.I want to say only that, sappy as it is, I mostly agree. (The only reason that I'm up at 6:30 AM is that I crashed last night at 10:15, and it's a little too warm in my house.)
and it's a little too warm in my house
You just had to bring the argument back to global warming didn't you? Subtle, yet malicious. I denounce you for it!
Wow, thanks! I did not read the thread you are talking about but I would find that pretty lousy too. Should be getting back into the fray a bit this week.
I read the thread very late last night, and was shocked, shocked, at the incivility, lack of comity, and everybody was mean too. And in a week of war in the middle east, and Syd Barrett and June Alysson died and all. I am inarticulate I am so upset. I want to offer Becks a hug, and vote to ban Emerson. I offer some poetry, that may be appropriate:
Know You got to run
Know you got to hide
Still there is a great light
Something something inside
Everybody I love You
Everybody I do
I don't think anything all that bad happened in the True Believer thread. There were three arguments going on. One relating to Ideal's reasons for voting Republican and how fervently people were going to shame him over it. That got nasty for a bit, but it has before and will again, and it settled down reasonably well. Testy, but not a problem -- fond as I am of Ideal, arguments like that are going to happen as long as he's around; too many people disagree with him about too much stuff too fervently.
The www stuff doesn't mean anything -- we just got a particularly persistent troll left over from Labs and my recent activities. (I blame Labs -- all of mine got bored and left.) It's annoying, but it's mock them or ban them, and I don't like banning. (Barring the ToS, who had a long track record of real craziness.)
The Yamamoto stuff is the closest thing to something importantly ugly, and I don't think there's anything to do with it in a way that doesn't involve raising the barriers to entry around here. Y. is arguing in a style that, while not in itself over-the-top rude or particularly unpleasant, doesn't incorporate the basic assumption that most people are working in good faith that makes this generally a good place to hash things out (e.g., thanking teo for being courageous in disagreeing with B. was just bizarre.) At that point, there's nothing to do but (a) say no one gets to comment here unless we like them, which I'm opposed to, or (b) count on the bulk of the commenters here to overwhelm obsteperous new people with well reasoned argument, comity, and cock jokes, and hope that they will either convert to our ways or get bored and wander off. (And Y., I do apologize if you feel singled out -- you'd have every right to. But there is an in-group and an out-group here -- the in-group is really very easy to join, but it involves assuming that you're talking to well-educated intelligent people who, while they may not know some specific things you do, are perfectly capable of following your reasoning, and are arguing basically in good faith. Unless you're going to demonstrate that you're making that assumption, you're not an insider around here.) But I don't want to keep outsiders away -- if things get a little stiff in the comments section while new people are exploring the place, I think that's a fair price to pay for keeping the doors open.
I felt like an out-group person for a year or so, and still often do. I do usually make an effort to conform to Unfogged customs which are not natural to me, but I've been slipping more often recently, and was pretty explicit about it this time.
Actually, I'm out-groupish at every site I comment at except one, which I will not name. I have no idea why Kotsko likes my stuff, for example -- he seems to be genuinely pluralistic in intent. At Crooked Timber and The Valve I usually have one foot on either side of the troll line. And I comment on two right-wing sites where I try to avoid politics entirely.
Yamamoto's argument style has always bothered me, and it's taken awhile to put a finger on why. She (I think it's "she") not a classic troll but she's hard to argue with. I do not ever remember her conceding a point, it's often uncertain exactly what she's arguing about, and she frequently pushes forward uncheckable claims to expertise. Like most people, I suppose, I'm more friendly to self-professed experts I agree with, and I'm more likely to doubt self-professed experts I disagree with.
Part of my problem with Y's argumentation is that her arguments don't seem fully stated in a persuasive way. She just tosses out a disagreement and seems to say, "That's what i think. What are you going to do about it?"
After that thread, there's only one thing to do. We all have to have sex with each other.
Yeah, the thread bothered me too, but mostly I was shocked at how, when people were being pretty clearly self-explanatory to various parties, they didn't try to understand and still disagree (which is, I think, SOP here); they were getting off on keeping it going. I found w3 just bizarre in her continued excitement for the marathon trolling, but she seemed genuinely to enjoy it. The Y thing is an interesting case. I've never seen anyone here criticize a n00b like that, but I've never seen a n00b waltz into a conversation here with such a demeaning attitude toward the people already here. It's very subtle, which makes it more annoying than trolls because it's pretending to seek comity while assuming no one here knows how to do math.
