Note to Israelis who may be reading this: I did not upvote/downvote this post and I do not intent to vote on such posts going forward. I think you should do the same.
You’re free to vote (or refrain from voting) how you want, but the suggestion to others feels illiberal to me in a way that I think is problematic. Would you also suggest that any Palestinians reading this post refrain from voting on it? (Or, going a step further, would you suggest Kenyan EAs refrain from voting on posts about GiveDirectly?) Personally, I think both Israeli EAs and Palestinian EAs should feel comfortable voting on posts like this, and I’d worry about the norms in the community if we tell people not to vote/otherwise voice their perspective based on demographics (even more so if these suggestions are asymmetrical instead of universal).
I think the general question about voting norms w.r.t. conflicts of interest—and the more specific questions that are relevant here—are important and very hard, and I don’t think I currently have good/well-thought-through answers.
My current, tentative perspective/intuition/feelings on this is something like:
The point of this forum is to do good effectively. If the karma of a post on a sensitive topic is determined mostly by, say, the number of Israelis vs. number of Palestinians that are involved in the EA community (and have access to electricity + internet), that seems like a problem.
Voting on a post helps to organize the Frontpage — it’s a signal of what you think would be useful for others to read in order to do more good — and provides feedback to the poster.
But then the guide lists things that users should not do, followed by the sentence “Other than that, you can vote using your preferred criteria.” That list of things that users should not do does not seem to cover things like [casting votes that promote international legitimacy for the actions of my government in a deadly conflict that I have extreme emotions about].
Take for example this post titled “I’m a Former Israeli Officer. AMA”. It seems to me reasonable to describe what the author did in that AMA as an attempt to promote ‘pro-Israel propaganda’. So far the author never wrote anything on this forum (from that account) outside that AMA. That post currently has 64 karma points. Should Israelis feel welcome to strong-upvote such posts?
Finally, another relevant consideration: If we ask people to (not) vote in a particular way, but then we do not enforce that request, we can end up in a situation where only some users—ones that are more scrupulous than others—adhere to the request.
You’re free to vote (or refrain from voting) how you want, but the suggestion to others feels illiberal to me in a way that I think is problematic. Would you also suggest that any Palestinians reading this post refrain from voting on it? (Or, going a step further, would you suggest Kenyan EAs refrain from voting on posts about GiveDirectly?) Personally, I think both Israeli EAs and Palestinian EAs should feel comfortable voting on posts like this, and I’d worry about the norms in the community if we tell people not to vote/otherwise voice their perspective based on demographics (even more so if these suggestions are asymmetrical instead of universal).
I think the general question about voting norms w.r.t. conflicts of interest—and the more specific questions that are relevant here—are important and very hard, and I don’t think I currently have good/well-thought-through answers.
My current, tentative perspective/intuition/feelings on this is something like:
In the Guide to norms on the Forum (that is linked to from the about page) there is a section called Voting norm. It says:
But then the guide lists things that users should not do, followed by the sentence “Other than that, you can vote using your preferred criteria.” That list of things that users should not do does not seem to cover things like [casting votes that promote international legitimacy for the actions of my government in a deadly conflict that I have extreme emotions about].
Take for example this post titled “I’m a Former Israeli Officer. AMA”. It seems to me reasonable to describe what the author did in that AMA as an attempt to promote ‘pro-Israel propaganda’. So far the author never wrote anything on this forum (from that account) outside that AMA. That post currently has 64 karma points. Should Israelis feel welcome to strong-upvote such posts?
Finally, another relevant consideration: If we ask people to (not) vote in a particular way, but then we do not enforce that request, we can end up in a situation where only some users—ones that are more scrupulous than others—adhere to the request.