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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   6171 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for October 2022

Y'all must be trying to kill me. The sheer volume of quality contribution reports, combined with the outrageous volume of text you maniacs generate every week, made this an astonishing month to be sorting through the hopper. By far the busiest month for AAQCs since I took over the task. This made winnowing them down especially challenging, and some very good posts simply didn't make the cut simply because the competition was so fierce.

Good job, everyone.

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. Here we go:

Quality Contributions in Culture Peace

@problem_redditor:

Contributions for the week of September 26, 2022

@PmMeClassicMemes:

@KulakRevolt:

Battle of the Sexes

@Tanista:

@problem_redditor:

@Ben___Garrison:

Contributions for the week of October 3, 2022

@Primaprimaprima:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@FCfromSSC:

@urquan:

Identity Politics

@Stefferi:

@urquan:

Contributions for the week of October 10, 2022

@urquan:

@Amadan:

@Chrisprattalpharaptor:

Battle of the Sexes

@VelveteenAmbush:

@sodiummuffin:

@JTarrou:

@bsbbtnh:

Identity Politics

@georgioz:

@gattsuru:

Contributions for the week of October 17, 2022

@MadMonzer:

@Minotaur:

@faceh:

@Butlerian:

@FCfromSSC:

@hydroacetylene:

@urquan:

@Eetan:

Identity Politics

@Hoffmeister25:

Contributions for the week of October 24, 2022

@urquan:

@johnfabian:

@LacklustreFriend:

@FCfromSSC:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

Battle of the Sexes

@cae_jones:

@SSCReader:

@Hoffmeister25:

Identity Politics

@FCfromSSC:

@Tanista:

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Here is the text:

Epistemic Status : It is 3:16 am and I have returned from the strippers. Auspicious time to begin a post, to be sure. For god so loved the world that he gave his only son... however that one ends. I'm a heeb, idk.

I.

When I was 18 years old, I worked at an inner city liquor store. I became the acquaintance of a man named Smokey. Smokey was homeless. Smokey had his real name tattooed on the inside of his arm "in case he ever forgot it". Smokey was a crack addict. Smokey sometimes beat up his retarded homeless friend, Sean. One time, Smokey and Sean had been invited to Sean's brother's wedding. They kept wearing the tuxes for the next week. Smokey got harrassed by the cops for panhandling. Smokey took the ticket in stride, walked away from the cop, and then from a distance of 50 metres, nailed the cop square in his forehead with an orange. The cop covered in orange juice arrested a Tuxedo'd Smokey. I laugh to this day.

Smokey didn't have a good life. When Smokey was eight years old, his mother was driving him home from school wasted. She hit and killed another child. She went to prison. Smokey went to live with relatives, also drunks.

We don't have a good solution for people like Smokey. Best we do is toss 'em in the drunk tank, or the unpaid fines tank for a week or two, and then let 'em out. Smokey goes back to doing what he does.

When Smokey died of an overdose in a crack house, the church he went to held a service and two hundred people showed up. I lost my shit, man. Here was the first evidence I ever saw of Christians acting like Christ. They mourned a useless fuckup. They sang his favourite hymns and talked about their favourite memories of the wastoid degenerate that was Smokey. What the fuck did Smokey ever do for anyone? Nothing. But they loved him just the same. Most importantly, even though he slept in the alley - he was a Neighbour, worthy of that commandment - "Love Thy Neighbour".

When I was younger, I imagined "if I ever won the lottery..." I would give Smokey a house or some bullshit. Hero complex. Maybe I can save the world.

II.

Cab just dropped me off at the convenience store near my house. I dropped $1200 on private dances with strippers tonight. It was OK. I bought a gatorade to aide in hangover prevention, and I bought a pack of cigarettes.

As I walked home, I walked past a Starbucks. There was a man sat alone at 2:45am, with a colouring book. Colouring a colouring book at 2:45am in a quiet suburb. I asked his name and I sat with him. Matt was obviously homeless. Matt cried because I asked his name. Nobody has ever asked Matt's name. To the world, Matt is a problem. Matt is a burden. Matt used to be addicted to opiates. That, and fertility issues, caused the end of his marriage. He likes 'em big. Her sister was big too, and dropped some weight, and got pregnant, so why can't she? She blamed his drugs, he blamed her weight, and the marriage dissolved.

