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The Spirit of Ricochet: Elevating the Tone
In response to our unceasing efforts to persuade our own members to join Ricochet, one of our members sent us a message. The key sentence was unsettling:
The ratio of thoughtful, respectful, and factual comments to insulting and emotive comments is not inspiring.
Our first response was defensive. We promptly crunched the numbers, having rigorously defined the terms “thoughtful,” “respectful,” “factual,” insulting,” “emotive,” and “inspiring,” and found the ratio is entirely inspiring.
But after we smoothed our ruffled feathers and got over our how very dare yous, we admitted it. Inspiring is not good enough. The ratio must be glorious. We must settle for nothing less than the Golden Ratio: “All comments must always be thoughtful, factual and respectful. None may be emotive or insulting.” (Emotion is fine. It’s politics, after all. But comments that call to mind the hystrionics in Britain in the wake of the death of Princess Diana are not.)
One of my “bosses” suggested the problem might defy automation. He insinuated that it might require more “work” on my part. “Get out there and be a beat cop, Claire. Go smack ’em down (politely) if you see anyone disgracing our honor with so much of a hint of an insulting or emotive comment.”
To which of course I said, “Don’t be absurd. We are American. Nothing defies our automation. We build better mousetraps. We build them bigger, better, faster and open longer. “Defies automation?” That’s what they used to say about flying.”
A lively, civil, polite, debate about Ricochet politics ensued. We have the seeds of good ideas, I suspect. But we must think more about them lest on careful inspection they prove to be stupid.
For now I wonder if you would indulge me in an experiment.
The “like” button is a blunt tool. Members have no way to show each other that they like a comment for a good reason. Merely “liking” something is for the soft-minded who do not belong here. On Ricochet we do not “like” things because we feel good about them. We like them because we have good reasons to prefer them.
“First thing we do before anything new and fancy is kill the bugs. Down to the very last roach,” said the Boss. Hard to disagree. But what if we try this as a temporary workaround. Suppose these were the new “like” buttons:
Logical Rigor (LR): “I liked your comment because your argument is sound: The argument is valid, and all of the premises are true.” (If you require a refresher on these terms, this will do.)
Ourstanding Civility (OC): “Whereas an uncivilized man might have responded to the previous comment with a disgraceful locution, you chose to respond with wit, tact, and civility. How admirable.”
Elevating the Tone of the Thread (ETT): Very occasionally a spectre of incivility haunts a thread on Ricochet. Even if no one has violated the CoC, the tone is somehow not in the right spirit. When this happens, our members tend politely to encourage each other to sort themselves out. Those who do should be lauded (or Liked) for encouraging civilized norms.
Introducing a Good Idea (IGI): “I had not thought of it that way. That stopped me in my tracks. You may be right, you may be wrong, but that’s the kind of new perspective on this problem that makes me think we might get somewhere with it.”
Consistent Intellectual Standards (CIS): Those willing reconsider their position if presented with conflicting data or a better argument are neither weak nor wobbly: They are intellectually rigorous. On Ricochet, this is a quality we treasure.
What do you say: Shall we try them for a week? Use the old like button as usual, but when you see the above qualities, reply to the post in question with the abbreviations: LR, OC, ETT, INI, CIS. No need to say more.
Then you can tell us next week if your experience of Ricochet was more agreeable as a result. It is a bit complicated, but why not try? The worst that could happen is we don’t like it.
Published in General
You had them starting to wind themselves up, Claire. Now you went and broke the mainspring.
Yeah! LR, OC, ETT.
LR, ETT.
Claire, you forgot Charles maybe?
ETT(NOT)
Can’t handle silliness and whimsicalness at all, Ray. You know me: Famous for being entirely literal-minded and absolutely lacking in playfulness. Why, I do not even laugh at Belgian jokes. If you tell me a helicoper crashed in a Belgian cemetary and the rescue teams have already found 100 dead people, I will just stare blankly at you and say, “I do not see why that’s funny.”
So, Claire, if one has a British dialect, as opposed to the common American dialects, does that automatically elevate the tone of the conversation?
What we need is a way to punish posting or commenting wrongdoers—not those who violate the COC, but those who exceed the bounds of good taste in a discussion thread. I’m not asking for an outright ban, but something more than a slap on the wrist if they would only repent and acknowledge their sins.
For example, someone who commits a sexist faux pas in a post or comment can declare “I was wrong, so FSOG (Fifty Shades of Grey) me!”
Any commenter accusing a poster of being a closet liberal can apologize with “My bad, I’ll drop my Jeb Bush donation and DMTTC (donate money to Ted Cruz).”
Someone who posts “Hillary Clinton might not make a bad President” can make amends to his fellow Ricochetti by pronouncing “I’m getting a tattoo that says RFHN! (Ready for Hillary—Not!)”.
There are dozens I could come up with, but let me say in closing . . .
Claire, your new icon is HOT! Ooops, my bad . . . I guess you need to FSOG me.
My silk tie awaits . . . (so much for elevating the tone, not to mention the intellectual quality of the thread)
LR.
