What, exactly, do you expect NL to say to clarify that distinction
I expect them to say “advised”. This isn’t Twitter, and even on Twitter I myself use direct quotes as much as possible despite the increased length, for accuracy’s sake. Much of this situation was “(s)he said / she said” where a lot of the claims were about events that were never recorded. So how do we make judgements, then? Partly we rely on the reputations of everyone involved―but in the beginning Kat and Ben had good reputations while (after Ben’s post) Alice & Chloe were anonymous, with only Chloe appearing to have a good reputation. So what then? Well, the community verifies what it can. The miswordings were verifiable.
It reminds me of a weird final exam I once took, which was worth something like 2⁄3 of my total grade and had 10 questions. 9 were about material that wasn’t taught in the class at all! So I answered about 1.3 of the 10, and… got a B+ in the course! How?? Presumably the instructors realized they made a mistake afterward and couldn’t just fail everyone, so they graded people based on that one question and a few quizzes.
That’s kind of like this. When much of the story is invisible to us, we judge based on what’s visible. How can we do otherwise? So Kat could’ve taken advantage of that by posting an impeccable defense that functionally countered the original narrative. They suggested K&E lacked honesty? Well, Kat could demonstrate perfect honesty in all verifiable respects. They suggested K&E were retributive? Kat could’ve conveyed a strong sense of kindness. The fact that she didn’t do these things reads as her “real” personality showing. “A leopard can’t change its spots.”
but boy am I confused by your issue with my summarizing that paragraph with that quote
Sorry, it’s just that in the past I’ve talked to lots of climate dismissives and I’ve become sensitive to their many tactics even in unrelated situations. One of them is misquoting.
It sounds like what you would be more convinced by is a short, precise refutation of the exact things said by the original post.
But I feel the opposite. That to me would have felt corporate, and also is likely impossible given the way the original allegations are such a blend of verified factual assertions, combined with some things that are technically true but misleading, may be true but are hearsay, and some things that do seem directly false.
Rather than “retaliatory and unkind,” my main takeaway from the post was something like “passive-aggressive benefit of the doubt” at worst, while still overall giving me the impression that Kat believed Ben was well intentioned but reckless. There are some parts that border on or are bad faith, like presuming that Ben’s reactions to evidence against his conclusions must be X or Y thing to justify posting anyway...
But even given that, I think the readers insisting this post should have just stuck to sterile fact-disputing can be both correct on some level, while still lacking in empathy of what it’s like to be in the position NL has been put in. I’m not saying it’s a perfect post, but the degree of tone policing in the face of claims like “they starved me” is kind of bizarre to me.
Sorry, it’s just that in the past I’ve talked to lots of climate dismissives and I’ve become sensitive to their many tactics even in unrelated situations. One of them is misquoting.
I care about the strict facts and I want to know how to contextualize the things that there’s no way for them to refute by simple “no we didn’t.”
While I agree that these are both helpful, I would have been most excited to see a clear separation between careful direct refutations (“here are several clear examples where Ben’s post contained demonstrably false claims”) and fuzzier context (“here is an explanation why this specific claim from Ben’s post, while arguably literally true, is pretty misleading”).
I expect them to say “advised”. This isn’t Twitter, and even on Twitter I myself use direct quotes as much as possible despite the increased length, for accuracy’s sake. Much of this situation was “(s)he said / she said” where a lot of the claims were about events that were never recorded. So how do we make judgements, then? Partly we rely on the reputations of everyone involved―but in the beginning Kat and Ben had good reputations while (after Ben’s post) Alice & Chloe were anonymous, with only Chloe appearing to have a good reputation. So what then? Well, the community verifies what it can. The miswordings were verifiable.
It reminds me of a weird final exam I once took, which was worth something like 2⁄3 of my total grade and had 10 questions. 9 were about material that wasn’t taught in the class at all! So I answered about 1.3 of the 10, and… got a B+ in the course! How?? Presumably the instructors realized they made a mistake afterward and couldn’t just fail everyone, so they graded people based on that one question and a few quizzes.
That’s kind of like this. When much of the story is invisible to us, we judge based on what’s visible. How can we do otherwise? So Kat could’ve taken advantage of that by posting an impeccable defense that functionally countered the original narrative. They suggested K&E lacked honesty? Well, Kat could demonstrate perfect honesty in all verifiable respects. They suggested K&E were retributive? Kat could’ve conveyed a strong sense of kindness. The fact that she didn’t do these things reads as her “real” personality showing. “A leopard can’t change its spots.”
Sorry, it’s just that in the past I’ve talked to lots of climate dismissives and I’ve become sensitive to their many tactics even in unrelated situations. One of them is misquoting.
It sounds like what you would be more convinced by is a short, precise refutation of the exact things said by the original post.
But I feel the opposite. That to me would have felt corporate, and also is likely impossible given the way the original allegations are such a blend of verified factual assertions, combined with some things that are technically true but misleading, may be true but are hearsay, and some things that do seem directly false.
Rather than “retaliatory and unkind,” my main takeaway from the post was something like “passive-aggressive benefit of the doubt” at worst, while still overall giving me the impression that Kat believed Ben was well intentioned but reckless. There are some parts that border on or are bad faith, like presuming that Ben’s reactions to evidence against his conclusions must be X or Y thing to justify posting anyway...
But even given that, I think the readers insisting this post should have just stuck to sterile fact-disputing can be both correct on some level, while still lacking in empathy of what it’s like to be in the position NL has been put in. I’m not saying it’s a perfect post, but the degree of tone policing in the face of claims like “they starved me” is kind of bizarre to me.
No worries, very understandable!
While I agree that these are both helpful, I would have been most excited to see a clear separation between careful direct refutations (“here are several clear examples where Ben’s post contained demonstrably false claims”) and fuzzier context (“here is an explanation why this specific claim from Ben’s post, while arguably literally true, is pretty misleading”).
(But this is hard!)
Agreed that would have been better!