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Some tactics for writing in public

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Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#141

Post by genewitch »

politician wrote: post #81
mjb wrote: post #3

This is really great, actionable, sensible, advice for folks who write on the internet. It agrees with my experiences, too. On the other hand, it's sad that the culture we have built on the internet forces talented people like Julia to censor themselves and narrow the scope of their writing. > So I have a weird catalog in my head of things not to mention if I don’t want to start the same discussion about that thing f…

> Somehow we've built a culture where its socially acceptable, and even rewarded, to behave online in ways that would never be acceptable in other social settings. It's an unfortunate consequence of the point-based reward systems that platforms use to incentivize participation. There are certain topics that large groups of people will always upvote or always downvote. It's a rational behavior to repeat the same comme…

As someone who has been on the internet about 3-4 times as long as "point systems" on comments/posts/etc i don't see any correlation to point systems. People were jerks in AOL chatrooms, IRC, myspace, and forums long before the likes of reddit and /. gamified being annoying.

edit: change "jerks" and "annoying" to "repeating ad-nauseam the prevalent comments to garner points". I misread the latter part of your comment, went back and saw where i misread, and still like the general premise of my reply.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#142

Post by omoikane »

mjb wrote: post #3

This is really great, actionable, sensible, advice for folks who write on the internet. It agrees with my experiences, too. On the other hand, it's sad that the culture we have built on the internet forces talented people like Julia to censor themselves and narrow the scope of their writing. > So I have a weird catalog in my head of things not to mention if I don’t want to start the same discussion about that thing f…

> I have a weird catalog in my head of things not to mention

An optimistic view is that people maintain blacklists of topics to avoid, as opposed to whitelists of noncontroversial topics that they are allowed to talk about ("Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?").

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#143

Post by metadat »

lucideer wrote: post #37
OJFord wrote: post #23

> Recently on Mastodon I complained about some gross terminology that I’d just noticed in the dig man page. A few dudes in the replies asked me to prove that the original author intended it to be offensive (which of course is besides [sic] the point) or tried to explain to me why it actually wasn’t a problem. > So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: Of course I understand no responsibility to 'prove' anyth…

I think the sexual interpretation is pretty strong (at least today) - "groping" and "groper" have slightly different vibes - that warrants removal today imo. But yeah, I'm not sure if that was the case in the 80s. --- Edit: as pointed out below I hadn't noticed when I wrote this that the offending mastodon replies were apparently deleted so the 3 replies I mention here aren't actually relevant --- I did click through…

Kinda harsh that Julia chose to block people for what boiled down to asking genuine questions without intent to offend.

Shrug, it's her choice and a valid move. But by employing the approach of "block-o-matic for all dissenters" strategy, the author has lost some credibility with me.

I also found it odd that the author cherry-picked a dictionary site which only contained the definition she found offensive. If you put "define: grope" into Google, the non-offensive definition is the first one listed:

Grope (verb) 1. to feel about or search blindly or uncertainly with the hands.

Which was why I latched onto this aspect in the first place - sexual groping has always been the minor definition in American English for at least the past 30 years. It's at least somewhat disingenuous to completely ignore this fact and focus only on the maximally offensive possibility.

https://www.google.com/search?q=define+grope

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#144

Post by dragonwriter »

deadbeeves wrote: post #127
hathchip wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said 'by a different etymology'. It's not a different etymology if they knew and were referring to the other meaning.

That's not how etymology is determined. The etymology of a word describes the reason why it's spelled or spoken the way it is. "Jizz" was chosen because it sounds like "jazz", but different. We can infer that the person who chose the word meant to convey that jizz music is like jazz music but different. We can suppose that if the slang for sperm didn't exist that the writer would definitely have chosen "jezz", "juzz"…

> “Jizz” was chosen because it sounds like “jazz”, but different. We can infer that the person who chose the word meant to convey that jizz music is like jazz music but different.

“Jizz” in English is etymologically closely related to “jazz” in English, which some sources also attest to having a (historical) slang use identical to that of “jizz”, so, while you are absolutely correct about the point of choosing the word, that point is quite compatible with the person doing so of being aware of the slang use of “jizz”.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#145

Post by lapcat »

zarathustreal wrote: post #131
lapcat wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I, like the person you're responding to, have experienced the zeitgeist of HN I'm sure you have. And I've experienced the opposite. There's a natural tendency to pay more attention to criticism of one's own views and to come to believe that only one's own views are persecuted, based on one's anecdotal experience, but that view isn't empirically accurate in the aggregate. Again, dang, who has observed countless thes…

While I hear what you're saying, it's bordering on an appeal to authority. Dang is just one person and has his own set of biases

> While I hear what you're saying, it's bordering on an appeal to authority. Dang is just one person and has his own set of biases

My point about dang is that (1) dang has seen more HN comments that literally anyone else in the world and thus has more knowledge about this topic than anyone else in the world; (2) dang specifically sees the posts and comments that have been flagged, because of his job as moderator; (3) dang has seen (and can probably cite) the comments from all ideological standpoints complaining that that the opposite viewpoint is dominant on HN and that their views have been censored.

It's an appeal to vast experience and knowledge.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#146

Post by shadowgovt »

javajosh wrote: post #140
shadowgovt wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there has to be a better solution than blocking, which is ostracism Mastodon has a time-gated mute feature, which is quite useful. If someone is being annoying, but not so annoying that you want to squelch them indefinitely, you can just hit them with mute for awhile so they can cool off. ... but Julia is under no obligation to serve as teacher of online etiquette to folks who don't know when to self-squelch, s…

I guess I don't see the point in arguing that someone has the right to be offended. Of course they do. Everyone does. But is it a good thing? Isn't being offended a bad thing? Doesn't it feel bad to be offended, and doesn't it also feel bad to be the person giving offense? Doesn't it make sense to try as hard as possible to not get offended, to wait as long as possible, to give every benefit of the doubt, before bein…

> Isn't being offended a bad thing?

