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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32994 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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I would very happily take recommendations for new mods, for what it's worth. It's tricky because we've gotten burned a few times by giving good contributors the mod bit and then having them immediately stop participating, possibly because dealing with the worst posts is sometimes dispiriting (though really it's the edge cases which are more draining to deal with), so we don't want to simply offer the position to any good contributor - that's evidently a good way to get less participation from good contributors, which is the opposite of what we want. And while I'm sure there's lurkers out there who would be a good fit, there's no good way to find and vet them.

I would really like to be responsible for less of the moderating, but there would need to be other, more active mods for that to work.

In the previous two months which are all the mod log shows, I've taken about 600 actions, HarryPotter5777 has taken about 70, and other mods about 6. ("Anti-Evil Operations" has taken 3.) Keep in mind that most of these actions are approving comments which were reported but not quite over the bar of warranting action, removing spam, or otherwise invisible. (I've been unusually busy the last few months, which is reflected in my reduced use of reddit; I think the ratio was even more skewed before that.)

While I'm popping my head in, I should say that I'm not actually the one who added Scott (that was one of the very first other mods, since departed). He uses his mod bit exclusively to sticky and unsticky new threads for posts from the blog when he gets there before I do, so it's correct not to call him a mod in any real sense, though, yes.

I've taken about 600 actions, HarryPotter5777 has taken about 70, and other mods about 6. ("Anti-Evil Operations" has taken 3.)

Thanks for sharing--I apologize for drawing conclusions from limited evidence (your public posting histories; HP5777 has recent mod-hat comments and you do not) but of course I don't have access to anything else.

It's tricky because we've gotten burned a few times by giving good contributors the mod bit and then having them immediately stop participating

Yeah, that's been true of the Motte as well, and I daresay many other places besides.

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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."

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