Please reread my comment because the whole point was that A.C.Skraeling said that criticism is accepted within some boundaries, or when expressed in suitable terms.
I did misread some parts of your original comment. I thought you were saying that criticizing WWOTF was itself an example of criticism that is beyond the bounds Skraeling was describing. But I now see that you were not saying this. My apologies. (I have crossed out the part of my comment that is affected by this misreading.)
Regarding Hoel’s review, you seem to have read my point as being that it was particularly good or convincing to EAs, which is incorrect.
That is not how I read your point. I interpreted you as saying that the quality of the book review justified higher karma than it received (which is confirmed by your reply). My comment was meant to argue against this point, by highlighting some serious blunders and sloppy reasoning by the author that probably justify the low rating. (-12 karma is appropriate for a post of very low quality, in my opinion, and not just a trollish post.)
Regarding the Hoel piece, the fact that you highlighted the section you did and the way you analyzed it suggests to me you didn’t understand what his position was, and didn’t try particularly hard to do so. I don’t think you can truly judge whether his content is very low quality if you don’t understand it. Personally, I think he made some interesting points really engaging with some cores of EA, even if I disagree with much of what he said. I completely disagree that his content, separate from its language and tone towards EAs, is anywhere near very low quality, certainly nowhere near −12. If you want to understand his views better, I found his comments replying to his piece on why he’s not an EA illuminating, such as his response to my attempted summary of his position. But we can agree to disagree.
Edit note: I significantly edited the part of this comment talking about Hoel’s piece within a few hours of posting with the aim of greater clarity.
I did misread some parts of your original comment. I thought you were saying that criticizing WWOTF was itself an example of criticism that is beyond the bounds Skraeling was describing. But I now see that you were not saying this. My apologies. (I have crossed out the part of my comment that is affected by this misreading.)
That is not how I read your point. I interpreted you as saying that the quality of the book review justified higher karma than it received (which is confirmed by your reply). My comment was meant to argue against this point, by highlighting some serious blunders and sloppy reasoning by the author that probably justify the low rating. (-12 karma is appropriate for a post of very low quality, in my opinion, and not just a trollish post.)
Thanks for the retraction.
Regarding the Hoel piece, the fact that you highlighted the section you did and the way you analyzed it suggests to me you didn’t understand what his position was, and didn’t try particularly hard to do so. I don’t think you can truly judge whether his content is very low quality if you don’t understand it. Personally, I think he made some interesting points really engaging with some cores of EA, even if I disagree with much of what he said. I completely disagree that his content, separate from its language and tone towards EAs, is anywhere near very low quality, certainly nowhere near −12. If you want to understand his views better, I found his comments replying to his piece on why he’s not an EA illuminating, such as his response to my attempted summary of his position. But we can agree to disagree.
Edit note: I significantly edited the part of this comment talking about Hoel’s piece within a few hours of posting with the aim of greater clarity.