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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Inside the motte: maybe this is small of me, but it chagrines me every time I make it two paragraphs into a post and hit the pivot to antisemitic apologism or whatever, and only then realize I forgot to check the poster. I steadfastly don't care about any of that conversation, and it's the same conversation every time, so it's a few minutes wasted. I already know I'm going to ignore the post; blocking the single-issue poster would just cut to the chase, and would make me feel a little less dumb, on average once every week or two. That said, my blocklist is empty - it's such a minor nuisance, and feeling dumb once in a while builds character.
Outside of the motte (a selective, filtered, moderated community): to a first order approximation, the entire internet is spam, ads, and tribalism. See also: Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People. My attention, patience, and cognitive filtering capacity is finite, and the internet is an infinite noise generator that evolves (read: gets louder and more annoying) by consuming my finite resources. If there are mods, they're usually crazier than the users.
I used to have a Tumblr. I blocked every significant nexus word related to politics, most of the fandoms topics, anyone who posted anything even slightly porny, and any specific person who found a novel way to annoy me. It was great!
I basically don't use Twitter, but I know a guy who blocksany person the instant they make a questionable post. His feed is a near-perfectly-curated niche technical community who go to the same conferences and share entertaining or interesting industry stories and papers. It seems pretty great!
Blocking is a crude tool, but it's one of the few scalable solutions to autonomously build a community or interest feed on top of a dumpster-fire social media platform.
Nice flair btw.
Many people have mentioned Twitter, and I have to concede it seems like it would be necessary on that site. I never had a Twitter, so I've had the privilege of never experiencing how necessary it may be.
Likewise!
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