The feeding of the trolls has been a reason why I haven't been around much lately. In the conversation with SAHM, I tried to play along, and all I could do was pity her and try to probe her motives for coming here. It's not as fun for me, I guess, because I think of the trolls as being real people, sitting in a room somewhere, just as I imagine all of you that way.
While I haven't read the thread yet (had a really big going-away party for a roommate last night, and am now running out the door because if I stay home I feel obligated to clean up from the party), I'm pretty sure that 8 gets it exactly right.
11: Yeah, but I'm pretty impressed by how self-managing it's been here. People ban themselves if they're being too annoying or flippant, non-comity-seekers drift off, and all without a "Your education level must be this high to enter!" sign.
7: Dude, we bought you plane tickets. What more assurances that you're the beloved crazy uncle figure do you want? Seriously, you don't come off like an outsider -- you come off like an insider with ideas that very few people here agree with about the productivity of engaging with people who disagree about political issues with a moral dimension. If there were more people here who agreed with you about that, we'd be heading for a bunch of nasty argument. Given that you're content to state your opinion on the matter, and aren't too irritated by the consensus disagreement on that point to keep hanging around with us, it's all good.
Your evaluation of Y. is pretty much dead square with mine. Not a troll, but not willing to either engage in argument in a way that I find productive or disengage. This is one of those issues where stating it overstates it - I don't want her gone, I like having new people around, particularly those who want to argue, but I don't enjoy her argumentative style.
And 10: I wouldn't worry about pitying trolls (other than the ToS, who I hope is getting proper care someplace.) They're people who choose to enjoy themselves by baiting people they disagree with -- I find that a bizarre taste, but they really do seem to be having fun. The point of the cake and troll-feeding is that I think it's the most effective way of keeping them out. If we start banning, we get morons trying to find the line and push it, and that leads to dramas like the one involving He Who Must Not Be Named at B.'s place, and a lot of overdramatic soul searching about whether we're banning too easily. If we don't do anything, they infest the place and we end up with the Washington Monthly comment threads, at which point I quit blogging. Messing with them the way we do now, while labor intensive, is, I think, the best practical solution.
14: Yes, but they don't show up here for no reason. They show up because of posts that are crafted to incite them. Random trolls? Fine. But there have been posts that result in mostly trolly threads, and then it becomes a "thing" to troll Unfogged.
I'm not into banning, either, and the messing is harmless, but it seems they are invited. My feeling sorry for certain (disproportionately female) conservative trolls is my problem, definitely.
I think that AWB was objecting more to the stinkiness of flame wars than to the meanness to the troll, who seemed to be having great fun.
Trolling the trolls seems to work, and I get a kick out of it. I've got a bit of troll in me.
We all go absurdist from time to time, and absurdity is like troll kryptonite. Because they're so dumb.
Soooooo Duuuuumb!!!11!11!1!11 Got that nooooobs?1!1
It seems to me that the real point here is that Becks must have been at a really awesome party somewhere.
15: Oh, I'd rather not invite them over either. I did the first time out of cluelessness -- I got pissed off at Instapundit and linked, but never thought he'd bother to respond. I wouldn't be doing what FL is doing (attracting them deliberately, if that's what he is doing -- FL?) myself.
18: True fact. Becks, we expect a postmortem, stat.
I'm completely and thoroughly in agreement with 8.
Yamamoto bugs me. I'm willing to ignore that, unless specifically asked why, in which case I'll explain honestly (and I really was trying not to be rude). I feel increasingly bad about always getting in fights with Idealist, who I increasingly like as a person, and I suspect that we and he will all iron out the edges over time and learn to argue without rancor. I don't mind the attracting trolls posts, which I do NOT see as designed to do that, but rather as a traditional FL type of post, the comment and wonder at how crazy people are post. I like those. I think we've usually done fine with trolls, either by ignoring them or by turning them into the joke of that particular thread.
Everyone else I love. For the record, I know I can be a brat, and I hereby request that when I am being too much of a pain in the ass, someone tell me to knock it off.
Also, I am sorry for my contribution to annoying Becks.
You love everyone, B? Clearly, 8 is the only way to satisfy you.
Meetup! First pastry, and then group sex!
Wow. I know when I'm not liked but I'm astounded at this level of absurdity.
This is funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_mlwnAmr0
So long.
