Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
My impression of TheMotte is that drive-by and flippant dismissive comments are discouraged. This comment, I thought, was an example of that, because it dismisses someone's personal report as "made up", without offering any substantial commentary. The commenter could have as well as written in a non-sophisticated fashion saying "This guy is lying, and I don't believe him [and so I can evade commenting on the content of the post]" - which is about as flippant as a comment to belong on TheMotte.
I reported that comment 2 days ago, but it didn't seem to have caught any moderator's attention, which is making me think that my appraisal of the quality of discussion here is probably off the mark? Mods, what do you think?
The only point I can think of is this:
Moderation is very much driven by user sentiment. Feel free to report comments or message the mods with your thoughts.
That comment had 7 upvotes as of this writing, so obvious a substantial amount of users feel that such flippant dismissal is warranted. The real question is: are such flippant sentiments encouraged in this community? Or are they to be discouraged, thus encouraging members to be more thoughtful?
Whether the initial comment is warranted or not, this kind of petty call out shit flinging never is.
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I personally think it's fine to be flatly dismissive of something a third party (who isn't even part of the discussion) said.
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"This guy is lying and I don't believe him" isn't ideal. Better to say why you think they're lying and you don't believe them. On the other hand, the post you linked to did in fact communicate why they found the quote unbelievable: it's a completely unverifiable anecdote written in a style very similar to an /r/thathappened post. Now, one could argue that this is still not ideal, because some people might not understand what /r/thathappened is or what it means for a text to have the /r/thathappened nature, but at some point demanding effort and rigor grows counterproductive to our purpose of enabling good conversation.
So, what's the actual disagreement here? Are you unfamiliar with /r/thathappened, and so don't understand the reference? If so, why not ask for clarification? Are you familiar with the /r/thathappened nature, but think it doesn't apply here? If so, why not offer an argument as to why you think the quote is plausible, or what you're drawing from it that others are missing?
It takes two to tango. You offered a link with a low-effort one-sentence description, something we generally frown on here. The replies you got were people who were unimpressed and uninterested, stating that they think the text lacks credibility and explaining succinctly why. You responded with specific quotes, again posted with a minimum of effort, and again, people were unimpressed, because the quotes in question seem even more incredulous than the text as a whole. You reported them for antagonism, but my understanding as a mod is that our standards for charity mainly apply to the people you're actually talking to here, and less so to people somewhere else that we are talking about. We ask that people not be dismissive of the arguments presented to them here, but you have yet to actually present an argument in that thread, just a link to some random other guy's argument, presented with what appears to be a shrug. The comments you've received, even pre-edit, were more effortful than what you offered, and your response was to report them and then start a new thread complaining about the lack of moderation.
All this to say, the comment you reported was by no means AAQC material, but did in fact appear to be a reasonable comment, containing both an opinion and an explanation for the reasoning behind that opinion. It could have been better (and now certainly is), but it doesn't seem to me that your complaint is well-founded. That's my opinion, anyway. I'm happy to discuss it further if you like.
(modhatted to verify that I am, in fact, a mod, since a response from the mods seems to be what you were looking for.)
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That quote is more than a little silly. I doubt its factual accuracy. Dismissing it as fiction is just the right call here.
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I absolutely second the "that happened" comment. The quote was just strange
Sure; the point of me writing the above, however, is not to "seek support in numbers" of that specific post. After all most people can still be wrong -- indeed, the person from which that quote comes says that everybody has got it "180 degrees wrong"! -- thus if 10 more SteveKirk's or TIRM's were to reply writing the same corroborating an opinion thus creating this "user sentiment", it wouldn't change the essence of what is being asked, which is: what to expect (from moderators) about post quality here, with clarification on how exactly they are appraising my specific report of that comment (if they allowed it without warning, what were they thinking?).
Put simplistically (for maximum effect): is poor post quality allowed/ encouraged if more people agree with (upvote) it?
I normally wouldn't jump in here but ... I'm literally that guy.
Almost all of my comments are effortful. Look at my post history. I've had two 1-day bans which I literally pre-called and 100% agree with (I got personal, which was wrong).
If you're looking for 100% adherence to only effort posts, you're inviting mods to over police everything. It's interesting, there was another top level post not too long ago bemoaing how everything here is turning into essay-length screeds. Balance matters.
EDIT: I updated the target comment. And now I'm updating this one. Effort posts all around.
Thank you for putting in the effort to expand on your comment. However, while it may now qualify to be an "effort post," nothing fundamentally has changed in regards to the post quality itself. Your new comment simply has used more words to express the same sentiment. Not only are you passing your intuitive opinion as fact, but you also clearly state that you cannot--and will not--support it with any cogent arguments that does not fallback to intuitive feelings, as your own words reveal ("The fact of the matter (that I can't prove is fact but is, yet, still obvious and factual) is that [..]").
And so my question to the mods in the OP still remains: are such drive-by and flippant dismissive comments (no matter how many words they are adorned with) encouraged or discouraged regardless of "user sentiment"?
In my updated comment I also wrote:
Yes, this is an editorial argument that isn't about parsing facts but my own opinions about certain topics.
Does this not qualify as effortful under your rubric?
Your edited comment indeed took effort (as in, mental exertion, by virtue of the words used alone) to write, but it still does not meet the quality bar, because it does not at all address the comment (supermarket anecdote by the author) you were responding to nor does it explain why you intuitively feel that the author's personal anecdote in the supermarket is a lie or that it never happened (else, why suggest it be coming from /r/thathappened?).
And so my question to the mods in the OP still remains: are such drive-by and flippant dismissive comments (no matter how many words they are effortfully adorned with) encouraged or discouraged regardless of "user sentiment"?
Cool. Seems like we agree.
In case you have not noticed, we've been disagreeing all along.
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