I’m glad you made your post about how Kathy’s accusations were false. I believe that was the right thing to do—certainly given the information you had available.
But I wish you had left this sentence out, or written it more carefully:
But they wouldn’t do that, I’m guessing because they were all terrified of getting called out in posts like this one.
It was obvious to me reading this post that the author made a really serious effort to stay constructive. (Thanks for that, Maya!) It seems to me that we should recognize that, and you’re erasing an important distinction when you categorize the OP with imprudent tumblr call-out posts.
If nothing else, no one is being called out by name here, and the author doesn’t link any of the tumblr posts and Reddit threads she refers to.
I don’t think causing reputational harm to any individual was the author’s intent in writing this. Fear of unfair individual reputational harm from what’s written here seems a bit unjustified.
EDIT: After some time to cool down, I’ve removed that sentence from the comment, and somewhat edited this comment which was originally defending it.
I do think the sentence was true. By that I mean that (this is just a guess, not something I know from specifically asking them) the main reason other people were unwilling to post the information they had, was because they were worried that someone would write a public essay saying “X doesn’t believe sexual assault victims” or “EA has a culture of doubting sexual assault victims”. And they all hoped someone else would go first to mention all the evidence that these particular rumors were untrue, so that that person could be the one to get flak over this for the rest of their life (which I have, so good prediction!), instead of them. I think there’s a culture of fear around these kinds of issues that it’s useful to bring to the foreground if we want to model them correctly.
But I think you’re gesturing at a point where if I appear to be implicitly criticizing Maya for bringing that up, fewer people will bring things like that up in the future, and even if this particular episode was false, many similar ones will be true, so her bringing it up is positive expected value, so I shouldn’t sound critical in any way that discourages future people from doing things like that.
Although it’s possible that the value gained by saying this true thing is higher than the value lost by potential chilling effects, I don’t want to claim to have an opinion on this, because in fact I wrote that comment feeling pretty triggered and upset, without any effective value calculations at all. Given that it did get heavily upvoted, I can see a stronger argument for the chilling effect part and will edit it out.
Thank you for both of your comments. I appreciate you explaining why you wrote a post about Kathy and I think it’s useful context for people to understand as they are thinking about these issues. My intention was not to call anybody out, rather, to point to a pattern of behavior that I observed and describe how it made me (and could make others) feel.
Hi Maya! Thank you for posting about your experience. I think it is a valuable to have this perspective and I’m sure it wasn’t easy to write and post publicly. I’m not sure if you reached out to Scott, but if you did and made any updates regarding your belief of Kathy Forth’s accusations, then I do think it would be very impactful if you could update your post to reflect that. It seems like this one part of your post triggered a lot of old trauma in the community and likely overshadowed the other concerns contained in the post. I believe an update (no matter in which direction) could really improve trust in the capacity for good-faith discussions around this difficult topic.
Thanks for your comment—for all who are interested, I did reach out to Scott and he provided me with an in-depth explanation of some of the context behind Kathy’s accusations and suicide. His explanation provided me with a deeper understanding of the situation and helped me realize that action was taken to check the validity of some of Kathy claims and that there was a more involved and nuanced response to the situation than I realized initially.
Hi Maya, glad to hear that that was the outcome of your deeper dive. If you’re comfortable, I think it might be good if you edited in a comment about this to your top-level post (and maybe that’s what Constance meant?), because a lot of people read posts but then don’t read the comments, and so they might not otherwise know you updated about this (very important-seeming, to me) question (like something like “Edit: after checking out some of the claims raised in the comments, I now think the situation was more like [whatever you think]”)
Yes updating and creating an “Edit:” right after point #4 would be the ideal place to put this update so that it reaches the most readers.
Maya, I’m glad that you talked to Scott and got more information. I hope that the deeper context has provided some reassurance to you that there exist parts of EA as a community that do care about the concerns of women and that there is a path available to change the culture.
I’m sorry you’ve gotten flak. I don’t think you deserve it. I think you did the right thing, and the silence of other people “in the know” doesn’t reflect particularly well on them. (Not in the sense that we should call them out, but in the sense that they should maybe think about whether they knowingly let a likely-innocent person suffer unjust reputation harm.)
I think there’s a culture of fear around these kinds of issues that it’s useful to bring to the foreground if we want to model them correctly.
Agreed. I think the culture of fear goes in both directions. Women often seem to fear making accusations.
But I think you’re gesturing at a point where if I appear to be implicitly criticizing Maya for bringing that up, fewer people will bring things like that up in the future, and even if this particular episode was false, many similar ones will be true, so her bringing it up is positive expected value, so I shouldn’t sound critical in any way that discourages future people from doing things like that.
Not what I was gesturing at, but potentially valid.
My thinking is that attempts to share info “in good faith” should not be punished, regardless of whether that info pushes towards condemnation vs exoneration. (We can debate what exactly counts as “good faith”, but I think it should be defined ~symmetrically for both types of info. I’d like more discussion of what constitutes “good faith”, and fewer implications that [call-outs/denials] are always bad. I’m open to super restrictive definitions of “good faith”, like “only share info with CEA’s community health team and trust them to take appropriate action” or similar.)
In any case, my main goal was to get you to reciprocate what I saw as the OP’s attempt to be less triggered/more constructive, so thanks for that.
I did not know Kathy well, but I did meet and talk with her at length on a number of occasions in EA/aligned spaces. We talked about cultural issues in the movement and for what it is worth, she came across as someone of good character, good judgement and measured takes.
I am not across the particulars of her accusations and I feel matters like this have a place, actual courts and not forums. I don’t think cherry picked criticisms of her claims are appropriate.
