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ChristianKl comments on [meta] Future moderation and investigation of downvote abuse cases, or, I don't want to deal with this stuff - Less Wrong Discussion

45 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 17 August 2014 02:40PM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 20 August 2014 07:35:21PM 2 points [-]

Though I'd note that when you're discussing a war or violent political conflict, supporting any acts of any side can be construed as supporting violence, so this doesn't look too politically slanted.

You don't need to support Hamas to criticize Israeli action in the region.

"Violent crime, abuse, or fraud", then.

Okay, that looks fine to me.

It's also obviously noncentral to the rule, and I maintain that some degree of vagueness in forum policy is necessary if you want to get stuff done without every policy issue degenerating into unproductive trivia

It makes sense to imagine what the rule actually does in practice. There are certain actions like killing your neighbor where it's perfectly fine to allow moral arguments about why killing your neighbor is bad but still forbid people from advocating killing your neighbor. That's because we have a consensus that killing your neighbor is bad.

If you start banning the advocation of violence in a political debate where one side favors violence and the other isn't you are set up for drama.

Comment author: Nornagest 20 August 2014 07:42:55PM *  1 point [-]

You don't need to support Hamas to criticize Israeli action in the region.

No, but -- to move back to something a little less topical -- you may recall that criticism of American action in Afghanistan and Iraq circa 2001 - 2011 was seen in certain circles as implicit support of Islamist violence. It wasn't, of course, but if you're trying to avoid drama you need to take perception into account as much as reality.

In this case, though, the spirit of the rule is less "avoid political drama" -- we have a weaker norm against politics for that -- and more "don't advocate things that make us look like we're all about to go Ted Kaczynski on someone's ass", which is why I feel that discussing war in its context is noncentral.

Comment author: ChristianKl 20 August 2014 11:12:52PM 1 point [-]

No, but -- to move back to something a little less topical -- you may recall that criticism of American action in Afghanistan and Iraq circa 2001 - 2011 was seen in certain circles as implicit support of Islamist violence

If you start banning people on forum for positions that they don't explicitly argue but that you think they argue implicitly because of tribal associations than you have problems.

It wasn't, of course

Yes. It wasn't by any reasonable rational standard that a forum moderator is supposed to use to make moderating decisions. Don't let yourself be mindkilled. Arguments aren't soldiers. It's quite easy to make an argument against invading other countries without arguing in favor of violence.

Comment author: Nornagest 20 August 2014 11:30:10PM *  1 point [-]

On reflection, you're right; a prohibition on advocating violence doesn't extend that far. Though I'd appreciate not having memes from the politics sequence flung at me.