Stepping back a bit, I note that community norms seem underdeveloped and less clear on one specific fact pattern raised here. I decided to comment on that in hopes of obtaining a bit more clarity. More of this is at an abstract level rather than focused on the VettedCauses / Singeria interaction, although I will refer to it at times.
Conclusion up front: I don’t have a good sense of what norms should apply when the criticized organization and/or the critic need several weeks to prepare responses, but I don’t think they should generally be expected to treat them the same as a new post/criticism.
What Is the Default Norm for Responses and Replies?
The more common pattern, in my recollection, is that an organization will respond to a critical post within days to about a week, and there will often be back and forth between original critic and criticized as part of what we might call the continuing action[1] on the original post. My sense is that community norms do not expect any pre-publication notification for defenses / counter-criticisms that are within the scope of the original post and posted as part of the continuing action on the original post.
That approach makes sense to me. Expecting discussants to delay posting follow-up comments in the continuing action would significantly disrupt the flow of conversation, and it would allow criticisms (either of the organization or of the critic) to stay out there unanswered for longer than necessary. One of the possible rationales for the general notice norm—trying to time response preparation and discussion during a time at which they are less disruptive to key participants—is also less engaged here. The critic chose the time of the posting and thus to some extent when the continuing action would occur. The existence of the post provides the organization with at least notice that there might be continuing action soon, and its submission of a response is often the triggering event for a reply from the original critic. So any further posts in continuing action will at least be less of a blindside that a no-notice post is.
What Norms Should Apply When There Is An Extended Delay Prior to the Organization’s Response?
Here, we have a case in which the organization took a number of weeks to prepare a response / counter-criticism of VettedCauses. That is of course fine! But it means we have a response that was within the scope of the original post but not temporally part of the continuing action. Where the tone of the response is just polite disagreement, I think the continuing-action norm still fits well. However, I would not characterize Singeria’s response in that way—I read it as suggesting that VettedCauses was both unfair and not-very-competent.
Some of the reasons for not expecting notice to the other party for responses still apply here outside the continuing action. However, other considerations trend closer to the reasons for notice prior to an initial post. The authoring organization had several weeks to research and polish its counter-criticism, which creates an imbalance insofar as the critic may feel compelled to rush a reply to protect its reputation (for the same reasons an organization might feel that pressure on an original post). And the timing of when the counter-criticism lands could be rather inconvenient for the critic without advance warning. In my view, the critic has implicitly consented to no-notice countercriticism in the continuing action, but it’s hard to extend that to any arbitrary point in the future.
I think Singeria took a reasonable stance under the facts at hand in giving 24 hours’ advance notice of the response. In the abstract, I’d also like to see more information provided offline about when a response is expected, as well as earlier identification of some key cruxes in an offline communication. Even assuming these things didn’t happen here, I do think VettedCauses made this interaction adversarial earlier in the process, and so I would not fault Singeria for not feeling it could reasonably extend these courtesies. I merely mention them as part of what the process ideally should look like.
What Norms Should Apply to Subsequent Delayed Rounds?
Now, the original critic is about to post their reply to the organization’s response, which is also a response in defense of their research methodology in response to the organization’s criticism. Again, this seems somewhere between a reply in the continuing action and a new post in terms of setting expectations about advance notice and comment. At least in theory, the scope of what the responding organization needs to do should ordinarily diminish with each successive round of interactions. A response or reply is generally directed at the previous discussant’s submission to the conversation. So the surface to be addressed will often be smaller than the surface of an initial post, and the other discussant will have already have done much of the relevant background work in preparing the previous response.
This is an attempted gridiron football analogy; things that flow from the previous play and happen close in time to it are generally considered part of that play for rules-enforcement purposes. Things that are more logically and/or temporally removed are generally enforced separately (“between-downs”).
Stepping back a bit, I note that community norms seem underdeveloped and less clear on one specific fact pattern raised here. I decided to comment on that in hopes of obtaining a bit more clarity. More of this is at an abstract level rather than focused on the VettedCauses / Singeria interaction, although I will refer to it at times.
Conclusion up front: I don’t have a good sense of what norms should apply when the criticized organization and/or the critic need several weeks to prepare responses, but I don’t think they should generally be expected to treat them the same as a new post/criticism.
What Is the Default Norm for Responses and Replies?
The more common pattern, in my recollection, is that an organization will respond to a critical post within days to about a week, and there will often be back and forth between original critic and criticized as part of what we might call the continuing action[1] on the original post. My sense is that community norms do not expect any pre-publication notification for defenses / counter-criticisms that are within the scope of the original post and posted as part of the continuing action on the original post.
That approach makes sense to me. Expecting discussants to delay posting follow-up comments in the continuing action would significantly disrupt the flow of conversation, and it would allow criticisms (either of the organization or of the critic) to stay out there unanswered for longer than necessary. One of the possible rationales for the general notice norm—trying to time response preparation and discussion during a time at which they are less disruptive to key participants—is also less engaged here. The critic chose the time of the posting and thus to some extent when the continuing action would occur. The existence of the post provides the organization with at least notice that there might be continuing action soon, and its submission of a response is often the triggering event for a reply from the original critic. So any further posts in continuing action will at least be less of a blindside that a no-notice post is.
What Norms Should Apply When There Is An Extended Delay Prior to the Organization’s Response?
Here, we have a case in which the organization took a number of weeks to prepare a response / counter-criticism of VettedCauses. That is of course fine! But it means we have a response that was within the scope of the original post but not temporally part of the continuing action. Where the tone of the response is just polite disagreement, I think the continuing-action norm still fits well. However, I would not characterize Singeria’s response in that way—I read it as suggesting that VettedCauses was both unfair and not-very-competent.
Some of the reasons for not expecting notice to the other party for responses still apply here outside the continuing action. However, other considerations trend closer to the reasons for notice prior to an initial post. The authoring organization had several weeks to research and polish its counter-criticism, which creates an imbalance insofar as the critic may feel compelled to rush a reply to protect its reputation (for the same reasons an organization might feel that pressure on an original post). And the timing of when the counter-criticism lands could be rather inconvenient for the critic without advance warning. In my view, the critic has implicitly consented to no-notice countercriticism in the continuing action, but it’s hard to extend that to any arbitrary point in the future.
I think Singeria took a reasonable stance under the facts at hand in giving 24 hours’ advance notice of the response. In the abstract, I’d also like to see more information provided offline about when a response is expected, as well as earlier identification of some key cruxes in an offline communication. Even assuming these things didn’t happen here, I do think VettedCauses made this interaction adversarial earlier in the process, and so I would not fault Singeria for not feeling it could reasonably extend these courtesies. I merely mention them as part of what the process ideally should look like.
What Norms Should Apply to Subsequent Delayed Rounds?
Now, the original critic is about to post their reply to the organization’s response, which is also a response in defense of their research methodology in response to the organization’s criticism. Again, this seems somewhere between a reply in the continuing action and a new post in terms of setting expectations about advance notice and comment. At least in theory, the scope of what the responding organization needs to do should ordinarily diminish with each successive round of interactions. A response or reply is generally directed at the previous discussant’s submission to the conversation. So the surface to be addressed will often be smaller than the surface of an initial post, and the other discussant will have already have done much of the relevant background work in preparing the previous response.
This is an attempted gridiron football analogy; things that flow from the previous play and happen close in time to it are generally considered part of that play for rules-enforcement purposes. Things that are more logically and/or temporally removed are generally enforced separately (“between-downs”).