Said very quickly: I will defer to the EA Forum team on this. If anybody here was asked to comment by nonlinear, please let the forum team know so they can create decisions and norms around this. You can send a message to Lizka (choosing Lizka, because she’s the most well recognised/trusted, you can also contact other members of the moderation team).
I am not sure if you’re arguing: (1) that this is not brigading or (2) even if it is brigading, brigading is not detrimental. But I can go through both
A term that originated on Reddit, Brigading is when a group of users, generally outsiders to the targeted subreddit, “invade” a specific subreddit and flood it with downvotes in order to damage karma dynamics on the targeted sub; spam the sub with posts and comments to further their own agenda; or perform other coordinated abusive behaviour such as insulting or harassing the subreddit’s users in order to troll, manipulate, or interfere with the targeted community.
(Bold is mine) I suspect most with reddit mod or admin experience would consider what happened to be brigading, because: A) You’re over-representing a certain opinion. One might want to use the ratio of comments to quickly determine who is right/wrong, comment brigading distorts this metric. B) You’re increasing the flow of team A people, on a team B post, leading to distorted voting, distorted replies (and as discussed, distorted comments)
You discuss whether it’s acceptable for different actors to engage in coordinated comment posting. I’d argue, and wager that the EA forum team agrees, that it’s pretty much always unacceptable to engage in concealed coordinated forum engagement.
Would anyone accuse me of brigading if I theoretically knew other people who had negative experiences with Nonlinear and asked them to chime in?
Yes. Please disclose if you ever do anything like this. It’s absolutely brigading.
(2) I have a few key areas of disagreement with this angle
A) the positive comments being left, are largely irrelevant. If the claim is “Kat encouraged me to drive without a license” then no amount of “I have had great experiences with Kat at EAGs” is relevant.
B) Early on, these comments had the potential to set the trajectory of discussion. If you have a model of the forum, where everybody shares perspectives unbiasedly and confidently, then you might be surprised to hear this. But most users try to “read the room” before commenting, and will be less likely to comment if they’re saying something controversial.
C) Most users try to determine what’s true and what’s false by reading the overall total valance of comments. I agree, this is not a great way for determining what is and is not true, but it’s a reality. Manipulating the ratio of valanced comments is unhelpful for this reason.
Just to finish on a question, if Kat had asked N number of people to chime in, at what point would you think it’s excessive? I.e. I assume we’d agree, if she asked 400 people to chime in, that would be excessive. But what is the minimum number whereby you feel this would be excessive?
A) the positive comments being left, are largely irrelevant. If the claim is “Kat encouraged me to drive without a license” then no amount of “I have had great experiences with Kat at EAGs” is relevant.
I completely agree “I have had great experiences with Kat at EAGs” is irrelevant to the claim “Kat encouraged me to drive without a license”, which is why I’ve been pretty clear in my comments that I don’t see Nonlinear leadership coming out looking good after this.
At the same time, this post isn’t narrowly focused on this issue or just a few issues, but rather seems like a summary of the negative things that Ben found out when he started investigating Nonlinear.
So I think “it’s off-topic” could have been a valid position had Ben chosen a narrower focus, but I don’t think that applies in general given this particular case. On the other hand, if you think any specific comments are a distraction, I’d encourage you to (politely!) pick one or two of them (perhaps the top-voted) and explain why the comment is a distraction from the real issues here.
Just to finish on a question, if Kat had asked N number of people to chime in, at what point would you think it’s excessive? I.e. I assume we’d agree, if she asked 400 people to chime in, that would be excessive. But what is the minimum number whereby you feel this would be excessive?
I think this is an excellent point and I don’t exactly know. I think it’s made trickier by the fact that someone might send out a bunch of requests and then it’s quite variable how many people reply. For example, if you message eight people and three comment, then that seems like a reasonable number of people sharing their positive impressions, but then if all eight add a comment then that could very well have a significant distortive effect.
Said very quickly: I will defer to the EA Forum team on this. If anybody here was asked to comment by nonlinear, please let the forum team know so they can create decisions and norms around this. You can send a message to Lizka (choosing Lizka, because she’s the most well recognised/trusted, you can also contact other members of the moderation team).
I am not sure if you’re arguing: (1) that this is not brigading or (2) even if it is brigading, brigading is not detrimental. But I can go through both
(1) There’s been limited discussion on the EA forum about the concept of brigading, that mostly focused on “vote brigading”. But if I point to a website that’s more experienced in brigading being used to distort discussion, reddit, they consider leaving comments to be brigading:
(Bold is mine) I suspect most with reddit mod or admin experience would consider what happened to be brigading, because: A) You’re over-representing a certain opinion. One might want to use the ratio of comments to quickly determine who is right/wrong, comment brigading distorts this metric. B) You’re increasing the flow of team A people, on a team B post, leading to distorted voting, distorted replies (and as discussed, distorted comments)
You discuss whether it’s acceptable for different actors to engage in coordinated comment posting. I’d argue, and wager that the EA forum team agrees, that it’s pretty much always unacceptable to engage in concealed coordinated forum engagement.
Yes. Please disclose if you ever do anything like this. It’s absolutely brigading.
(2) I have a few key areas of disagreement with this angle
A) the positive comments being left, are largely irrelevant. If the claim is “Kat encouraged me to drive without a license” then no amount of “I have had great experiences with Kat at EAGs” is relevant.
B) Early on, these comments had the potential to set the trajectory of discussion. If you have a model of the forum, where everybody shares perspectives unbiasedly and confidently, then you might be surprised to hear this. But most users try to “read the room” before commenting, and will be less likely to comment if they’re saying something controversial.
C) Most users try to determine what’s true and what’s false by reading the overall total valance of comments. I agree, this is not a great way for determining what is and is not true, but it’s a reality. Manipulating the ratio of valanced comments is unhelpful for this reason.
Just to finish on a question, if Kat had asked N number of people to chime in, at what point would you think it’s excessive? I.e. I assume we’d agree, if she asked 400 people to chime in, that would be excessive. But what is the minimum number whereby you feel this would be excessive?
I completely agree “I have had great experiences with Kat at EAGs” is irrelevant to the claim “Kat encouraged me to drive without a license”, which is why I’ve been pretty clear in my comments that I don’t see Nonlinear leadership coming out looking good after this.
At the same time, this post isn’t narrowly focused on this issue or just a few issues, but rather seems like a summary of the negative things that Ben found out when he started investigating Nonlinear.
So I think “it’s off-topic” could have been a valid position had Ben chosen a narrower focus, but I don’t think that applies in general given this particular case. On the other hand, if you think any specific comments are a distraction, I’d encourage you to (politely!) pick one or two of them (perhaps the top-voted) and explain why the comment is a distraction from the real issues here.
I think this is an excellent point and I don’t exactly know. I think it’s made trickier by the fact that someone might send out a bunch of requests and then it’s quite variable how many people reply. For example, if you message eight people and three comment, then that seems like a reasonable number of people sharing their positive impressions, but then if all eight add a comment then that could very well have a significant distortive effect.