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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3298 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 2, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Fixed now! Sorry about that - we made a change with how hidden/deleted/removed comments work (they will no longer automatically hide all child comments) and there was a glitch in the HTML.

Naturally it also happened right before I needed to head to bed, but I figured it wasn't going to be a lethal bug to leave up overnight.

No you are not

Everything is working on my end. @ZorbaTHut, might it be related to this?

Yep, about 1 hr ago

Me too; the site on desktop is looking like the CSS mug, only worse.

Nope, same here

I'm the same, though in my case 'recently' means within the last 24 hours; when I was checking the site yesterday there were no such formatting/column oddities. (To clarify: by default the comments now take up about 1/3 of my screen, with the other two thirds reserved for a single comment thread that starts at the top of the page, above the 'The Motte Needs You', by the 'New'/'Top' drop-down. If I minimize that single comment thread, it shrinks to taking up only 1/4 of the screen, with the other 3/4 used for the normal set of comments). No idea what's going on or why.

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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.


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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).

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