site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Lots of things were different back then. We were on reddit and the culture war was red hot and banned in a bunch of other places. And there are also places like culturewarroundup that allow bare links and they are far deader than theschism. If anything the comparison suggests theschism strategy is a better viable long-term option. Neither us or them can compete with X in terms of sheer content of bare links and subjects being discussed. But we can compete on enforcing some minimum quality standards.

Look, I know this is a lost cause. But I wish you guys would at least acknowledge the point about low effort top posts leading to high effort comments.

I feel like I've never disagreed with this point. I might have even said somewhere that it is easy for bad quality comments to generate good discussion. But I also feel it suggests that you are entirely missing the point I am making.

I think our actual disagreement is on the effect of permissive top level comments. You seem to think it's positive sum. I think it is neutral sum, or possibly a little negative sum.

We are generally getting a similar number of high quality comments each month. And that amount is limited by the number of users.

The people that write quality comments have told me before that they like having their comments read and discussed. I also share that preference. Its rare for me to want to type out a quality comment that is just going to get buried and read by only one person.

The place where you get the most attention and discussion is at the top level. That attention is limited by how many top level comments are above you, and how recently that thing has been discussed. Bare links fill up the top comment slots and bury posts faster. And you can easily get your topic sniped before you finish writing a quality comment.

I don't even understand your mechanism for how permissive top comments increase the number of quality comments. I understand how it increases total comments, but that isn't something I care about.

I don't even understand your mechanism for how permissive top comments increase the number of quality comments. I understand how it increases total comments, but that isn't something I care about.

We seem to have different models of how quality posts come about.

You seem to think that quality posters treat this as a publishing platform akin to Substack. They have a couple of quality posts in them over a given timeframe and they choose to publish them on The Motte. Your job is to prevent these posts from being dilluted by low effort posts and give them a more prominent position.

My model is a different one: quality posts happen because a poster gets inspired by an ongoing discussion. They see something that touches upon one of their areas of expertise and they get triggered into writing an effort post. But there needs to be a discussion happening in the first place! You don't get Socrates' take on the ideal city before Cephalus, Polemarchus, and even Thrasymachus had their say first. The more discussion, the higher the chances someone will read something they have something to write about.

No I think my model is pretty similar to yours.

Specifically:

My model is a different one: quality posts happen because a poster gets inspired by an ongoing discussion.

My model is only different in that I strongly emphasize that last word. Bare links do not count as discussion. A story that amounts to "people I don't like did a bad thing" is not a discussion.

We specifically ask that top level posts start a discussion. It does not have to be a high quality post. It just has to start a discussion. I've said before and given examples that it is possible to start a discussion here in three sentences.

Context. Interpretation. Opinion.

We ask that people not clog up the board with non-discussion.

If you look at Twitter, it has a vastly greater amount of content. The vast majority of it is low effort shit. Sometimes a low effort shitpost does produce a high quality discussion. Just like here.

What you are arguing is that since some percentage of shitty, low quality posts will produce good posts, if we allowed more shitty, low quality posts, the result would more good posts. In raw numbers, this is probably true. The price would be that you'd have to wade through a dramatically greater number of shitty, low quality posts.

That is the difference between what we want and what you want.

This discussion would really benefit from some more charity towards my position. I am not arguing for The Motte to become Twitter, that is a strawman. Neither am I arguing for the roundup to be flooded with "low effort shit". I am arguing for two things 1) the relaxation of top post requirements, 2) a contained Bare Link Repository.

Neither of which would turn this place into Twitter. We know this because that was the standing policy before the current one was enacted. But also because The Motte isn't a mod team, it's a people. Discussion quality here is high because of the interesting people who frequent this place. That is not entirely disconnected from moderation policy and discussion norms, but to insinuate that we are one policy change away from the Twitter cesspool is disingenious. And a BLR wouldn't clutter up anything because it would be one click away from being minimized. No wading required.

This discussion would really benefit from some more charity towards my position. I am not arguing for The Motte to become Twitter, that is a strawman. Neither am I arguing for the roundup to be flooded with "low effort shit".

Yes, I know that's not what you want. I am saying that IMO that is what your proposal would result in.

And a BLR wouldn't clutter up anything because it would be one click away from being minimized. No wading required.

Here is my prediction of what would happen (because it's what happened when we had the BLR back on reddit):

  1. Most posts to the BLR would be very much "Can you believe what those fucking wokes did now?!" Most people would nod and agree, yeah, those fucking wokes are the worst.
  2. Now and then someone would post a link to an article about why Trump is a fascist or DEI is good, actually, and it would get mass-reported.
  3. Very rarely would the resulting discussion be anything approaching "good" or "interesting." It would mostly be circle jerks of people agreeing with the premise.
  4. It would encourage laziness. People who can't be bothered to contribute meaningfully to a discussion or write an effortful post but really want to talk about how much they hate their enemies would have a convenient dumping ground for this.

I just have zero sympathy for people who want to post bare links, because our requirements to add something meaningful are not that stringent. Every person who claims we require MOAR WORDS or meaningless verbiage or a ChatGPT sensitivity pass is lying. All you have to do is add something like "Why is this interesting? What is your take? Why do you care? Why should we care? Why do you think it is worth bringing to our attention?" Add some commentary (doesn't have to be very much, does not have to be particularly insightful or long), just more than "Hey, look at what those fucking wokes did now!" It's not a high bar. It just fucking isn't. I am tired of people pretending that we put barriers in the way of their very interesting conversations that we do not.

Here is my prediction of what would happen

And here's mine: it would look much like the weekly thread on r/blockedandreported, only better because the quality of commentators here is higher.

