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David_Gerard comments on [moderator action] Eugine_Nier is now banned for mass downvote harassment - Less Wrong Discussion

107 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 03 July 2014 12:04PM

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Comment author: Larks 03 July 2014 08:41:17PM 8 points [-]

The Less Wrong content deletion policy contains this clause:

Harrassment of individual users.

If we determine that you're e.g. following a particular user around and leaving insulting comments to them, we reserve the right to delete those comments. (This has happened extremely rarely.)

I don't think this really helps you. As you acknowledge, this clause does not actually imply that downvoting is harassment at all. Nor does it imply that blocking users is the appropriate response!

Indeed, the fact that explicitly mentions some crimes (leaving rude comments) and punishments (deleting comments) is probably evidence against this moderation action. If the policy had been totally non-specific, it would imply a wide degree of moderator discretion. The more specific it is, the stronger the implication that things left unmentioned are not actually verbotten.

Furthermore, consider that in the case mentioned in the policy (harassing comments) deleting them is a coherent response which addresses the underlying issue, without very much collateral damage. In this case, banning Eugine from posting does not actually prevent him from downvoting, so the objective is not achieved, but considerable collateral damage is inflicted, by ending his often interesting comments.

Comment author: David_Gerard 03 July 2014 09:28:12PM 22 points [-]

This is true. OTOH, dicks gonna be dicks, and trolls regard rules as playground equipment.

(I have been on communities where "don't be a dick" is an explicit rule. Guess what? Users who zoom in on this rule and try to argue it ... are pretty much all dicks.)

Comment author: gwillen 04 July 2014 06:51:07AM 12 points [-]

This, this, 1000 times this. If you tightly police the actions of moderators, who are constrained already to act in good faith, to follow only and exactly the letter of the rules, you will never get a good result. (Because the bad faith users can always find a way around the letter of the rules.)

Comment author: Error 04 July 2014 01:43:23PM 3 points [-]

This is a major failure mode of law in general, IMO.

Comment author: AlexSchell 05 July 2014 12:23:22AM 0 points [-]

In practice we avoid this problem by granting a lot of discretion to judges and prosecutors (i.e. mods).