An account of what I believe to be inconsistent behavior on the part of our editor

Vote up if you disagree with the above policy. (Do not vote down if you agree!)

Anyone who wants to start this sort of meta discussion, create a new post "December 2009 Meta Thread

Actually, now that I think about it, is the problem really that the discussion is too meta? Or is it something else?

EDIT: In fact, rereading the post, I don't even think the tone is all that inappropriate after all. Perhaps I was put off by the title ("uh-oh, here comes another one of these 'look at what a hypocrite Eliezer is' postings...")

I know that when you have 8000 of it karma is utterly irrelevant. But in the interests of consistency it would be worth following the practice of having another comment which can be voted down for balance. People don't always actually downvote the karma sink but they like having the option to. Without a mechanism to distinguish approval for the principle of having a survey from the supplying of survey data itself the information provided will not even have a chance to approximate being accurate. The people here are the kind who frequent the spin off site of "OvercomingBias".

That would be acceptable.

I voted up- But to clarify my vote: I don't have problem with important meta posts being top-level... I thought some of the gender discussions we had a while back were top-level worthy, for example. A good meta post helps build a community. However, posts about your various flaws and inconsistencies (And I'm sure there are many! :-) I couldn't possibly care less about and I suspect the vast majority of readers feels the same way. Admittedly, implementing a rule like "Criticisms of Eliezer should stay in these threads" might look like you are just trying to quiet dissent so your cult doesn't fall apart. Don't back down. Don't do anything to cause a bunch of people to leave but don't sacrifice good moderation for politics. Those of us who don't give a damn about you one way or the other will appreciate the effort.

(Btw, comments about how Eliezer is the best thing since sliced bread also belong in a monthly meta thread)

I don't think the tone is bad for this content, although I would not want to have numerous meta-posts and flame wars at the top-level, or promoted.

[deleted]

Is there a way to (optionally) escalate Open Thread comments to proper posts once they get enough upvotes, moving all replies over? I voted on the other comment because I dislike the proposed policy, but if that were an option I might support it.

Vote down this comment if you DISAGREE that this would be a useful feature. Do not vote up if you agree!

The internet has a different track record with "tyranny" or "dictatorship" than the real world. I'm concerned that internet people will generalize from this experience, and form opinions like "It sometimes works" of unchecked tyranny or dictatorships even in national governments.

The internet makes makes it very easy to switch to a different site or project. This possibility forms the "checks and balances" that are historically necessary for national governments to be moderately benevolent.

Yay checks and balances!

As a longtime contributor, I have absolutely no problem with considering Eliezer to be king of this place.

I prefer 'Tyrant'.

refusing to answer a challenge to authority erks so many people

As it should. Right?

The point is that Eliezer is not komponisto. The precedent has already been set, in part by Eliezer himself, for top-level posts about Eliezer Yudkowsky. Whether it's him showing off his rationality at Thanksgiving dinner, or a humorous post extolling him as a Bayesian god, or a more serious or critical post seems to me to be haggling over the price.

Eliezer's political dismissal of my concerns, when I raised them, and his concoction of what I believe to be a really lame excuse (about the inappropriateness of a top-level post about himself) lit the fuse on this post - it's a phenomenon which I've observed for a while. If our editor will neither acknowledge the place in which he has situated himself, nor take seriously the concerns of LW readers, then I don't want to be here.

Is it extremely harmful? Probably not. But it warrants address.

You know, I thought about that one for a moment or two, knowing that it was wrong. Thanks for the correction.

I have implicitly suggested solutions in my post. Perhaps you want to reread it.

I'm not comfortable with there being no stated guidelines for post submissions, nor that the lack of such guidelines allow Eliezer to invent the rules on-the-go only when it serves him to do so.

I'm also not comfortable with their not being an available list of moderators/editors, as I fear that Eliezer may be the only one.

On a related note, being inconsistent is better than becoming consistently wrong (here, X=inconsistency).

But it is worse than being consistently right. Perhaps I'm failing to see your point here.

Taken in isolation, the feature of an answer to mormon2's question being of interest to some readers is good, but quality of presentation kills this benefit in the picture as a whole. Besides, the outline of the answer is pretty obvious, and was explained at length, so the cosmic significance of asking this question is also dubious.

I don't care about mormon2's post, nor the questions raised in it. I think the answers which were provided are probably not accurate, but don't really care. I've stated elsewhere my motivation for submitting this post, and its relation to mormon2's post is only nominal (in that the comments Eliezer made to me occurred in its comment thread, but could have occurred elsewhere).

I don't buy your claim that the topic is out of context, when the context has been clearly and explicitly stated. Moreover, this is exactly the kind of hopelessly obfuscated response that engendered this topic in the first place. It's all fine and dandy to be a technical rationalist and to use technical arguments, but there are many cases (like this topic addresses) that deserve more plain speaking.

Eliezer's main problem with it was where it was posted (or that's all he let on to anyway).

I like your analysis before the "--".

It depends on (p) the probability of an uncivil and inarticulate post being correct. If p is very low, the risk of misplacing status outweighs the possible benefit of truth. If p is very high, vice versa.

What is your p? At what value of p is the boundary between the two policies?

(Allow me to treat "p(correct)" as "a general measure of (probable) goodness of content" so as to not be distracted.)

Both the appreciation of a post and the inclination to award status can (, usually are and probably ought to) be dependent on other factors than correctness. This may either be because having pleasant conversation (civility and articulateness) is a terminal value or because civility and articulateness are instrumental in achieving a goal beyond the scope of the immediate calculation. Either way, p = 1 can be easily dominated by other concerns. p is insufficient for the representation you are aiming for. Consider adding a direct weighting.

It depends on (p) the probability of an uncivil and inarticulate post being correct.

Again on this part, I am not sure whether you mean:

• The prior probability of any particular post that is uncivil and inarticulate being correct is 0.83.
• This is a post. It has 0.83 chance of being correct. It is also uncivil and inarticulate.

Should we priviledge a over b or vice versa?

I personally tend to weigh them approximately equally. At least, I can't guess which of the two I privilege more. (Again, I am using 'correct' extremely liberally.)

I can delete this post as easily as I can delete a comment; the same effort is involved either way. If you request it, I would be quite happy to provide experimental evidence to this effect.

1.) it can easily be deleted if he doesn't like it

Disregarding the fact that deleting a top level post is as easy as deleting a comment...how do you know this is his reason?

Voted down for misuse of the word 'exemplar'.

You would quickly vote my post down to the point where the only way to find it would be to search my profile for it meaning that the post would go nowhere.

Close, it would show up as '1 comment below threshold', an exemplar of success for the karma system.