I think EA will continue to stumble on this issue, and our downfall as a movement will continue to be handling deontologicaly or virtuously abhorrent behaviour.
I think the author of this forum post has been points of great importance. In particular, their critique of the style of writing required to be taken seriously and understood in the manner intended, is novel.
I’m glad you made your post about how Kathy’s accusations were false. I believe that was the right thing to do—certainly given the information you had available.
But I wish you had left this sentence out, or written it more carefully:
It was obvious to me reading this post that the author made a really serious effort to stay constructive. (Thanks for that, Maya!) It seems to me that we should recognize that, and you’re erasing an important distinction when you categorize the OP with imprudent tumblr call-out posts.
If nothing else, no one is being called out by name here, and the author doesn’t link any of the tumblr posts and Reddit threads she refers to.
I don’t think causing reputational harm to any individual was the author’s intent in writing this. Fear of unfair individual reputational harm from what’s written here seems a bit unjustified.
EDIT: After some time to cool down, I’ve removed that sentence from the comment, and somewhat edited this comment which was originally defending it.
I do think the sentence was true. By that I mean that (this is just a guess, not something I know from specifically asking them) the main reason other people were unwilling to post the information they had, was because they were worried that someone would write a public essay saying “X doesn’t believe sexual assault victims” or “EA has a culture of doubting sexual assault victims”. And they all hoped someone else would go first to mention all the evidence that these particular rumors were untrue, so that that person could be the one to get flak over this for the rest of their life (which I have, so good prediction!), instead of them. I think there’s a culture of fear around these kinds of issues that it’s useful to bring to the foreground if we want to model them correctly.
But I think you’re gesturing at a point where if I appear to be implicitly criticizing Maya for bringing that up, fewer people will bring things like that up in the future, and even if this particular episode was false, many similar ones will be true, so her bringing it up is positive expected value, so I shouldn’t sound critical in any way that discourages future people from doing things like that.
Although it’s possible that the value gained by saying this true thing is higher than the value lost by potential chilling effects, I don’t want to claim to have an opinion on this, because in fact I wrote that comment feeling pretty triggered and upset, without any effective value calculations at all. Given that it did get heavily upvoted, I can see a stronger argument for the chilling effect part and will edit it out.
Hi Scott,
Thank you for both of your comments. I appreciate you explaining why you wrote a post about Kathy and I think it’s useful context for people to understand as they are thinking about these issues. My intention was not to call anybody out, rather, to point to a pattern of behavior that I observed and describe how it made me (and could make others) feel.
Hi Maya! Thank you for posting about your experience. I think it is a valuable to have this perspective and I’m sure it wasn’t easy to write and post publicly. I’m not sure if you reached out to Scott, but if you did and made any updates regarding your belief of Kathy Forth’s accusations, then I do think it would be very impactful if you could update your post to reflect that. It seems like this one part of your post triggered a lot of old trauma in the community and likely overshadowed the other concerns contained in the post. I believe an update (no matter in which direction) could really improve trust in the capacity for good-faith discussions around this difficult topic.
Hi Constance!
Thanks for your comment—for all who are interested, I did reach out to Scott and he provided me with an in-depth explanation of some of the context behind Kathy’s accusations and suicide. His explanation provided me with a deeper understanding of the situation and helped me realize that action was taken to check the validity of some of Kathy claims and that there was a more involved and nuanced response to the situation than I realized initially.
Hi Maya, glad to hear that that was the outcome of your deeper dive. If you’re comfortable, I think it might be good if you edited in a comment about this to your top-level post (and maybe that’s what Constance meant?), because a lot of people read posts but then don’t read the comments, and so they might not otherwise know you updated about this (very important-seeming, to me) question (like something like “Edit: after checking out some of the claims raised in the comments, I now think the situation was more like [whatever you think]”)
Yes updating and creating an “Edit:” right after point #4 would be the ideal place to put this update so that it reaches the most readers.
Maya, I’m glad that you talked to Scott and got more information. I hope that the deeper context has provided some reassurance to you that there exist parts of EA as a community that do care about the concerns of women and that there is a path available to change the culture.
Thanks for removing the sentence.
I’m sorry you’ve gotten flak. I don’t think you deserve it. I think you did the right thing, and the silence of other people “in the know” doesn’t reflect particularly well on them. (Not in the sense that we should call them out, but in the sense that they should maybe think about whether they knowingly let a likely-innocent person suffer unjust reputation harm.)
Agreed. I think the culture of fear goes in both directions. Women often seem to fear making accusations.
Not what I was gesturing at, but potentially valid.
My thinking is that attempts to share info “in good faith” should not be punished, regardless of whether that info pushes towards condemnation vs exoneration. (We can debate what exactly counts as “good faith”, but I think it should be defined ~symmetrically for both types of info. I’d like more discussion of what constitutes “good faith”, and fewer implications that [call-outs/denials] are always bad. I’m open to super restrictive definitions of “good faith”, like “only share info with CEA’s community health team and trust them to take appropriate action” or similar.)
In any case, my main goal was to get you to reciprocate what I saw as the OP’s attempt to be less triggered/more constructive, so thanks for that.
I did not know Kathy well, but I did meet and talk with her at length on a number of occasions in EA/aligned spaces. We talked about cultural issues in the movement and for what it is worth, she came across as someone of good character, good judgement and measured takes.
I am not across the particulars of her accusations and I feel matters like this have a place, actual courts and not forums. I don’t think cherry picked criticisms of her claims are appropriate.
I think EA will continue to stumble on this issue, and our downfall as a movement will continue to be handling deontologicaly or virtuously abhorrent behaviour.
I think the author of this forum post has been points of great importance. In particular, their critique of the style of writing required to be taken seriously and understood in the manner intended, is novel.