There’s no debate over the definition of a castle: Wytham Abbey is not a castle (it is not a form of military fortification). Roughly, Wytham Abbey is a castle in the way that an underground eco-house is a nuclear bunker. Which is to say: not at all (it’s not some mere technicality that makes it not a castle; it is radically not a castle). There is no debate about definition to be had here.
So I’m not having a debate about definition; I’m noting a misrepresentation. I agree that the optics issue is already lost. I also think that we should not be misrepresenting things on the forum, and I think this misrepresentation is not totally irrelevant.
To give a comparison: I think calling Wytham Abbey a castle it’s roughly as big a misrepresentation as claiming that Wytham Abbey cost £80 million rather than £15 million. A castle is a much more expensive, much rarer structure than a mansion (which is basically what Wytham Abbey would be accurately described as: a mansion).
As noted, I agree that the optics battle is lost, but I find it a little odd that people seem to think it’s totally irrelevant that a comment misrepresented things in a way that radically overstates the case (a castle owned by Elizabeth I is more than an order of magnitude more ostentatious than a manor house visited by Elizabeth I). This sort of misrepresentation is not good epistemics (just as it would be bad if a forum comment misstated the price as being £80 million and it would be reasonable to correct this misstatement).
My statement is the following: let’s just represent things correctly and then have the perfectly reasonable discussion from that starting point. If £15 million is too much to spend, let’s say that (rather than discussing whether £80 million is too much to spend). If a manor house is the wrong thing to buy, let’s say that (rather than discussing whether it would be wrong to buy Elizabeth I’s castle).
It’s entirely reasonable to say, as a normative claim, that people should be accurate in reporting.
But when you are thinking about reputational impact of a choice you should be examining not just what the reaction would be to strictly accurate reporting, but how people operating in bad faith could easily represent it, or how good faith people could misinterpret it. Whether they should or not is irrelevant to the predictable consequences.
There’s no debate over the definition of a castle: Wytham Abbey is not a castle (it is not a form of military fortification). Roughly, Wytham Abbey is a castle in the way that an underground eco-house is a nuclear bunker. Which is to say: not at all (it’s not some mere technicality that makes it not a castle; it is radically not a castle). There is no debate about definition to be had here.
So I’m not having a debate about definition; I’m noting a misrepresentation. I agree that the optics issue is already lost. I also think that we should not be misrepresenting things on the forum, and I think this misrepresentation is not totally irrelevant.
To give a comparison: I think calling Wytham Abbey a castle it’s roughly as big a misrepresentation as claiming that Wytham Abbey cost £80 million rather than £15 million. A castle is a much more expensive, much rarer structure than a mansion (which is basically what Wytham Abbey would be accurately described as: a mansion).
As noted, I agree that the optics battle is lost, but I find it a little odd that people seem to think it’s totally irrelevant that a comment misrepresented things in a way that radically overstates the case (a castle owned by Elizabeth I is more than an order of magnitude more ostentatious than a manor house visited by Elizabeth I). This sort of misrepresentation is not good epistemics (just as it would be bad if a forum comment misstated the price as being £80 million and it would be reasonable to correct this misstatement).
My statement is the following: let’s just represent things correctly and then have the perfectly reasonable discussion from that starting point. If £15 million is too much to spend, let’s say that (rather than discussing whether £80 million is too much to spend). If a manor house is the wrong thing to buy, let’s say that (rather than discussing whether it would be wrong to buy Elizabeth I’s castle).
It’s entirely reasonable to say, as a normative claim, that people should be accurate in reporting.
But when you are thinking about reputational impact of a choice you should be examining not just what the reaction would be to strictly accurate reporting, but how people operating in bad faith could easily represent it, or how good faith people could misinterpret it. Whether they should or not is irrelevant to the predictable consequences.