We’re issuing a warning for this comment for breaking our Forum norm on civility. We don’t think it was meant to be insulting, based on Linch’s previous Twitter poll (created months ago) and the fact that he himself is not a native speaker. However, we think the stark difference between the Twitter poll and responses here shows that this comment was widely taken as insulting, even if that wasn’t the intent. (I certainly saw it that way before reading the Twitter poll.)
A subsequent comment (“I at least made an effort to understand the language when I immigrated”) was more obviously an attack on titotal, and contributed to this warning.
Linch is an extremely active Forum user whose contributions have been vastly beneficial on net, and this strikes us as an uncharacteristic lapse. A warning doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t been a valuable member of the Forum; however, being a valuable member of the Forum doesn’t insulate someone from moderator action in cases like this.
On the constructive side, it’s hard to say what a “better” version of this comment would have looked like; even comments like “I think there may be a language barrier” still imply something along the lines of “you understand me so poorly that I think you may not be fluent in English”.
In the end, we think the best response to a confusing argument is to engage at the points of confusion (if that seems worthwhile), or ignore it (if not).
Another member of our team drafted these sample comments — not as “you should have said exactly X”, but “here’s one shape a better response could have taken”:
Engaging:
From your comment, you seem to think I’m arguing that public investigation is net harmful because the individual cost outweighs the collective benefit. That’s not my argument. Instead, I think that the collective benefit would be higher if someone took the time/energy spent on one public investigation and used it for many private investigations, because private investigations can also be valuable and are much easier to conduct.
It’s important to compare action not just to the null case (“is this better than nothing?”), but also to other possible actions (“is this the best way to handle problem X?”).
Does that response make sense? Did I misread your objection?
Ignoring:
This comment doesn’t address my argument; I think you may have misunderstood me. I don’t plan to engage further.
We’re issuing a warning for this comment for breaking our Forum norm on civility. We don’t think it was meant to be insulting, based on Linch’s previous Twitter poll (created months ago) and the fact that he himself is not a native speaker. However, we think the stark difference between the Twitter poll and responses here shows that this comment was widely taken as insulting, even if that wasn’t the intent. (I certainly saw it that way before reading the Twitter poll.)
A subsequent comment (“I at least made an effort to understand the language when I immigrated”) was more obviously an attack on titotal, and contributed to this warning.
Linch is an extremely active Forum user whose contributions have been vastly beneficial on net, and this strikes us as an uncharacteristic lapse. A warning doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t been a valuable member of the Forum; however, being a valuable member of the Forum doesn’t insulate someone from moderator action in cases like this.
We feel grateful to the community for responding productively to this situation.
On the constructive side, it’s hard to say what a “better” version of this comment would have looked like; even comments like “I think there may be a language barrier” still imply something along the lines of “you understand me so poorly that I think you may not be fluent in English”.
In the end, we think the best response to a confusing argument is to engage at the points of confusion (if that seems worthwhile), or ignore it (if not).
Another member of our team drafted these sample comments — not as “you should have said exactly X”, but “here’s one shape a better response could have taken”:
Engaging:
Ignoring: