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0 pointsgjm119mo ago0 comments

"Cet animal est très méchant, Quand on l'attaque il se défend."

Saying in public that someone "replied with a bunch of very unconstructive crap-on criticism" and "[m]aybe he's different in person but based on that interaction I have no desire to find out" is, by any reasonable standards, an attack on that person, and if that person doubts your description it is perfectly reasonable for them to object.

(That doesn't mean you're in the wrong and gwern's in the right, of course. It could well be that your account of things is entirely correct and gwern was gratuitously dickish to you, in which case it's fair enough to point it out. Something can be fair and correct and also a personal attack that it's reasonable to respond to by trying to counter it.)

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voidhorse9mo ago

> by any reasonable standards, an attack on that person

huh? If I said "gwern is a worthless hack" or if I said "gwern is just too stupid to give anybody advice" without any presentations of evidence toward this, I could reasonably consider those attacks. The stuff you quoted doesn't read as an "attack" to me. Rather, it is a claim that someone did something which may or may not be true, and, under the presumption that it is true , a claim about how the person on the receiving end felt. I don't see how that constitutes an "attack"—maybe an accusation, but certainly not an attack.

I have little more than a passing knowledge of gwern, but I would say that the response in this thread does in fact give me doubt that they are really prepared to stand in an advisory role toward hopeful strangers. If we are too focused on our own fragile egos we can't muster the focus that truly recognizing the distinct potential in others and championing them requires.

Often the right thing to do when facing feedback in an advisory role is not to be immediately defensive and demand evidence, even if you feel the claims may be illegitimate. Instead you need to approach with an open posture, hear the persons concerns, show willingness to do better in case you were in fact in the wrong, and only then, if necessary, voice your objection to try and reach a point of re-established harmony.

But this just goes to show you the problems entailed when you elect participants not on relevant experience but merely on popularity. I assume gwern is probably a fantastic blogger, but being a fantastic blogger and being a fantastic advisor for would-be-bloggers are two different things. Maybe gwern has experience doing this sort of thing, I don't know, but I wouldn't assume so given the response in this thread. A more seasoned bearer of fame would know it would be best not to even respond in this particular case, probably (as you are about to enter an environment in which people need to feel psychologically safe with you and seeing immediate defensiveness in response to direct critique or disagreement does not send the right signal).

gjm11OP9mo ago

If you prefer "accusation" to "attack", that's fine with me. I take it that the actual meaning in this context is "something it's reasonable to respond to by defending oneself", since velcrovan was claiming it was somehow bad for gwern to do that.

I agree that if you are "facing feedback in an advisory role" then it's likely best to avoid being defensive. But gwern isn't in an advisory role here, and he wasn't facing feedback. Feedback is when someone talks to you and tells you what they think; this was velcrovan making a public statement about bad things gwern has allegedly done in the past and their implications for whether he's likely to do this future thing well.

(For the avoidance of doubt: I have no opinion, or at least none that anyone should care about, as to whether gwern will do well as an adviser or mentor to would-be once-a-day bloggers.)