I took Matt back to the convenience store, and I bought him a coffee, and a pack of cigarettes, and a shitload of candy. I told him to go nuts with a $30 budget. What a prick I am, I spend $1200 on fucking peelers and I give a homeless man $30. He's a meth-head now, no more opiates, so he wanted candy! I bought him some candy. I didn't do it because I felt guilty about spending money on strippers. I didn't do it because the homeless have a desperate lack of sugar. I didn't do it because it maximized efficiency. I did it because it made a human being happy. Matt cried a lot during this. Partially because nobody ever calls Matt by his name, and partially because nobody's ever been so kind to him.

A lot of people have been much more kind to me. They've extended me credit. They've purchased me hundreds of dollars of shit with no expectation of ROI. They've given me gifts they've made.

As I parted, Matt asked me why I bought him food and coffee and cigarettes. I told him it's because there is no government, there are no cops, there are no social workers, there is no God, and there is no Jesus, there are only other people, and I told him to pay it forward. He will likely never have any fucking means to pay anything I did for him tonight forward. If he does achieve the means, he will probably spend it on meth. But goddamnit, he is a fucking sentient being, not a fucking P-Zombie, and he deserves ten times over what I gave him simply by virtue of feeling pleasure and pain and being alive. His birthright is the stars, the same as yours is.

III.

You will never be satisfied that THE AGENCY TASKED WITH PROBLEM SOLVING will solve the problem. You will never be satiated by THE JUSTICE DOLED OUT BY THE TASK FORCE. Hit the fucking ground and fix your backyard one day at a time.

Some part of me hates those fucking Christians who displayed Christian values more than I ever saw anyone do so before, because they fucking did that for a guy they knew and then didn't do it for anyone else. As do most people. People hate welfare because it GIVES MONEY TO THE UNDESERVING OFF THE TAXPAYER TEET. Here's the paradox - nobody is deserving, yet everyone is. You believe in the basic human dignity of everyone, no matter how drug addicted or retarded or crippled they are, or you're my enemy. End of story. I don't care how efficient it is, we're debating a world that recognizes the freedom and frailty of human beings, or Huxley's Brave New World with extra steps.

IV.

And Jesus said:

"Do not give bread unto the poor, as life is a repeated game, and the poor will learn that optimal strategy is not to source their own bread"

It was deleted for a reason - it was unfocused, came across as self-aggrandizing to some despite the reflection on my own acts in it, and the message was generally lost on the audience.

I enjoyed it.

Welp, I give up.

What do you give up?

Trying to figure out what makes something an aaqc.

I swear pm had a post that I thought was really good last week or the week before (a meta post but I am completely blanking on any of the details - I just remember the tone was a bit off but the core message was great) and I nominated it but instead of that this drunk post made it in? I just can't pick them, so I am going to stop trying.

Yeah, @netstack has the right of it. The QCs are community driven, so the less you, personally, nominate, the less the QCs will reflect your judgment on what makes a QC. This month there were well over 200 nominations. The aim is to highlight about ten per week. Some of those nominations are always just people using QC as "I agree," and some appear to be trolling, but the great majority are genuinely good posts. And it used to be that anything with multiple nominations was a shoe-in, but this month had far more multi-nominated posts than ever before, too (possibly as a result of me mentioning that multiple-nominated posts tend to get approved first, which naturally changes everyone's nominating strategies...)

If I had to guess, I think what made the "drunk post" resonate was just that it was honest. It wasn't as self-effacing as FC's concession post, but it was in a similar vein on a different subject. Recognizing and articulating the weaknesses of our own positions is among the prime values that breathed life into this space.

Recognizing and articulating the weaknesses of our own positions is among the prime values that breathed life into this space.

That's what drew me to this place, I think it's a good way to be a better person. Anyway I am not really bothered, I just thought I'd figured it out (and I thought that other post was really good). I didn't mean to give the impression I thought something was wrong with the system.

I didn't mean to give the impression I thought something was wrong with the system.

Well, I mean--maybe there is! In particular, if regular users like yourself feel discouraged from making QC nominations in the first place, that's something I think we should be aware of and try to account for. So I appreciate the feedback! And hope that you will continue to nominate posts you regard as quality contributions.

Shrug. I wouldn't worry too hard over it.

Some people are here for aesthetics, some for core messages, and some for owning the [outgroup]. They're all going to nominate different stuff. Apparently this was a pretty busy month, too, so there's likely to be more stuff out on the fringes.

I believe the expression is "there's no accounting for taste."

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