How about a button with “ISBIOTACO” – it should be intuitively obvious to a casual observer
The proposal is likely to discourage posting which I believe is a mistake for Ricochet as a business. As we do not know how many members there are I can only guess and my guess is that the ratio of members who contribute in writing compared to total number of members is very small. That is probably an indication that the subscribers who are highly unlikely to leave is small.
A grading system would discourage contribution further and make the member pages less enticing to read. Ricochet should try to increase the number of posters as it would deepen the engagement and make the site more likely to grow and flourish.
BTW: Not to complain on low LR and CIS but the golden ratio is a/b=(a+b)/a=1.61…
Newcomers, tread carefully. It’s called the PIT because it’s quicksand, a black hole. Dare to enter and you might never escape.
So far, I have managed to avoid four PITs. Yet Ricochet still manages to swallow hours before I blink and notice the sun already setting.
If you feel the person did the opposite of one of the acronyms, my suggestion is to include the (NOT) or perhaps (not) functional argument. Or perhaps (not?), (not!?), (not!?!), including !’s and/or ?’s as they were wont to do years ago in commenting on the questionableness or brilliance of moves in analyses of chess matches. Too sarcastic, perhaps?
I find the general tone of Ricochet perfectly fine. Once in a while the harshness gets ever so slightly elevated, but we’re all big boys and girls, and should be able to handle the little bit of churlishness we occasionally see. If it gets to be too much, feel free to point it out in a comment. I’ll bet you get a quick apology.
As for the like button, I agree that it might be better to have both “like” and “agree” buttons. If we’re going to have alphabet soup, I’ll suggest a few that are already prevalent on the net that might be useful on Ricochet, and maybe should have their own buttons:
IGI
Or sun rising, as the case may be.
PL/1 had a symbol for that ¬, so ¬LR, ¬IGI, etc.
Anything to do with firearms and taxes gets a spirited response, but generally Ricos agree on those issues (broadly yes, and no, respectively).
Churches are a little trickier, largely because we have a well-noted 500 year disagreement within the Christian family which has fortunately calmed markedly. These confessional disagreements tend to be goodnatured and are rarely sharp, though I’ve seen, and had some dustups. One endless thread was an unyielding argument about whether Jews should see converts to Christianity as traitors or as trailblazers. It got heated, and frankly it had to, if the topic of religion wasn’t going to be banned altogether. Many Rico friendships or ideological coalitions are crossfaith, no pun intended.
Police powers is sizzlin’ hot around here, running the gamut between old fashioned law and order conservatives, principled libertarians, people with experience in law enforcement, people with bad experiences with law enforcers, and even a mutant strain I’ve bitterly come to call the “cop killer conservatives” who feel that anyone with a badge is an oppressor waiting to reveal themselves. Four of my brothers have served or are serving as city policemen, so no, I can’t be more polite. I’m doing the best I can.
Warfare and the “American empire” are also a much more mixed bag than most liberals would guess from a conservative web site. Somewhere between Rand Paul and John Bolton are the To Hell With Them Hawks, which I suspect may be the default Ricochet membership position.
So we reach the top of the Ricochet Top Ten Fight Club list of decreasing civility, gay rights (however you define the subject) including SSM. Even here, though, I’d have to say that conversation has tended towards more, not less civility. A good part of the reason is that Cato Rand and Zafar are personally popular even when their opinions aren’t; I’ve seen some grudging agreement on the merits of the people, not the arguments on both sides.
BTW: Not to complain on low LR and CIS but the golden ratio is a/b=(a+b)/a=1.61…
TMMDNR
ETT(not)
That would severely, and I do mean severely, depend on the kind of British accent. You realize that the British class structure is more rigid than Imperial China’s, right?
My goodness. I retired at 63 from teaching, in part because of the ponderous student-work scoring rubrics that were imposed on us by our betters in administration. What’s next, a stack of posts to grade before Monday?
The impulse to fine-tune the feedback is understandable, but can I please just mark “like” on a post if I have an ill-defined, visceral appreciation of it?
“I tell you what”
I-DVA
But of course, my deah. I would nevah be speaking of the plebeian dialects, such as Brummies or in Yorkshah.
Now she won’t answer just so as to drive you crazy wondering.
By the way, the last time (of only two) I flagged a comment, I also sent the author of the flagged comment a private message to explain my reasoning. This seems fair, like the legal notion of being able to confront one’s accuser.
The “offender” and “tattletale” quickly came to a general agreement and there were no hard feelings. Flagging doesn’t have to be an irreparable conflict.
Generally, I just try to play the role of apologist (I’m a middle child, after all) or to refocus the conversation on impersonal considerations. But at times a private message to another member might be more appropriate, because that doesn’t distract further from the larger conversation and it’s easier to swallow than being called out in public.
Well, sounds like everyone hates this idea. Never mind.
Can’t know until you ask, though, right?
I don’t think everyone does. Ray is liberally sprinkling acronyms around the PIT now. You’ve created a monster.
If you really want to elevate the tone, you need to get more women commenting. Specifically, sopranos.
*Bangs head against desktop.*
Musician jokes are inappropriate for elevating Ricochet. Helium works much better.