I am sorry for hurting your feelings -- it's a perfectly reasonable reaction to what I and others have said about you (or, you know, if your feelings aren't hurt but your opinion of us all has plummeted, that's good too). While this isn't much of an apology, I wouldn't have been dissecting you like this if people weren't concerned about what's been happening to the tone of the blog generally.
If you're still interested in hanging around, you're welcome to. I find your style of argument annoying, but of the people who have been harshing on you, I believe I'm the only one with keys to the blog, and I'm not shooing you out of here. A little irritation is good for the soul.
But that's just it, LB; no one has shooed Y (have they?). People are expressing irritation with her style of argument in the hopes that she's actually a really great potential commenter who merely needs to learn how to express her views in a less irritating fashion. She then makes a dramatic "you all hate me" gesture, everyone apologizes, and then she says something abrasive again. Either she doesn't understand what people are saying about her arguments, or she doesn't care to change it (which is fine, if she wants to continue incurring irritation), or she's being shifty and emotionally manipulative. As I've said before, I have showed up on blogs where my comments were decimated by the regulars, and I thought, "Ah, I must (1) adjust my style, (2) hang out elsewhere, or (3) decide I don't mind being ripped to shreds." I usually choose 2.
30: Well, yes. I've apologized for the meta-discussion of her as 'what's been wrong with the blog lately', not for giving her a hard time about what she's saying. Meta-discussions of people who can read what you're saying about them but aren't participating in the conversation are generally awful in a middle-school kind of way.
But to the extent she sticks around, I expect either your 1 or your 2 will happen, and my betting is on 2. In which case the ripping to shreds will continue.
Could someone explain what activities of Labs's and LB's may have led to a troll infestation?
Was it FL's posts commenting on all those right-winger things? (I didn't follow them in detail, because, really, life is short.) Didthose links encourage people to come over here via the magic that is trackback.
Did either of you post comments on right-wing sites? Do your handles alert people taht you are bloggers at unfogged?
LB, What's this about Instapundit?
It was a couple of weeks ago, when everyone was posting stuff about Kos. Insty put up a post summarizing a bunch of the allegations, including a paragraph saying something along the lines of "Blog commenters are calling Kos gay, I happen to know he's married, it's a juvenile thing to say, so quit it." Digby linked to the Instapundit post interpreting it as a disingenuous means of reiterating and spreading the 'Kos is gay' thing. I saw Insty's post from Digby's link, bought Digby's interpretation, and put up a hostile post linking to Insty ("Insty is a nasty, nasty little pig."). (I am no longer certain that my and Digby's interpretation was right. I'm not sure it was wrong, just not sure that it was right.) Insty linked back, and we got a thread full of trolls telling me what an ass I was.
32: I think it was Labs's links, which were noticed by the RWers on their statcounters, and which they then posted with swords raised.
and 31 should refer to either your 1 or your 3, not your 2.
I don't understand the level of hostility directed towards Yamamoto, whose views don't really seem all that different from many of those of many others here, except in terms of some details, and whose style of argument isn't great but does not seem to me to be remarkably anything except too brief for the points she seems to want to make. I also don't know why she'd even want to hang out here. I doubt I'd read unfogged for the political discussions if the first threads I commented in were the ones she's been in.
34--It was a little more direct than that. Labs posted a comment in one of D/e/b F/r/i/s/c/h's threads, suggesting that she come over here because comments were likely to be friendlier than what she was getting elsewhere in the gigantic, near-spherewide flamewar she'd launched.
Were I not terrified at calumning the Gayatollah, I might have suggested that were a misstep.
Most of what you say is perfectly true (Y's avowed beliefs aren't that far off most people's here, the threads she's been in have sucked). I don't want to keep talking about what I find irritating about her unless she's interested in talking about it (see above re: awful in a middle-school kind of way), and I can't imagine why she would be.
37: Oh right. I forgot about his invitation.
I've been staying out of this thread because (as I said in the post) I don't want to dwell on it but thanks to everyone for your comments. I'm on board for 8.
And, apropos of 18, I think Saiselgy might be the only person in the world who says "awesome" more than I do.
I’m a great fan of this blog (although I hardly ever comment). But I’m not sure that, in the post-Ogged era, it can really be “a safe space” in the sense that Becks describes above. My take is that so much of what made the blog seem like a haven of non-judgmental openness was that, for the most part, its threads conformed to the following pattern: (1) Ogged posts something which he knows almost everyone is going to disagree with; (2) almost everyone disagrees with it; and (3) the subsequent disagreement almost never gets too heated because everyone loves Ogged. That dynamic simply doesn’t exist anymore. Now, you get a lot more posts that are pretty much of the order of: “Hey, here’s something we all agree about, right?” It is no wonder that, in that context, disagreement is going to be treated differently.