I just have zero sympathy for people who want to post bare links, because our requirements to add something meaningful are not that stringent. Every person who claims we require MOAR WORDS or meaningless verbiage or a ChatGPT sensitivity pass is lying. All you have to do is add something like "Why is this interesting? What is your take? Why do you care? Why should we care? Why do you think it is worth bringing to our attention?" Add some commentary (doesn't have to be very much, does not have to be particularly insightful or long), just more than "Hey, look at what those fucking wokes did now!" It's not a high bar. It just fucking isn't. I am tired of people pretending that we put barriers in the way of their very interesting conversations that we do not.

Dude, this whole discussion started because a "rather well-written" effort post received a warning. You are definitely setting the bar too high.

And here's mine: it would look much like the weekly thread on /r/blockedandreported, only better because the quality of commentators here is higher.

Or it would eventually look exactly like that thread or worse, because:

  1. The higher quality of commentators would leave
  2. Everyone would put in less effort.
  3. And we don't have a popular podcast that draws in a stream of new and active users.

Dude, this whole discussion started because a "rather well-written" effort post received a warning. You are definitely setting the bar too high.

A well-written thing that is not a discussion is still not a discussion. The bar is not high. In this case they went and climbed at a neighboring gym and put in a bunch of effort, but the bar we were monitoring which is much easier to reach was left empty.

The higher quality of commentators would leave

Quite a few of the high-quality commentators have already left and while I have no way to prove this, I'd posit this has something to do with the very limited number of topics that are discussed here nowadays.

A well-written thing that is not a discussion is still not a discussion. The bar is not high. In this case they went and climbed at a neighboring gym and put in a bunch of effort, but the bar we were monitoring which is much easier to reach was left empty.

And yet an interesting discussion it spawned. Which is my entire point.

Let's drop it. I said my piece, I accept I'll never convince you. I'll bring it up again once we reach a weekly thread with less than a thousand comments.

They will often tell us why they have left, and none have given us that as a reason. Usually it's complaints about low quality comments that don't quite break the rules, but are bad enough to annoy them when aggragated together.

Im fine dropping this, I did feel like new things were coming up.

See, you say this, but then I believe that @4doorsmorewhores easily cleared the bar you are claiming is the minimum expectation with this post, yet he still got modded for supposedly not putting enough effort into his commentary/contextualization.

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't have modded that post, though it is a bit borderline, being not much more than "Boo outgroup" with MOAR WORDS. The mods are not a hivemind. I stand by my point that you don't have to put a lot of effort into your post, not everything has to be an effortpost, and the BLR would be a net negative. Will the other mods sometimes have a different opinion than me of what constitutes "enough" effort? Yes.

Okay but can you see how this doesn’t inspire confidence? It’s great that you think that the minimum level of effort required is X, but your opinion (presumably) doesn’t carry any more clout than @netstack’s does, and if the modding is going to be inconsistent, with some mods being more overzealous than others, than I think it’s pretty understandable that users (especially those without the post history and reputation that provides some armor) might feel very apprehensive about posting anything less than a maximally-effortful essay about something they find interesting.

Now, for my part, the relative rarity with which I make top-level posts is almost entirely self-imposed. I hold myself to a high standard, and I routinely encounter topics or links about which, while I’d like to participate in discussion about them, I don’t feel like I have enough of a unique or interesting insight to offer to make it worth composing a post I’d feel proud of. So I’m not one of the people who just blames the mods for their unrealistic expectations. But clearly there are other users who do feel intimidated/discouraged by the seemingly capricious way in which effort requirements are enforced.

So, for all of a bare links repository’s potential flaws, at the very least it would not foster any doubt or require people to discern the intentions of all of the various mods.

The mods all talk. Netstack ask us to come by and check this. And noticeably Netstack only said not to do it. Which is basically the minimum level of "mod action" that we can take. It is impossible to be softer.

I don't think as many people would be apprehensive about it if every time this came up there wasn't a cadre of posters making it sound like we have super strict requirements for top level posts.

Doing it after we have warned you not to do it isn't treated very well, but same with most rules.

Okay but can you see how this doesn’t inspire confidence? It’s great that you think that the minimum level of effort required is X, but your opinion (presumably) doesn’t carry any more clout than @netstack’s does, and if the modding is going to be inconsistent, with some mods being more overzealous than others, than I think it’s pretty understandable that users (especially those without the post history and reputation that provides some armor) might feel very apprehensive about posting anything less than a maximally-effortful essay about something they find interesting.

Netstack did give his reasoning. He didn't mod it because it wasn't effortful enough, he modded it because he thought it was nothing but "boo outgroup."

Like I said, I probably wouldn't have modded it myself, but I can also see why he would.

We have never claimed 100% consistency. There are days when I might be more strict than others. That's why the vast majority of modposts are just warnings, and if people took those with more grace instead of flipping out and deciding they need to litigate them like they have been issued a traffic fine, there would be less angst about it.

I am sorry (but not very) that some people feel "intimidated" into not making more posts, but being perfectly honest with you again, the people who complain most frequently about how we're too strict and too capricious are not complaining in good faith. They just don't like the rules and don't want to be restricted as to what they can say. Can you see why that makes us less inclined to consider it a problem that allegedly there are all these posters afraid of being told to do better?

So, for all of a bare links repository’s potential flaws, at the very least it would not foster any doubt or require people to discern the intentions of all of the various mods.

Even if we did bring the BLR back, it would not be a "mod free" zone where people can just post things that are nothing but boo outgroup and sneering. Some BLR posts would still get modded, and the complaints about our decisions wouldn't change much.

More comments