There are some references here to the community health teamâs practices that we think arenât fully accurate. You can see more here about how we typically handle situations where we hear an accusation (or multiple accusations) and donât have permission to discuss it with the accused.
Sorry, but I have (re)read that link and I donât see how anything we said was in conflict with each other. Perhaps I didnât word it well. Or am I misunderstanding you? If you could give some hard numbers like, only X% of complaints end up being handled anonymously, and of those, in Z% the complaints end up being unactionable and we just give a listening ear, and only in Y% do anonymous complaints end up being held against the person and meaningfully effecting their lives, then maybe I can agree I made the extent of the dilemma sound overblown. Iâm also aware that other tactics come with their own dilemmas. I just wanted to acknowledge that there is a dilemma and that I am not a ânever deanonymizeâ type of person before I made some other points.
Reading your link I felt it was not in conflict because: In the case where many people give complaints about Steve, not a single person was willing to have their concerns discussed in detail with him (out of fear that details would reveal them I suppose), let alone be deanonymized by name. So it does sound like EAs like to make complaints in (what Iâd call) âextreme anonymityâ by âdefaultâ and tbh that matches my social and cultural model of EAs. And in the next section you say that your policy is to be even more protective of confidentiality than some communities like universities. And you do make some decisions based on those things you might never fully discuss with the other party. You call them âcompromisesâ but some are major reactions which could be EA-career-ending. Actually I find it hard to consider what other worse actions remain other than calling the police, writing a public expose about them, or messaging their employer out of the blue. So I donât think it is going too far to say that maybe CEA could be too protective of anonymity, as you acknowledge your behavior can, at least sometimes, be abnormal or counter to what people would expect in other institutions.
In my view, it might be one of those cases where general society or others landed on the right institutional practices, but we EAs are naive in our tradeoff considerations by trying to use different systems, or draw the line of deanonymizing at different degrees. I donât think this is a bold possibility. I expect you disagree with the idea that CH could be too protective of anonymity. Maybe most EAs would. But itâs a natural thing we can look at and not avert our eyes from that possibility. Thatâs all I wanted to say.
Iâd also like to clarify that I was not trying to be harsh on CH and drag you all in with what I wrote. These are hard problems. I was merely trying to write an introduction I felt took seriously and related to the feelings of people who do want Alice and Chloe doxxed, and show how I understand and sympathize with that perspective very much, and then go from there to discuss why I wouldnât be in favor of doxxing even in this case that so many are shocked by. I am mostly bullish on the CH team which is why in my âshort answerâ section, I claimed that EAs should mostly defer to the CH team on this issue.
Hm I guess thatâs true. I guess I thought it went without saying that it would be when people want anonymity, I didnât imagine there could be an alternative where CH removes names even if the complainant doesnât request it. That would indeed be worse and a true âdefaultâ and I hope no one took that as what I meant.
But I think CH asks complainants what degree of anonymity and detail-sharing they are comfortable with by default. And I think a lot of people ask them to not give details, and by default CH does defer to that preference to what might be an abnormal extent, such that anonymity may be functionally the default in our culture and their dealings. But yeah I guess I wonder about hard numbers. It is striking to me that not one person was willing to have the details of the incident shared with Steve though
I assumed the mock-incident was just meant to illustrate how it might arise that someone doesnât get full information, and itâs easier to get that point across if you have it as everyone requesting anonymity.
On the real world point, I do agree that if what happens is something like âCEA: do you want anonymity? Complainant: uh sure, might as wellâ, then that seems suboptimal. Though Iâm not sure I could come up with any system thatâs better overall.
Fair, that is a mock incident, but I donât see that aspect as being dramatized or anything. Fwiw I have known multiple people whose experiences basically matched Steveâs.
I just think if we are going to talk about doxxing Alice and Chloe we might want to think what it might look like if they had gone elsewhere, or what it might look like in the future if they unduly report others. And as a community I think it must be reckoned with why some people feel upset right now at the protection that reporters face when accused get so few protections, not even the protection to know details of the claims against them. And a cultural standard where names of people who make provably false accusations are revealed could protect all of us. So I think it is worth reckoning with. Even though I came out supporting non-doxxing in this case
I think itâs important to separate out how CH handled the allegations vs how Ben did. IMO CHâs actions (banning presenting at EAG but not attending, recommending a contract be used) were quite measured, and of a completely different magnitude than making public anonymous allegations. And I think this whole situation would have been significantly improved if Ben had adopted CEAâs policy of not taking further actions if restrictions are requested.
