a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by empty

You're not guilty by association, and I want to make a special point about this. I feel an ethical imperative to block people who associate with the True Guilty, such as Grendel. Without doing this, the problem of Grendel's creeping corruption of the hubski community will not be solved. He will have a second-order influence on the hubski zeitgeist through people like you who continue to interact with him. This is why I regretfully embrace the concept of collateral damage.

I share things that spawn decent discussions. Grendel does not do that. He is intentionally trolling the community. You are right that he takes an opposite view. He does this on purpose. I know his type. There can be no leeway for people like him, especially during such a critical moment in a community's history, with so many new users joining the site.

New users will see the things Grendel says, and even though they will see that he's 80% against the hubski zeitgeist, they'll think his behavior is maybe 15% permissible. So they'll maybe act in a 5%, or even only 2% way similar to him. But this error compounds and gets bigger and bigger as more users flood in. This is how Eternal September ruins communities. This is why reddit turned into a stupid parody of itself.

Grendel's behavior is 100% unacceptable. I don't want to have anything to do with him. I want my social graph to keep him 7 nodes away from me, not 2. If I don't block people who follow Grendel, then Grendel is right there, lurking right outside my vision, influencing my filter bubble through you and others like you.

I don't want Grendel to have any influence on my filter bubble at all. I don't want him to be a part of the community that I'm a part of. Hubski lets me tailor my community, and I am the sort of person who is willing to cut away some of the good flesh of the fruit to get rid of 100% of the rot.

I am morally opposed to blocking you, but I feel it is ethically necessary unless you stop following Grendel.





RicePaddy  ·  3416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

First and foremost: I am not following Grendel. He was the first person to follow me on Hubski, so he held a special place in my heart... Until I saw he spent most of his time posting a shit-ton of flame bait and filling my feed up with bullshit.

In any case, a lot of what you're saying is genuinely pretty scary.

    ... block people who associate with the True Guilty, such as Grendel.

    ... you and others like you
Am I the only one who thinks this reads like I'm part of some group of scumbags?

    You're not guilty by association, and I want to make a special point about this... I am morally opposed to blocking you, but I feel it is ethically necessary unless you stop following Grendel.
I'm finding it difficult to find the part where this isn't guilt by association.

And this comment you made a little bit up there is fairly... Extreme, to say the least.

In any case, I'm not saying you're wrong or that you don't have a point; however you sound just as consumed in hatred as Grendel does when he's having a good day. Even to the point where you're willing to throw others under the bus (who aren't even associated with him, by the way!) on account of your hatred for him.

I was looking through your profile, and to be honest you seem like a sound enough fellow when you're not discussing Grendel. Honestly, if I stumbled across your profile in any other circumstance I would actually follow you (I'm struggling to learn Python, and have a passing interest in Philosophy. Currently started reading the Republic actually).

In any case, if you feel you have to block people who have associated with Grendel, then by all means do your thing. However, just my 2 cents: be careful that you don't turn into the evil you're trying to stomp out. Good luck!

tla  ·  3416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The thing is, I can't know when or if you're going to become Grendel Jr. I have to hope you won't, but I can't trust you.

RicePaddy  ·  3416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Jeez, I thought I was pretty amicable bloke.

I remember the discussion I had with you, but I thought it was actually fairly level-headed. I remember it heating up toward the end, but I left it before it got out of hand.

Can you outline why it is that you think this is the case? I'd like to try and put the record straight with people who may have it out for me. Feel free to fire me a PM so we don't clog up people's global chatter!

tla  ·  3416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't have it out for you. You're not blocked, muted, filtered or hushed. I just can't trust you, but since I haven't blocked you, I don't act on this lack of trust because of social pressure (aka zomgcensorship!!1!!11!!!!eleventy!!!).

Ok see the thing is, I'm a woman on The Internet. (The following isn't exclusive to gender, as eightbitsamurai has pointed out about a million times in the past. It's just relevant to my experience.)

The overwhelmingly common assertions are that I should stop being on The Internet if I don't like it when someone threatens my actual existence.

If you flip out and I get threatened by you, the consensus is that it's my fault for participating in The Internet.

Therefore, I am responsible for what other people do to me.

Even if I wanted to put protections in place but was convinced to not.

The only acceptable protection I am allowed, is to never participate in The Internet.

This is what it's like to be on The Internet for some people. I don't make the rules. I just break them.

deepflows  ·  3416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

By that logic, wouldn't you need to mute everyone you don't already explicitly know and trust?

Entirely your own decision, though, of course. If for you, Hubski is about a trusted group of peers who share your idea of what the "Zeitgeist" should be, that's entirely your prerogative. That's the beauty of everyone only being their own moderator.

tla  ·  3416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If I want to feel safe, I should. But that's frowned upon so I compromise, and in doing so compromise the safety of my sanity.

empty  ·  3416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    First and foremost: I am not following Grendel. He was the first person to follow me on Hubski, so he held a special place in my heart... Until I saw he spent most of his time posting a shit-ton of flame bait and filling my feed up with bullshit.

Cool, then I'll follow you.

    He was the first person to follow me on Hubski, so he held a special place in my heart...

This is what he does to lure the unwary. He wants to be the first impression to new users of "the typical hubski user". By being the first person to follow new users, he shapes their impression of hubski forever more.

    You're not guilty by association, and I want to make a special point about this... I am morally opposed to blocking you, but I feel it is ethically necessary unless you stop following Grendel. I'm finding it difficult to find the part where this isn't guilt by association.

It isn't guilt by association because I'm not making any judgement about you, morally or otherwise. I don't think you've done anything deserving of punishment in your own right.

    you're willing to throw others under the bus

You equate "ignoring someone" with "throwing them under the bus". If I block you, all I'm doing is curating my hubski experience.

Hubski, like Reddit, is sort of the opposite of an RSS feed reader. Rather than opting in to get a stream of content from a bunch of different sources, we start with unfiltered everything and have to cut it down. I'm not denying you your hubski experience. I'm just choosing to not allow you to be part of mine. That's my right, and that's nothing to do with hate.