For discussing the move away from Reddit.
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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
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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.
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Notes -
TLDR; Randomly ordered thoughts about the move.
Can finally say nigger, faggot, tranny and (((woooo))), it's crazy how most online places are not even tolerant of the use/mention distinction. Feels like getting out of jail. Obviously don't plan on using them, but at least I can (and I hope others will as well) talk without the fear of AEO breathing down our necks.
Afaik this entire website is a volunteer effort, built on top of the existing rDrama codebase. Ultimate plans to defork.
The crazy idea I have is what if we try to pool up some funds and hire a web development company to clean up the codebase, and perhaps carry out a security audit like many others were suggesting? Because from the looks of it speed of development is rather modest given people are doing it at their own pace.
I don't have any web development skills to contribute, but I wouldn't mind contributing a few bucks to ensure the success of this forum. I'm sure there are a few others on that boat.
Did all the mods move over?
Moves/Migrations are always rocky, they are rarely done for fun in my world. A an first generation immigrant and the son of first generation immigrants somewhere else, I am used to practicing optimism when it comes to moving. Yes, its difficult, yes a lot of good things are left behind, yes the future is unknown. But ultimately new doors are there to be opened.
I'm maintaining that same spirit about this forum. Things might be a bit rocky right now, but we are here for a reason and being here gives us new freedoms and opportunities that were not available in the old home. There is the potential to grow into something bigger.
They are not tolerating the user/mention distinction because they are lazy. It is a lot easier to write a program that removes every occurence of some words than to actually read the comments. Or perhaps they are just that stupid, I don't know.
Please don't grow the community into something bigger. Bigger community, bigger problems. Rational debate has never existed on a very large scale.
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The rdrama codebase is actually quite active even if some of their "features" wont be in this heavily de-Marseyfied fork. The software has been shit-tested for a year now and the project maintainer is always top of things.
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All it takes is a janny who decides he doesn't like naughty words in any context and you'll be shadowbanned here too, there's no protection against redditization.
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We're probably abandoning these plans, honestly, we're just going in such a different direction that it would slow everyone down.
I am planning to set up a donation bucket at some point.
I'm not sure what to do with this donation bucket. I don't want to just pay for developers because that runs the risk of pissing off existing developers (no, not like they're going to be posting angrily, they just might not do as much work.) It honestly depends on what the bucket looks like, which I won't know until I start one.
All the active mods! We actually also regained an old mod, @cjet79, who's offered to help during the transition.
I've put a lot of thought into this subject. And yeah. There is. I'm not going to start putting eggs in that basket yet, but, who knows, right?
Maybe bounties on specific issues?
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I'd recommend setting up a donation system as soon as possible. I'm also willing to donate money, and people will be more willing now than later.
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