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AnotherSiteAnotherName  2yr ago (text post)   3888 thread views

The Motte and the future

So the move has been made. Potential shut down by Reddit has been avoided. Huzzah!

But people are still worrying about where new members are going to come from. And things are still being organized in the same terrible way as /r/ssc when they were trying to quarantine the culture war from the rest of the sub. And sprinkles around you have a few small threads for other weekly topics or talking about the new site.

A dedicated site deserves a nu start. Rather than purposely making quality writing harder to find, it should be highlighted. (I know the quality contributions roundup exists, but it certainly isn't exhaustive.) Seriously, have you ever gone back and tried to read an old weekly culture war thread with its thousands, potentially tens of thousands of comments? It is an unnecessary slog if you are looking for something and don't have a link. And sometimes you 'continue reading' and go back only to find that you've lost your place. It just makes you say, "I blue myself."

I do have some suggestions on some of the changes I'd like to see more that there is a dedicated website. First, I'd like to see a webpage highlighting quality contributions and other content from the forum. Something that I can easily link a friend to rather than a nested comment in response to some insane person ranting "There's a man inside me!" Or whatever.

Secondly, I think some editorial prompts for content for the sure would be good. Adversarial collaborations and whatever else. Just easier ways to find good writing from the site.

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It's a problem, agreed. I suspect liberal-leaning posters felt less need to move off of reddit, while people who want to talk about things that would get them banned on reddit obviously were more interested in doing so. So the filtering process unfortunately is having the effect you are observing.

The best we can do is try to attract people genuinely interested in discussing, not booing their outgroup and talking about how horrible the wokes are being this week.

Hence, our insistence that we are not rdrama, or the next KiwiFarms.

Let me indulge in a bit of repetition here: the right leaning things that will get you kicked off reddit won't get you in trouble with rightwing circles. The left leaning ideas that you aren't allowed to say on reddit you're also not really allowed to say anywhere lefty, so you're dealing with a lot of self-censorship.

I can’t imagine that you’re talking about anything except direct calls to action, in which case: no shit you’re not allowed to say that. That’s frowned upon everywhere, right-wing circles included.

Except it's not frowned on in right wing circles. Right wing circles meme about 2a and different sorts of boxes (ballot, ammo, etc) and 'what would happen if they tried to ban guns' constantly. Then they share tips for where you can get a CC licence. Lefty circles just smugly assume that righties are all talk, or cower in fear when it's clear that they aren't.

There are equivalents to the sort of shady content you note in the more-radicalised SJ circles (i.e. small boards, not the giant social media platforms). I haven't seen obvious "shoot this specific guy please" stuff, but that's a level beyond anything you've mentioned.

I think your last sentence is only partially correct, but my impression from the rules list (I'm new here) is that I shouldn't really go into it outside the CW thread.

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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