In criminal law, the prosecution and the defense each try to establish a timeline — what happened, where, when, who was involved — and thereby determine whether the defendant is actually guilty of a crime.[1]

Community misconduct disputes are nothing like this.

There is only rarely disagreement over facts, and even when there is, it is not the crux of the matter. Community disputes are not for litigating facts. What they are for[2] is litigating three things:

The character of the accused
The character of the accuser
The importance of the accusation, in light of points 1 & 2

I think basically all the terrible things that happen in community disputes are a result of this.

When what's being ruled on is a person — their place in their community, their continued access to resources, their worth as a human being — the situation feels all-or-nothing, and often escalates out of control.

This dynamic:

discourages people from speaking out about their experiences, both because they may be reluctant to ‘ruin the person's life’ over something non-catastrophic, and because they know that they will be opening themselves up to a punishing level of scrutiny and criticism, and may [...]

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
April 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cekDpXqjugt5Q3JnC/community-misconduct-disputes-are-not-about-facts

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.