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naraburns  nihil supernum  2d ago (text post)   2433 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for November 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

@naraburns:

@DiscourseMagnus:

@Rov_Scam:

@SlowBoy:

@Muninn:

@Dean:

Contributions for the week of October 28, 2024

American Needs a Trump

@nomenym:

@MaiqTheTrue:

@georgioz:

Contributions for the week of November 4, 2024

@Walterodim:

@Dean:

@flailingace:

@urquan:

@doglatine:

Contributions for the week of November 11, 2024

@Hoffmeister25:

@Belisarius:

@Sloot:

@Gaashk:

Contributions for the week of November 18, 2024

@FCfromSSC:

@coffee_enjoyer:

@Dean:

@ares:

@DirtyWaterHotDog:

Dude (Looks Like a Lady)

@dovetailing:

@Primaprimaprima:

@OliveTapenade:

@Folamh3:

@naraburns:

@Amadan:

@JarJarJedi:

Contributions for the week of November 25, 2024

@Bleep:

@magic9mushroom:

@SerialStateLineXer:

@Primaprimaprima:

@RenOS:

@blooblyblobl:

@IGI-111:

@functor:

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Pleased to see that I made the QCs with that post. I didn't realize that that was possible with a low-rated one.

I nominated you. While I disagreed with some of the intensity of your comment, I felt that you demonstrated the authentic horror and moral feelings of the pro-life movement in a way that is often hidden behind political expediency and tribalism. Pro-choicers often believe pro-lifers aren't authentic in their convictions, and you presented a worldview that shone through as authentic. That's valuable.

As noted in the main post, QCs come from people reporting posts as "actually a quality contribution" and then the mods (and volunteers to a limited extent) pruning out ones that they don't think to deserve it. It's totally separate from the voting system.

Wow, I want to thank everyone for awarding me an AACQ! I figured if anyone would appreciate a long-winded, repetitive, and self-indulgent peek into a typical bureaucratic/Molochian death spiral it would be my fellow Mottizens and it's heartening to see that it was so. I hope to write and contribute more in the future when my personal life isn't quite so demanding.

That post of mine wasn't very quality. Could have been made ~30% shorter without any real issue, and it wasn't very original (might even be wrong in parts; it was largely educated guesswork rather than direct knowledge).

I'm half-suspecting I got the QC precisely because of the length, which is discouraging.

I'm often a bit baffled as well - posts I write that I dash off in five minutes and think are relatively uninteresting sometimes get QCs, whereas posts that I invested a lot of effort and care into and think might be QC candidates don't make it. It's strange.

In this particular case I'd also like to raise my eyebrow a bit at the framing:

Dude (Looks Like a Lady)

@OliveTapenade:

"If you want me to change my beliefs, you have to actually convince me that my beliefs are false. There is no shortcut."

This framing makes it look like my post was about gender, which... it wasn't? It happened to be in a thread whose top-level post was about gender, but it was part of a tangent about religion.

Maybe one day I will write a big post about gender, but that day is not today, and was not nine days ago either.

I'm often as surprised by which of my posts get nominations, as which do not. This seems to be a running theme with many quality posters; the deeply researched effort post gets ignored, while the drunken schizo-post you tossed off at 2am pulls ten nominations and spawns a dozen quality replies.

I expect there's no single reason for this, but nominations tend to predominantly cluster on novelty, insight, authenticity, thoroughness, eloquence, and effort. Length correlates with several of those. In this case I expect the combination of thoroughness and eloquence on a topic of interest was a driver of nominations. But that is only a guess; those who nominated you are welcome to elaborate, or not.

I believe people are most persuasive when they're passionate and authentic. That doesn't mean every nutter shouting in the street is convincing, but there's something about a true believer that compels acknowledgement. The best reasons to believe in something are the reasons why the people who actually believe it, believe it.

Also, and this is just an aside... but is the best line of my comment here really the part where I'm qualifying my point?

Also, and this is just an aside... but is the best line of my comment here really the part where I'm qualifying my point?

If you think there's a better single-sentence(ish) quote that should be there, feel free to say so. I'm happy to update.

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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