I expect that people interpreted the “You are clearly deciding against both of these” as an unkind/uncharitable phrase, since it reads like an accusation of deliberate wrongdoing. I expect that, if you’d instead said something like “Parts of your post seem unnecessarily inflammatory”, then it wouldn’t have received such a negative response.
I also personally tend to interpret the kindness guidelines as being primarily about how to engage with people who are on the forum, or who are likely to read forum posts. Of course we shouldn’t be rude in general, but it seems significantly less bad to critique external literature harshly than to directly critique people harshly.
I agree that the kindness guidelines are largely related to community management. I also think they apply more weakly to public figures than to other people who aren’t active on the Forum. When someone who has a Netflix special and influence over millions of listeners is making ostensibly bad/deceptive arguments, the stakes are higher than usual, and I’m more likely to think that criticism is valuable enough that even “unkind” responses are net-valuable.
That said, all of this is contextual; if people began to violate the norm more often, moderation would crack down more to arrest the slide. I haven’t seen this happening.
I expect that people interpreted the “You are clearly deciding against both of these” as an unkind/uncharitable phrase, since it reads like an accusation of deliberate wrongdoing. I expect that, if you’d instead said something like “Parts of your post seem unnecessarily inflammatory”, then it wouldn’t have received such a negative response.
I also personally tend to interpret the kindness guidelines as being primarily about how to engage with people who are on the forum, or who are likely to read forum posts. Of course we shouldn’t be rude in general, but it seems significantly less bad to critique external literature harshly than to directly critique people harshly.
I agree that the kindness guidelines are largely related to community management. I also think they apply more weakly to public figures than to other people who aren’t active on the Forum. When someone who has a Netflix special and influence over millions of listeners is making ostensibly bad/deceptive arguments, the stakes are higher than usual, and I’m more likely to think that criticism is valuable enough that even “unkind” responses are net-valuable.
That said, all of this is contextual; if people began to violate the norm more often, moderation would crack down more to arrest the slide. I haven’t seen this happening.