The LAAPs that foster productive conversations and the crebit that undermines them

Abstract

People who use venues for productive conversations impose norms (“LAAPs”) encouraging statements that are meaningful, relevant, honest, understandable, diplomatic, engaging, helpful, and supportive of the long-term success of the venue. Statements that undermine productivity by falling short on some of these characteristics without sufficient strength on others are excluded, policed and punished as “crebit”. I describe a variety of LAAPs and their crebit, use the framework to offer testable predictions about when speech will be punished as crebit, and propose some exclusions that would allow more productive conversations online and about the limits of speech on campus.