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naraburns  nihil supernum  3mo ago (text post)   5200 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for July 2024

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.

These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful.

Quality Contributions to the Main Motte

@gattsuru:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

@John_Doe_Fletcher:

@Rov_Scam:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@OliveTapenade:

Contributions for the week of June 24, 2024

@Capital_Room:

Contributions for the week of July 1, 2024

@Felagund:

@The_Nybbler:

@Throwaway05:

@faceh:

Contributions for the week of July 8, 2024

@TracingWoodgrains:

@Folamh3:

@rayon:

@gattsuru:

@satirizedoor:

@FCfromSSC:

@Belisarius:

Contributions for the week of July 15, 2024

@gattsuru:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@NexusGlow:

@FCfromSSC:

@screye:

@naraburns:

Contributions for the week of July 22, 2024

@WestphalianPeace:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@cjet79:

@problem_redditor:

Contributions for the week of July 29, 2024

@100ProofTollBooth:

@Dean:

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Months ago, when I made the QCs roundup, I used to get a notification that one of the mods had mentioned me as part of the roundup. The last few times, I haven't gotten the notification. Is this a change at the site level, or did I accidentally change my user settings somehow?

I think posts that tag a bunch of people only notify the first x number of people tagged. I think x = 3, but I'm not sure.

It's an anti spam and annoyance thing, probably baked in from the drama codebase. If there is an easy way to increase x I think it could be ten without causing problems.

At least in this case, I did not get a notification.

The code gives a default MENTION_LIMIT of 100, and that could have been set lower in config file, but I'm not sure if that's a limit after which it would block the post entirely, or if it just stops mentions from notifying people. If that's not it, it's probably something goofier, maybe downstream of the loop messiness in sanitize.py.

Looks like it blocks the post entirely. I can't find anything obvious that would cause notifications to not be sent - maybe @Folamh3 is looking in a weird place? Maybe there's a setting?

I vaguely recall trying to reproduce this a while back and failing. @Folamh3, if it's worth the time to you, you're welcome to make a few accounts on https://dev.themotte.org and see if you can figure it out. If you can come up with a repro case, that'll make it a whole ton easier to fix :)

If you changed anything, I just in the last two hours got three System Motifications, one for this QC roundup, one for June, and one for May, though they appeared as in normal chronological order (ie, having to go back several pages to get the older two marked as unread).

Likewise, I got a notification for this QC within the last few hours.

Likewise for me.

I don't know! That's definitely a question for @ZorbaTHut.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


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