But the thing is . . . that is not necessarily a bad thing. The posters and commenters here are all smart and interesting, and there is nothing wrong with smart, interesting, but broadly like-minded, people having a conversation. When I talk politics with friends and family I allow myself to say things that I know would not be fully defensible to someone who did not share my political assumptions. And, you know, it’s fun and informative in a way that constantly having to go back and fight over first principles sometimes isn’t.
I do not, however, think that that it is not fair to imply that the blog has changed becomes newcomers do not universally subscribe to norms of free and open inquiry, especially when one of the regulars here (i.e., B.Phd) isn’t exactly famous for her respectful openness to dissenting points of view. The blog is what it is.
I do not, however, think that that it is not fair to imply that the blog has changed becomes newcomers do not universally subscribe to norms of free and open inquiry, especially when one of the regulars here (i.e., B.Phd) isn’t exactly famous for her respectful openness to dissenting points of view.
No, that wouldn't be fair, and to the extent I was saying that I disavow it. What bollixes things up is new people who aren't willing to argue from the presumption that we are, roughly (for some regulars very roughly), all on the same side. (And dude? The singling out B. to snipe at? Not really cool if we're trying to calm the conversation down.)
But this:
My take is that so much of what made the blog seem like a haven of non-judgmental openness was that, for the most part, its threads conformed to the following pattern: (1) Ogged posts something which he knows almost everyone is going to disagree with; (2) almost everyone disagrees with it; and (3) the subsequent disagreement almost never gets too heated because everyone loves Ogged.
is spot on. I wish he'd post something -- encouraging as the last post was, I'm going to worry until the first post titled Gone Swimmin'.
(although I hardly ever comment)
I feel somewhat responsible for this.
For Emerson, a brand spanking new discussion of Strauss, with a fresh translation of a letter from Strauss to Karl Lowith concerning Strauss's emigration.
Y'all may consider this serious abuse of commenter ethics, but I connect it to topic by saying I am becoming very attracted to a neo-neo-Straussian dialectic that reinvigorates political discourse with new ground rules for comity. We will throw the Enlightenment, Rawls, and Habermas out with the baby by demanding a new Public Reason abandoning Logic, Honesty, and Intellectual Integrity. It'll work if everybody does it, or even if most don't, but we assume they do. We welcome crazy lying hacks of any persuasion. Hilzoy, Ezra, and the entire Crooked Timber crowd are banned! Die Straussian Anti-Strauss! No elites of any kind! Unfogged must become the shout in the street! I manifesto!
I have made a good start, since I haven't read any of the dudes I mention, don't know what I am talking about, and really don't mean what I say. And aren't even funny.
Actually, I do mean it. I was lying when I said I didn't. Actually...is this a miserable Stoppard pastiche or even worse Monty Python?
Thanks, Bob. That confirms my opinion of Strauss.
I am feeling giddy and affectionate. Someone of zero education and great wisdom called me backwards, in that I react oppositely to events compared to most people. I have trained myself to look normal.
107 Heat Index in Dallas. AC has limits. I dug thru my box of books to find my Disch was horribly yellowed, but I really needed this passage from 334. I needed it:
"Like a theatre just before the movie starts, reduced by darkness to a bare geometry, the fog had erased all details and distances. Uncertain sounds sifted through the grayness----engines, music, women's voices. She felt through her whole body the imminence of the collapse, and because she could feel it, it was no longer debilitating.
She heard, far off, the stolen plane. It neither approached her nor receded, as though it were executing an immense circle, searching for her.
She stood still and lifted her arms, inviting it to her, offering herself to these barbarians, fingers splayed, eyes pressed tightly closed. Commanding.
Shw saw, beneath her but unforeshortened, the bound ox. She saw its heaving belly and desperate eyes. She felt, in her hand, the sharp obsidian.
...
The airplane approached, audibly. She wanted the boys inside to know that she knew, that she agreed.
It appeared quite suddenly, and near...It was shaped like a cross.
"Come then", she said, with conscious dignity. "Lay waste."
"Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire."
Disemvowelling comes recommended as an instrument for dealing with too many trolls. Teresa Nielsen Hayden recapitulates for the rest of us: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html
(Sorry, my meager HTML skillz never seem to work at unfogged.)