order of magnitude more or less x or your anecdote about getting someone to change their ways is helpful. I personally think punishing someone for fucking with the community is less bad than someone taking it on themselves to scare people away. But you clearly disagree. I don't know who you're having this conversation with, but multiple people approached eugine neier and tried to talk to him about it. So clearly that's not a solution that will always work.

Side note:

"Funny how that works" is pure rhetorical shit. It has no place in trying to convince someone of anything. All it does is show how "superior" you are to people who already agree with you.

Comment author: MugaSofer 06 July 2014 06:03:24PM *  0 points [-]

I'm not sure why you think your own personal definitions of what's an order of magnitude more or less x or your anecdote about getting someone to change their ways is helpful.

I assumed that some evidence would be more useful than speculation in a vacuum.

Are you seriously alleging that the "personal" opinion of someone who has relevant evidence is weaker Bayesian evidence than your own personal opinion?

I personally think punishing someone for fucking with the community is less bad than someone taking it on themselves to scare people away. But you clearly disagree.

I think it's reasonable to suggest that different punishments fall into different reference classes.

I don't know who you're having this conversation with, but multiple people approached eugine neier and tried to talk to him about it. So clearly that's not a solution that will always work.

If Eugine had been told that the moderators were aware of his actions, and that repeating them would result in a ban then either he would have stopped, or he would have been banned.

Most LessWrong users have no desire to break the rules, as evidenced by the fact that they are still here. The rules were at best ... unclear ... in this case.

Side note: "Funny how that works" is pure rhetorical shit. It has no place in trying to convince someone of anything. All it does is show how "superior" you are to people who already agree with you.

You know, you have a point there. It doesn't add enough to the comment, and it's somewhat discourteous to you. I'll change it.

Comment author: drethelin 06 July 2014 06:33:02PM 0 points [-]

Eugine DID get told that. If you look at the recent thread with Kaj, he allegedly talked to Eugine, and told him to stop.

You're right that my opinion isn't really more valid than yours.

Comment author: MugaSofer 07 July 2014 06:09:53PM *  1 point [-]

If you look at the recent thread with Kaj, he allegedly talked to Eugine, and told him to stop.

Huhm.

I got the impression that Eugine was asked to explain his actions, then banned when he did not reveal mitigating circumstances:

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.

I don't think he was asked to stop and refused - although I admit it would be nice to see the relevant messages, rather than Kaj's secondhand description.

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