We're issuing @NobodyInteresting a warning for the above comment. The comment does not meet the expectations for civility and engaging in good faith. I would not recommend a public warning for this comment on it's own (though I would downvote it for the above reasons, and recommend a discrete DM), but we have less tolerance for users who have not yet shown that they can engage productively.

The moderation team is issuing @Eugenics-Adjacent a 6-month ban for flamebait and trolling.

I’ll note that Eugenics-Adjacent’s posts and comments have been mostly about pushing against what they see as EA groupthink. In banning them, I do feel a twinge of “huh, I hope I’m not making the Forum more like an echo chamber.” However, there are tradeoffs at play. “Overrun by flamebait and trolling” seems to be the default end state for most internet spaces: the Forum moderation team is committed to fighting against this default.

All in all, we think the ... (read more)

Update: this user returned to the Forum yesterday to re-post the same piece. I've banned that account as well. Bans affect the user, not the account. 

The moderators have reviewed the decision to ban @dstudioscode after users appealed the decision. Tl;dr: We are revoking the ban, and are instead rate-limiting dstudioscode and warning them to avoid posting content that could be perceived as advocating for major harm or illegal activities. The rate limit is due to dstudiocode’s pattern of engagement on the Forum, not simply because of their most recent post—for more on this, see the “third consideration” listed below.

More details:

Three moderators,^[1] none of whom was involved in the original... (read more)

I'm not sure either - there's some bug and I didn't manage to delete them. I've moved them to personal blog post and I'm alerting the technical team 

The closing sentence of this comment, “All in all, bad ideas, advocated by the intellectually weak, appealing mostly to the genetically subpar,” breaks our Forum norm against unnecessary rudeness or offensiveness.

The “genetically subpar” part is especially problematic. At best, it would appear that the commenter, John, is claiming that the post mainly appeals to the less intelligent—an unnecessarily rude and most likely false claim. A worse interpretation is that John is making a racist remark, which we view as strongly unacceptable.

Overall, we see th... (read more)

The moderators have removed personal information from the above comment. The Forum's policy is to allow anonymity, and even if you believe someone has misbehaved or misled, it is still not allowed to identify them or related parties.

We’re issuing SuperDuperForecasting a one-month ban for breaking strong Forum norms in several comments (1,2). Specifically:

• Intentionally misgendering someone (see more about how a moderator thinks about this here).
• Engaging in unnecessary rudeness and offensiveness. 

To be clear, I’m not commenting on the more complex questions discussed elsewhere in the thread, such as whether or when it’s appropriate to speculate about someone’s psychology. But I do want to flag that mental illness is often stigmatised and we should probably ... (read more)

I think this kind of discussion is important, and I don't want to discourage it, but I do think these discussions are more productive when they're had in a calm manner. I appreciate this can be difficult with emotive topics, but it can be hard to change somebody's mind if they could interpret your tone as attacking them.

In summary: I think it would be more productive if the discussion could be less hostile going forwards.