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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27728 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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I wrote this up thread

In general I suggest three things for a decent start at a top level post:

  1. Context. What are you talking about. Helpful to have links or quotes, but not always necessary. "There have been a slew of campus protests about the Israel war lately. They were the worst at [this university] (link to news story)."
  2. Interpretation and analysis. Add some of your own interpretation and analysis to these events. "The protests seem to have been treated a bit differently from other protests in recent memory, like the BLM. Police have been called up to break up some of the protests. Donors have threatened to remove funding from universities. Etc"
  3. Opinion. "The protests seem pointless. Israel has not changed its policies at all."

There is a definite problem where people skip step 2. And part 3 sounds like "The protestors seem evil, it would be nice if they were shot." Yes that sort of post will get you dinged for boo outgroup.

You keep posting this, but you haven't really added a solution to the problem of missing posts. You can say it's not that hard, but that's belied by evidence that most people don't bother to make posts, and that many of them perceive the barrier to entry to be too high. Saying that they're mistaken, it's really not that high, isn't going to change anyone's mind.

that many of them perceive the barrier to entry to be too high.

Exactly! Its a perception thing, so I am trying to clear it up by changing that perception. WhiningCoil and others are making it more difficult by adding to the false perception. You of course are asking them to stop posting these bad interpretations of the rules, and thus discouraging posting, right?

Saying that they're mistaken, it's really not that high, isn't going to change anyone's mind.

There are different barriers to posting. One of those barriers is being afraid that the mods won't like your post and you'll get banned or in trouble. I can lower that barrier. I can't lower other barriers like "I don't know what to post about", or "I don't really want to talk about anything".

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