First, I want to broadly agree that distant information is less valuable, and no one should be judged by their college behavior forever. I learned about the Brown accusation (with some additional information, that I lack permission to pass on, and also don’t know the source well enough to pass it on) in 2016 and did nothing beyond talking to the person and passing it on to Julia*, specifically because I didn’t want a few bad choices while young to haunt someone forever.
[*It’s been a while, I can’t remember whether I told Julia or encouraged the other person to do so, but she got told one way or another]
The reason I think the college accusations are relevant is that, while I tentatively agree he shouldn’t face more consequences for the college accusations, they definitely speak to Ariel’s claim there’s been no recidivism, and in general they shift my probability distribution over what he was apologizing for.
I don’t necessarily think these concerns should have prevented the grant, or that SFF has an obligation to explain to me why they gave the grant. I wouldn’t have made that grant, for lots of reasons, but that’s fine, and I generally think the EA community acts too entitled around private grantmakers.
But I do think that confidently asserting that the only thing Jacy did was “ask some people out over FB messenger” is likely inaccurate, and it is important to track that. It might be accurate to say “the only thing he has been publicly accused of is asking people out” or “the only thing he has admitted to is asking people out” or “No one has provided any proof he did anything beyond ask people out”, but none of those are the same as “the only thing he did is ask people out”.
Or there could have been new information I missed, which is why I phrased it as a question.
I’m leaving a lot of your comment unresponded to because I think you’re refuting the claim that the college accusations mean Jacy shouldn’t have gotten the SFF grant, and I agree with that and never meant to imply otherwise. I just want to separately track what Jacy actually did, and what has been publicly acknowledged. Rereading the thread now I see why it didn’t come across that way; I’m pretty sure I read Ariel’s comment in the front page feed without realizing it was a response to something else.
I think that most of your comment is reasonable, so I’m only going to respond to the second-to-last paragraph. Because that is the bit that critiques my comment, my response is going to sound defensive. But I agree with everything else, and I also think what went on with my original comment leads back into what I see as the actual crux, so it’s worth me saying what’s on my mind:
But I do think that confidently asserting that the only thing Jacy did was “ask some people out over FB messenger” is likely inaccurate, and it is important to track that. It might be accurate to say “the only thing he has been publicly accused of is asking people out” or “the only thing he has admitted to is asking people out” or “No one has provided any proof he did anything beyond ask people out”, but none of those are the same as “the only thing he did is ask people out”.
I have long ago edited the original comment where I wrote that. I didn’t change that particular wording because I wrote the original on mobile (which I deeply regretted and am now incredibly averse to) so I didn’t have fancy strikethrough edit features, even when I tried on PC (I didn’t realize it worked like that). Without strikethrough ability, I thought it would be epistemically dishonest to just edit that sentence. Instead I promptly, right after that sentence, told people to make their conclusions elsewhere in a way that I feel clearly tells readers to take that part with a grain of salt. All in all I edited that comment ~5 times. I don’t have the spoons to re-edit again given I think it’s fine.
More importantly, the transparency of info is obviously a problem if someone like me who usually tries to be pretty airtight on EA Forum things had to edit so much going back and forth from “here’s a thing” to “maybe he did worse” to “maybe he did less” to “maybe he did worse” again. That’s not okay. And now I feel like I’m getting punished for trying to do what no other outsider of the case was willing to try to do (that I saw)… figure out the ground truth [and what it means for EA behavior] publicly.
Honestly trying to figure out what happened regarding Jacy was a heckin nightmare with people coming out of left field about it after each correction I tried to make, including over DM (again not publicly), and giving multiple comments to comb through on multiple other posts and with their own attached threads. It’s good people chimed in sharing the existence of different pieces of discussion/info that I’d guess hardly any single person knew every single bit of, but damn, I have to be honest that I’m now really frustrated about what a nightmare it was. I was trying to do a public service and it was a huge waste of time with little to glean for certain. [And some of the more interesting bits are not public and I feel very, very weird about that, even saying that I now know of (know of, not know for certain) stuff others don’t and can’t find out about (I can’t even doublecheck myself).]
Was that always the expected outcome just lurking underneath the surface? If so then why would people judge SFF? I’m no longer surprised SFF just granted tbh. They saved themselves the time I wasted. I no longer expect any single person to get it right and I see that as a problem worth talking about becausethat will lead to either (1) actually-abusive people getting involvement sooner which is a safety risk, or (2) appearing-abusive-but-actually-non-abusive people getting involvement sooner which is a PR-risk and comfort risk.
I apologize for fucking up. I am now frustrated at myself for even trying. But if people other than me care about my messed up original comment they need to look at the systems because other people will fuck up as I did. It just won’t be public til after the decision is made, if ever. And you won’t get to correct them as they make their fumbles along the way.
I’m sorry. it sounds like you’ve taken a lot of flak for that comment, and having had that same experience I know it’s miserable. FWIW I was never responding to or criticizing your comment, only Ariel’s. Probably I saw it in the front page feed without checking the larger context. Or I only skimmed your comment and didn’t notice he was repeating a claim.