There are some references here to the community health teamâs practices that we think arenât fully accurate. You can see more here about how we typically handle situations where we hear an accusation (or multiple accusations) and donât have permission to discuss it with the accused.
Sorry, but I have (re)read that link and I donât see how anything we said was in conflict with each other. Perhaps I didnât word it well. Or am I misunderstanding you? If you could give some hard numbers like, only X% of complaints end up being handled anonymously, and of those, in Z% the complaints end up being unactionable and we just give a listening ear, and only in Y% do anonymous complaints end up being held against the person and meaningfully effecting their lives, then maybe I can agree I made the extent of the dilemma sound overblown. Iâm also aware that other tactics come with their own dilemmas. I just wanted to acknowledge that there is a dilemma and that I am not a ânever deanonymizeâ type of person before I made some other points.
Reading your link I felt it was not in conflict because: In the case where many people give complaints about Steve, not a single person was willing to have their concerns discussed in detail with him (out of fear that details would reveal them I suppose), let alone be deanonymized by name. So it does sound like EAs like to make complaints in (what Iâd call) âextreme anonymityâ by âdefaultâ and tbh that matches my social and cultural model of EAs. And in the next section you say that your policy is to be even more protective of confidentiality than some communities like universities. And you do make some decisions based on those things you might never fully discuss with the other party. You call them âcompromisesâ but some are major reactions which could be EA-career-ending. Actually I find it hard to consider what other worse actions remain other than calling the police, writing a public expose about them, or messaging their employer out of the blue. So I donât think it is going too far to say that maybe CEA could be too protective of anonymity, as you acknowledge your behavior can, at least sometimes, be abnormal or counter to what people would expect in other institutions.
In my view, it might be one of those cases where general society or others landed on the right institutional practices, but we EAs are naive in our tradeoff considerations by trying to use different systems, or draw the line of deanonymizing at different degrees. I donât think this is a bold possibility. I expect you disagree with the idea that CH could be too protective of anonymity. Maybe most EAs would. But itâs a natural thing we can look at and not avert our eyes from that possibility. Thatâs all I wanted to say.
Iâd also like to clarify that I was not trying to be harsh on CH and drag you all in with what I wrote. These are hard problems. I was merely trying to write an introduction I felt took seriously and related to the feelings of people who do want Alice and Chloe doxxed, and show how I understand and sympathize with that perspective very much, and then go from there to discuss why I wouldnât be in favor of doxxing even in this case that so many are shocked by. I am mostly bullish on the CH team which is why in my âshort answerâ section, I claimed that EAs should mostly defer to the CH team on this issue.
You make a lot of fair points here, and weâve grappled with these questions a lot.
Well the first thing that stands out to me is you donât specify that the anonymity occurs only if the complainant requests it
Hm I guess thatâs true. I guess I thought it went without saying that it would be when people want anonymity, I didnât imagine there could be an alternative where CH removes names even if the complainant doesnât request it. That would indeed be worse and a true âdefaultâ and I hope no one took that as what I meant.
But I think CH asks complainants what degree of anonymity and detail-sharing they are comfortable with by default. And I think a lot of people ask them to not give details, and by default CH does defer to that preference to what might be an abnormal extent, such that anonymity may be functionally the default in our culture and their dealings. But yeah I guess I wonder about hard numbers. It is striking to me that not one person was willing to have the details of the incident shared with Steve though
I assumed the mock-incident was just meant to illustrate how it might arise that someone doesnât get full information, and itâs easier to get that point across if you have it as everyone requesting anonymity.
On the real world point, I do agree that if what happens is something like âCEA: do you want anonymity? Complainant: uh sure, might as wellâ, then that seems suboptimal. Though Iâm not sure I could come up with any system thatâs better overall.
Fair, that is a mock incident, but I donât see that aspect as being dramatized or anything. Fwiw I have known multiple people whose experiences basically matched Steveâs.
I just think if we are going to talk about doxxing Alice and Chloe we might want to think what it might look like if they had gone elsewhere, or what it might look like in the future if they unduly report others. And as a community I think it must be reckoned with why some people feel upset right now at the protection that reporters face when accused get so few protections, not even the protection to know details of the claims against them. And a cultural standard where names of people who make provably false accusations are revealed could protect all of us. So I think it is worth reckoning with. Even though I came out supporting non-doxxing in this case
I think itâs important to separate out how CH handled the allegations vs how Ben did. IMO CHâs actions (banning presenting at EAG but not attending, recommending a contract be used) were quite measured, and of a completely different magnitude than making public anonymous allegations. And I think this whole situation would have been significantly improved if Ben had adopted CEAâs policy of not taking further actions if restrictions are requested.