I wished that the initial comment had been more specific given the user’s status and the tone of the criticism (when I put myself in the author’s shoes, I could imagine being baffled, since the tone of “my” post was relatively tame by the standards of most online discussion spaces).
I downvoted that comment, because I didn’t see the explanation as helpful to the author and I want to discourage comments that attack an author’s motivations without evidence (“you are clearly deciding against both of these”—I wouldn’t call the post “kind”, but it seemed reasonably curious to me in that it closely engaged with Tristan’s work and acknowledged that he had achieved some of his aims, with plausibly good results).
I thought the third comment was really helpful, and is exactly what I hoped to see from the first comment. I upvoted it. Highlighting specific passages is great; it was also nice to see language like “I read X as the author intending Y” rather than “by X, the author intended Y”.
As for the post itself, I chose not to vote, as I was caught between upvoting and downvoting. I also objected to elements of the author’s tone, but I thought the content was a useful counterpoint to a widely-experienced piece of EA content and provided enough specific arguments for commentators to engage productively.
My reaction was similar to Akash’s.
I wished that the initial comment had been more specific given the user’s status and the tone of the criticism (when I put myself in the author’s shoes, I could imagine being baffled, since the tone of “my” post was relatively tame by the standards of most online discussion spaces).
I downvoted that comment, because I didn’t see the explanation as helpful to the author and I want to discourage comments that attack an author’s motivations without evidence (“you are clearly deciding against both of these”—I wouldn’t call the post “kind”, but it seemed reasonably curious to me in that it closely engaged with Tristan’s work and acknowledged that he had achieved some of his aims, with plausibly good results).
I thought the third comment was really helpful, and is exactly what I hoped to see from the first comment. I upvoted it. Highlighting specific passages is great; it was also nice to see language like “I read X as the author intending Y” rather than “by X, the author intended Y”.
As for the post itself, I chose not to vote, as I was caught between upvoting and downvoting. I also objected to elements of the author’s tone, but I thought the content was a useful counterpoint to a widely-experienced piece of EA content and provided enough specific arguments for commentators to engage productively.