Plausibly I’m culpable for not noticing it was a repeated claim rather than original. Maybe the way comments are displayed on the front page with minimal context contributed.
First, I want to broadly agree that distant information is less valuable, and no one should be judged by their college behavior forever. I learned about the Brown accusation (with some additional information, that I lack permission to pass on, and also don’t know the source well enough to pass it on) in 2016 and did nothing beyond talking to the person and passing it on to Julia*, specifically because I didn’t want a few bad choices while young to haunt someone forever.
[*It’s been a while, I can’t remember whether I told Julia or encouraged the other person to do so, but she got told one way or another]
The reason I think the college accusations are relevant is that, while I tentatively agree he shouldn’t face more consequences for the college accusations, they definitely speak to Ariel’s claim there’s been no recidivism, and in general they shift my probability distribution over what he was apologizing for.
I don’t necessarily think these concerns should have prevented the grant, or that SFF has an obligation to explain to me why they gave the grant. I wouldn’t have made that grant, for lots of reasons, but that’s fine, and I generally think the EA community acts too entitled around private grantmakers.
But I do think that confidently asserting that the only thing Jacy did was “ask some people out over FB messenger” is likely inaccurate, and it is important to track that. It might be accurate to say “the only thing he has been publicly accused of is asking people out” or “the only thing he has admitted to is asking people out” or “No one has provided any proof he did anything beyond ask people out”, but none of those are the same as “the only thing he did is ask people out”.
Or there could have been new information I missed, which is why I phrased it as a question.
I’m leaving a lot of your comment unresponded to because I think you’re refuting the claim that the college accusations mean Jacy shouldn’t have gotten the SFF grant, and I agree with that and never meant to imply otherwise. I just want to separately track what Jacy actually did, and what has been publicly acknowledged. Rereading the thread now I see why it didn’t come across that way; I’m pretty sure I read Ariel’s comment in the front page feed without realizing it was a response to something else.
I think that most of your comment is reasonable, so I’m only going to respond to the second-to-last paragraph. Because that is the bit that critiques my comment, my response is going to sound defensive. But I agree with everything else, and I also think what went on with my original comment leads back into what I see as the actual crux, so it’s worth me saying what’s on my mind:
I have long ago edited the original comment where I wrote that. I didn’t change that particular wording because I wrote the original on mobile (which I deeply regretted and am now incredibly averse to) so I didn’t have fancy strikethrough edit features, even when I tried on PC (I didn’t realize it worked like that). Without strikethrough ability, I thought it would be epistemically dishonest to just edit that sentence. Instead I promptly, right after that sentence, told people to make their conclusions elsewhere in a way that I feel clearly tells readers to take that part with a grain of salt. All in all I edited that comment ~5 times. I don’t have the spoons to re-edit again given I think it’s fine.
More importantly, the transparency of info is obviously a problem if someone like me who usually tries to be pretty airtight on EA Forum things had to edit so much going back and forth from “here’s a thing” to “maybe he did worse” to “maybe he did less” to “maybe he did worse” again. That’s not okay. And now I feel like I’m getting punished for trying to do what no other outsider of the case was willing to try to do (that I saw)… figure out the ground truth [and what it means for EA behavior] publicly.
Honestly trying to figure out what happened regarding Jacy was a heckin nightmare with people coming out of left field about it after each correction I tried to make, including over DM (again not publicly), and giving multiple comments to comb through on multiple other posts and with their own attached threads. It’s good people chimed in sharing the existence of different pieces of discussion/info that I’d guess hardly any single person knew every single bit of, but damn, I have to be honest that I’m now really frustrated about what a nightmare it was. I was trying to do a public service and it was a huge waste of time with little to glean for certain. [And some of the more interesting bits are not public and I feel very, very weird about that, even saying that I now know of (know of, not know for certain) stuff others don’t and can’t find out about (I can’t even doublecheck myself).]
Was that always the expected outcome just lurking underneath the surface? If so then why would people judge SFF? I’m no longer surprised SFF just granted tbh. They saved themselves the time I wasted. I no longer expect any single person to get it right and I see that as a problem worth talking about because that will lead to either (1) actually-abusive people getting involvement sooner which is a safety risk, or (2) appearing-abusive-but-actually-non-abusive people getting involvement sooner which is a PR-risk and comfort risk.
I apologize for fucking up. I am now frustrated at myself for even trying. But if people other than me care about my messed up original comment they need to look at the systems because other people will fuck up as I did. It just won’t be public til after the decision is made, if ever. And you won’t get to correct them as they make their fumbles along the way.
I’m sorry. it sounds like you’ve taken a lot of flak for that comment, and having had that same experience I know it’s miserable. FWIW I was never responding to or criticizing your comment, only Ariel’s. Probably I saw it in the front page feed without checking the larger context. Or I only skimmed your comment and didn’t notice he was repeating a claim.
Plausibly I’m culpable for not noticing it was a repeated claim rather than original. Maybe the way comments are displayed on the front page with minimal context contributed.