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I'm confident in saying that the information here is not sufficient to conclude she was making a personal attack.
A wild claim to make about a post that explictly centers around shaming Kat for her posting style predominantly because it's "cringe", by putting her name in the headline (what I meant by name-calling) and orienting the entire argument around her. If it wasn't meant to tarnish her reputation, why not instead make the post about just her issues with the disagreeable content?
If she said that was her intent, I'd change my mind. Or if she said something that was unambiguously a personal attack I'd change my mind, but at the moment I see no reason not to read the post as well meaning innocent criticism...I also don't think it's very appropriate for this forum.
If intent was determined solely by someone's words than I'd agree with you that her caveat made in passing indicates well-meaningness, but the standard you've set for determining intent is as naive as believing when someone says "I like you as a person" before they knock you out with a punch that they do not intend to cause you harm.
Even by her own words this is not "innocent criticism", because she states that she dislikes the "deluge of posts" and her "futile downvotes accomplish nothing, so instead I am writing this blog post" which indicate she elevated her response to bring about behavior change, not by using the methods native to Reddit, but rather by leaning on those friendly to her position in the group to shame Kat into compliance.
Before you misquote me as analogizing this post to a punch, let me be clear that I'm merely observing you are clinging so minutely to small signals that are arguably misdirections, that you're missing the extent to which browsing's post is more than "inappropriate" as you acknowledge, because as I said it amounts to bullying someone to get in line on another forum, because it's fun to do. Why don't you hold yourself to a higher standard?
This wasn't criticism of just the project (e.g. her content), it was criticism of the person because of the content they make, because let’s be real a personal attack is much more damaging. And yes, it was meant to tarnish her reputation because, well, did you not read the headline of the post?
Sure, consumers may form their opinion of a person, their reputation, based on a composite knowledge of their professional or personal behavior, so the post’s caveat factors in one small way to the equation. But what drove reputation change here much more significantly is browsing name calling Kat in the headline, and orienting the entire post as a complaint towards her.
You think I’m being uncharitable? I think you’re being so charitable towards one passing caveat you're ignoring the obvious goal here: to bully someone to get in line on another forum, largely because she doesn’t like the vibes and it’s fun to do. And that’s why I think this is so inappropriate for this forum.
What does it mean to tarnish the reputation of someone as a "public figure" and not as a person?
He's a dick politician (but a great husband)?
Consumers are only aware of whatever is publicly known to them, so their reputation is entirely depenedent of what one thinks about the "public figure."
Herego, his actions expressly are meant to tarnish her reputation.
Let's just observe that your "fun" is policing someone's popular memes, on an entirely different social media site that's not LessWrong, because you find them cringe.
And what was all the more "fun" for you was to psychoanalyze and essentially pressure her to cut back with cancel culture tactics.
I say that because if you wanted to question the merits of the content and it being net-positive, wouldn't you just post the memes themselves?
Trying to police a seperate site on LessWrong, and doing so by going after the poster for "fun" on the basis of divergent personal taste, seems not only like the "engagement baiting" you're accusing her of but also legitimately scummy ethics.
If you and the LW forum holds itself to higher standards, I struggle to understand why it's acceptable to have posts that expressly attempts to tarnish someone's reputation largely because you think it's fun to say that their jokes aren't humorous.
Kat Woods often doesn’t give proper credit when spreading memes.
Truly wild to expect "memes" to be properly credited.
The rest of the Internet does not work like LessWrong, which is intentionally so, and expecting otherwise is unrealistic.