For some reason I find this title delightful. I kind of wish I could have an “argues without warning” flair or something.
I agree with arguments you present above and your conclusion about preferred norms. That said, I think people might have in mind certain types of cases that might justify the need for reaching out beyond the case of general “criticism”. For example, imagine something like this:
Critic: Org X made this super big mistake that makes all their conclusions inaccurate and means all the work of the org is actually net-negative!!!!!
Org X: We didn’t make any mistakes, critic made a mistake on their part because they don’t have all the info/context, but since we do have that it was easy for us to spot their error. If they had just reached out we would have explained the context. We didn’t publicly explain it because its detailed/nuanced and we can’t spend 100% of our time explaining context about things on the off-chance someone is going to criticize us about some random detail.
Now, my view is, even if this is what happens, this is still a positive outcome, because, like you say:
it’s even better to resolve misunderstandings in public
Transparency has costs, but I think they are usually internal costs to the org, while transparency also has external benefits, and thus would be expected to be systematically under-supplied by orgs.
At the same time, I think most cases of criticism are realistically more mixed, with the critic making reasonable points but also some mistakes, and the org having some obvious corrections to the criticism but also some places where the back-and-forth is very enlightening. Requiring people to reach out I think risks losing a lot of the value that comes from such “debatable” cases for the reasons you mention.
Another set of cases that is worth separating out are allegations of intentional misconduct. I think there are particular reasons why it might make sense to have a higher expectation for critics to reach out to an org if they are accusing that org of intentional misconduct. I think this may also vary by whether the critic personally observed misconduct, in which case I think issues like a risk of retaliation or extreme difficulty for the critic may weigh in favor of not expecting the critic to reach out.
For some reason I find this title delightful. I kind of wish I could have an “argues without warning” flair or something.
I agree with arguments you present above and your conclusion about preferred norms. That said, I think people might have in mind certain types of cases that might justify the need for reaching out beyond the case of general “criticism”. For example, imagine something like this:
Now, my view is, even if this is what happens, this is still a positive outcome, because, like you say:
Transparency has costs, but I think they are usually internal costs to the org, while transparency also has external benefits, and thus would be expected to be systematically under-supplied by orgs.
At the same time, I think most cases of criticism are realistically more mixed, with the critic making reasonable points but also some mistakes, and the org having some obvious corrections to the criticism but also some places where the back-and-forth is very enlightening. Requiring people to reach out I think risks losing a lot of the value that comes from such “debatable” cases for the reasons you mention.
Another set of cases that is worth separating out are allegations of intentional misconduct. I think there are particular reasons why it might make sense to have a higher expectation for critics to reach out to an org if they are accusing that org of intentional misconduct. I think this may also vary by whether the critic personally observed misconduct, in which case I think issues like a risk of retaliation or extreme difficulty for the critic may weigh in favor of not expecting the critic to reach out.