No. Offense is a (complex) emotional signal that you may not be able to ally with someone because their worldview differs from yours in a way that your goals are likely to come into conflict. It's no more bad to be offended than it's bad to be angry, or sad, or happy; it's an emotional signal, one that binds to a complex sociological model.

> Doesn't it make sense to try as hard as possible to not get offended, to wait as long as possible, to give every benefit of the doubt, before being offended?

Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the degree of the offense, the likelihood of adjustment of either party into a configuration where the offense is mitigated (very low for random internet interactions), and (here's the key) the potential upside of further interaction with the other party. For an Internet rando commenting on the feed of someone they don't know, the possible upside to that someone is low.

As much as we like to, each of us, think of ourselves as insightful luminaries and Renaissance men and women of the new era, spreading truth and novel insight and peering with the greatest minds of our generation on the egalitarian footing of social media... folks like Julia get to see dozens of folks parroting the same talking points as the ones she banned daily. If she's not planning to argue that point (and she has plenty of experience with the point to make that decision), it's fine to just toss a "The odds of any interaction we will have in the future producing value for either of us are near zero" ban on the account and go on with her day. Maybe some day she'll discover she banned someone who turns out to be fun to know in another social setting and she'll unban them. But the odds are near zero.

> We should encourage others (and ourselves) to take the least offense possible.

Why? What's the upside in a world of more than eight billion people in a context as casual as Mastodon posts?

I present to you a counter-model: maybe people should learn to do a lot more reading and a lot less posting. "Reading the room" is a more complicated skill when the room is virtual and varies from feed to feed in something as diverse as Mastodon... But it never stopped being a useful skill.

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#147

Post by [deleted] »

metadat wrote: post #143
lucideer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sexual interpretation is pretty strong (at least today) - "groping" and "groper" have slightly different vibes - that warrants removal today imo. But yeah, I'm not sure if that was the case in the 80s. --- Edit: as pointed out below I hadn't noticed when I wrote this that the offending mastodon replies were apparently deleted so the 3 replies I mention here aren't actually relevant --- I did click through…

Kinda harsh that Julia chose to block people for what boiled down to asking genuine questions without intent to offend. Shrug, it's her choice and a valid move. But by employing the approach of "block-o-matic for all dissenters" strategy, the author has lost some credibility with me. I also found it odd that the author cherry-picked a dictionary site which only contained the definition she found offensive. If you put…

[deleted]

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#148

Post by [deleted] »

hathchip wrote: post #109
javajosh wrote: post #102

Great post, as usual. Lots of good advice for me. However it makes me sad that she blocked people for defending the author's meaning of "dig". Ignoring seems like a better path. I've often heard grope used in a non-sexual way, as in "groping in the dark" for something. This kind of over-reaction to language is a sore spot for me; like the Stanford language guidelines, telling people not to use the word "field" becaus…

Julia Evans has written some of the best articles and zines about UNIX/networking and about how to learn technical topics in general. The people she blocked are not arguing in good faith, they are vexatious commenters who have no interest in discussing all the other things she has written about, but just want to pursue a very specific identity politics debate over and over again. Not having those people in the discus…

[deleted]

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#149

Post by javajosh »

shadowgovt wrote: post #146
javajosh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don't see the point in arguing that someone has the right to be offended. Of course they do. Everyone does. But is it a good thing? Isn't being offended a bad thing? Doesn't it feel bad to be offended, and doesn't it also feel bad to be the person giving offense? Doesn't it make sense to try as hard as possible to not get offended, to wait as long as possible, to give every benefit of the doubt, before bein…

> Isn't being offended a bad thing? No. Offense is a (complex) emotional signal that you may not be able to ally with someone because their worldview differs from yours in a way that your goals are likely to come into conflict. It's no more bad to be offended than it's bad to be angry, or sad, or happy; it's an emotional signal, one that binds to a complex sociological model. > Doesn't it make sense to try as hard as…

[flagged]

Re: Some tactics for writing in public

#150

Post by munificent »

gremlinunderway wrote: post #138
lanstin wrote: post #59

>I mostly try to head this off by trying to be self-aware about my knowledge level on a topic, and saying “I’m not sure…” when I’m not sure about something. This excellent tactic for avoiding pointless debate and inviting helpful replies is sadly beyond many people in the software field. Software folks are used to the past where you could master things completely. With the continued growth of knowledge and the growth…

Yeah, there's a really odd all or nothing kind of attitude with knowledge, experience or skill, as if "being smart" is like a linear growth Pokemon level-thing rather than being more like a radar chart of skills and experience. Which I find so odd and absurd in a profession that's full of esoteric knowledge. Being experienced and smart obviously is a huge asset, but if you just aren't familiar with library X but new…

Software development strongly self-selects for people who like black-and-white, all-or-nothing, binary reasoning.

Few people have patience for a tool that will fail to even attempt to run a several-million-line program because there happens to be a trivial typo in one line in one file. It should be no surprise that kind of people for whom behavior like that is reasonable are the kind of people to think intelligence is all-or-nothing, and that are too happy to point out true but irrevelant inaccuracies in a piece of writing.

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