What does it take to foster integral online communities?

Assume good faith, clarify potentially unclear points before going on the attack, formulate disagreements based on the strongest version of the opposing argument, and avoid unwarranted certainty.

The above, a summary of the dialectical principle of charity reflects a truth — the practice and assumption of good faith is essential.

Focus & Curiosity also feel essential to me, though there is something both complimentary and contradictory about the two. Focus both creates a framework for and a resistance to curiosity; without a focus, curiosity has no context of use; without curiosity, a focus will struggle to germinate anything; but too much curiosity derails focus, and too much focus obliterates curiosity.

when interpreting an ambiguous term in a text of discourse, the interpretation that makes sense of the discourse should be preferred. A meaning that makes the text absurd or meaningless should be avoided

The Hacker News guidelines echo a similar sentiment,

Be kind. Don’t be snarky. Converse curiously; don’t cross-examine. […]

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. […]

Respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that’s easier to criticize. Assume good faith. […]

Don’t post shallow dismissals, especially of other people’s work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

The single greatest challenge to their effectiveness in that community is simply scale. Amongst millions of users, and tens–of–thousands of active voices it is probably impossible to maintain strong norms of civility. But this can be a feature, instead of a bug, in human behaviour in that it creates an inherent back pressure against runaway scale in communities.

It reminds us to seek out small, focused communities of curious people with a strong shared ground truth, creating a story together.

I include a substantial extract from The Dialectical Principle of Charity: A Procedure for a Critical Discussion by Jakub Pruś & Piotr Sikora, 2023

A. When interpreting, choose the best possible interpretation and skip the minor mistakes of the opponent’s argument.

When the proposition or the argument is ambiguous, one should choose the best interpretation, that is, the most reasonable one. If the argument contains some irrelevant problems or obvious mistakes in the argument, it is better to ignore them (if they are not crucial to the main point that the opponent is trying to make).

B. Assume the good will of the opponent’s intentions

To put it in more simple terms, if the interlocutor’s argument seems problematic, it is good to assume that it is unintentional on their part, as long as it is reasonable to do so. It means that, if possible, one should give people the benefit of the doubt, and attribute issues in their arguments to a misunderstanding on their part, rather than to a malicious intent to deceive.

The third component might not seem essential, but it proves to be very useful in any discussions which are truth-oriented and especially in academic debates. It might be overwhelming, misunderstood or even redundant in everyday life arguments, but some authors include it in the charitable interpretation.

C. Consider using a logically structured approach to the opponent’s argument.

It is highly beneficial, but very rare, to attempt to re-express your opponent’s position so clearly, logically structured, and fairly so your opponent might say: “Thank you for putting my thoughts so clearly!”

The component (c) might seem controversial however—sometimes putting one’s argument in a logical form may seem uncharitable to the interlocutor—especially if the discussion is not a purely philosophical debate between scholars. Arguments which have a maximal commitment to truth would certainly benefit from this procedure (actually, this is a good practice of such debates), but in more common arguments this may seem uncharitable to the person, who is “being corrected,” for it suggests the superiority of one side.