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If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

anildash.com

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Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#61

Post by malvosenior »

zzo38computer wrote: post #52
braythwayt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fairly classic ad hominem comment. What difference does it make who makes this argument, if the argument itself is sound? On the other hand, if the man is 50% saint, 50% angel, and 50% genius, what difference would that make, if the argument itself was terrible? Comments suggesting that he shouldn't make this argument do not actually address the argument itself. In the best case, they are a distraction from…

I agree with you that it does not matter who makes this argument (even though I do not entirely agree with the argument being made, but that has nothing to do with who makes such argument). (Even if someone write a computer program or book or movie or whatever but they are murderer and whatever, if the program/book/movie is good then it is good, anyways. And if it is no good, then it is no good, anyways.)

It matters because Dash has an agenda that’s not apparent if you just read this post without further context. He’s a fairly extreme political activist who often calls for censorship of views he doesn’t agree with. This post lays the framework for centralizing control of the dialogue on a site. His behavior suggest this works in his favor as he can leverage social media to silence those he disagrees with.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#62

Post by Zak »

doc_gunthrop wrote: post #47

The first site to come to mind is voat.co. I explored it out of curiosity a while after the "purging of intolerable subreddits" a couple years back. The impression I got was that of a seedy underbelly of aggregate news sites like reddit, populated by a mass of displaced misanthropes. It didn't take long to nope out of there.

I wonder if it's possible to be the less moderated alternative to a popular platform without just becoming the platform for horrible people.

To give an example, in its FOSTA-related policy updates, reddit also banned exchanges of heavily-regulated products like alcohol and firearms. There was no mandate to do so, as safe-harbor provisions are very much intact in case, for example, a reddit user sells a gallon of homebrewed beer to a 20 year old. Such changes might provide motivation for people who aren't at all horrible to move elsewhere.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#63

Post by braythwayt »

malvosenior wrote: post #46
braythwayt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment said he shouldn't make the argument. That's one kind of ad hominem, a tu quoque You're (possibly unwittingly) making another, an ad hominem circumstantial, by questioning his motives. It's always best to just debate the argument itself and leave the author's character and motives and misconceptions out of it. Otherwise we end up spending a lot of time discussing Mr. Dash, instead of discussing moderation…

It really is as simple as Dash’s online behavior being “assholish”. It’s on the topic of the post, he’s just an extreme example of the behavior he’s lambasting.

Whether I agree or disagree with your characterization of him, what does that have to do with whether people who run online communities should be responsible for moderating them?

It isn't on topic, unless you want to say, "Since Dash is an asshole, that is proof that there exists at least one asshole on the internet, which supports part of the argument he makes."

The premise of the argument is that moderation is a moral imperative. Nothing about Mr. Dash's character supports or refutes that argument.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#64

Post by malvosenior »

braythwayt wrote: post #63
malvosenior wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is as simple as Dash’s online behavior being “assholish”. It’s on the topic of the post, he’s just an extreme example of the behavior he’s lambasting.

Whether I agree or disagree with your characterization of him, what does that have to do with whether people who run online communities should be responsible for moderating them? It isn't on topic, unless you want to say, "Since Dash is an asshole, that is proof that there exists at least one asshole on the internet, which supports part of the argument he makes." The premise of the argument is that moderation is a mo…

It matters because his calls for centralizing control of the discussion on a site through strong moderation gives him a lever to pull through social media outrage. Without all of the moderation tools he suggests in this post, he could try to shame the site owners to silence a point of view he doesn't like (which he does regularly) and they wouldn't technically be able to do anything about it. The more moderation tools he can get people to put in place, the easier it will be to lead the mobs to the front door of the moderators.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#65

Post by codinghorror »

scarejunba wrote: post #11
jcroll wrote: post #2

What's an example of a major site with a good community?

Metafilter. Instagram has a pretty positive feeling too.

Instagram is the future of Facebook. Probably the most important tech acquisition since YouTube.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#67

Post by asfarley »

braythwayt wrote: post #34
malvosenior wrote: post #16

I feel like Anil Dash is pretty much the last person who should be talking about internet “assholes”. He’s very often on the front lines of Twitter mobs and is generally extremely caustic. He should reflect on his own behavior online before preaching to anyone else.

This is a fairly classic ad hominem comment. What difference does it make who makes this argument, if the argument itself is sound? On the other hand, if the man is 50% saint, 50% angel, and 50% genius, what difference would that make, if the argument itself was terrible? Comments suggesting that he shouldn't make this argument do not actually address the argument itself. In the best case, they are a distraction from…

This might be a case where there's overlap between ad-hominem attacks and a relevant critique of the argument itself.

I interpret the comment as: "if the author can't follow his own guidance, or if the author's own compliance with this guidance is subjective, the guidance may not be given in good faith". The comment is not just saying asshole=wrong. It's saying that Anil Dash may be a hypocrite, and thus unable to propose good social policies.

The discussion (to me) seems more moral or social rather than technical. In cases of moral or social judgements, are you sure you completely reject ad-hominem points?

It seems to me that a fully Bayesian perspective requires considering ad-hominem attacks; if the source emitting the message is considered untrustworthy, should we discard that information?

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#68

Post by Causality1 »

tlholaday wrote: post #33
Causality1 wrote: post #4

Most places benefit from having strong and effectively enforced moderation policies. However, I also think there's significant value in having some places that don't, that serve as content-neutral platforms, the social media equivalent of the post office.

> I also think there's significant value in having some places that [...] serve as content-neutral platforms. You may be right about the value of such places, and Anil Dash's prediction that such places will be full of assholes may right, too.

Oh certainly. I just disagree with his point that ALL websites have a "moral responsibility" to police their users.

To remove illegal content and conduct? Sure, but not to prevent assholery.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#69

Post by JasonFruit »

dahart wrote: post #60
JasonFruit wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep showdead on all the time, because sometimes I see insightful, thoughtful answers that are dead for no reason intrinsic to the comment. Then I can vouch for them, and I hope they become visible to others — though the workings of that system are opaque to me. I get annoyed reading the same smarmy-sounding "Please don't post unsubstantive comments" replies from dang all the time — but it's what makes this site wo…

Those two things are related. The warning messages are what happens before the account gets shadow-banned. Sometimes you can walk back in a dead commenter’s history to see what caused the problem and it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s not apparent because it can happen for multiple reasons. Personally, I’d rather have the constant out-of-bounds reminders than not. I’ve never seen one of those warning messages on a comment…

Like I said, it's why this site works and others don't. I'm not aware of a better solution. Facetiously, I suppose you could take the approach of the app 'Yo': constrain the possible messages to exclude anything potentially offensive.

Re: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault (2011)

#70

Post by knolax »

JasonFruit wrote: post #51
dahart wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the time. I see dang smoothing things out like almost daily. You can also turn on “showdead” in your profile options, and maybe you’ll become more aware of it.

I keep showdead on all the time, because sometimes I see insightful, thoughtful answers that are dead for no reason intrinsic to the comment. Then I can vouch for them, and I hope they become visible to others — though the workings of that system are opaque to me. I get annoyed reading the same smarmy-sounding "Please don't post unsubstantive comments" replies from dang all the time — but it's what makes this site wo…

>I get annoyed reading the same smarmy-sounding "Please don't post unsubstantive comments" replies from dang all the time — but it's what makes this site work, when so many others don't.

The thing is I haven't seen one of those in a long time. Now you can have entire threads where the only comments are "lol" or something like that.

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