There's a pretty big set of changes coming down the pipe. These shouldn't have much impact on users - it's all internal bookkeeping - but there's a lot of it, and if there's bugs, it might cause issues. Let me know if anything weird happens! Weird, in this case, is probably "comments you can see that you think you shouldn't be able to", or "comments you can't see that you think you should be able to", or anything else strange that goes on. As an example, at one point in development reply notifications stopped working. So keep your eyes out for that. I'm probably pushing this in a day or two, I just wanted to warn people first.
EDIT: PUSH COMPLETE, let me know if anything goes wrong
Are you a software developer? Do you want to help? We can pretty much always use people who want to get their hands dirty with our ridiculous list of stuff to work on. The codebase is in Python, and while I'm not gonna claim it's the cleanest thing ever, it's also not the worst and we are absolutely up for refactoring and improvements. Hop over to our discord server and join in. (This is also a good place to report issues, especially if part of the issue is "I can't make comments anymore.")
Are you somewhat experienced in Python but have never worked on a big codebase? Come help anyway! We'll point you at some easy stuff.
Are you not experienced in Python whatsoever? We can always use testers, to be honest, and if you want to learn Python, go do a tutorial, once you know the basics, come join us and work on stuff.
(if you're experienced in, like, any other language, you'll have no trouble)
Alt Accounts: Let's talk about 'em. We are consistently having trouble with people making alt accounts to avoid bans, which is against the rules, or making alt accounts to respond to their own stuff, which isn't technically against the rules, and so forth. I'm considering a general note in the rules that alt accounts are strongly discouraged, but if you feel the need for an alt, contact us; we're probably okay with it if there's a good reason. (Example: We've had a few people ask to make effortposts that aren't associated with their main account for various reasons. We're fine with this.) If you want to avoid talking to us about it, it probably isn't a good reason.
Feedback wanted, though! Let me know what you think - this is not set in stone.
Single-Issue Posting: Similarly, we're having trouble with people who want to post about one specific topic. "But wait, Zorba, why is that a problem" well, check out the Foundation:
The purpose of this community is to be a working discussion ground for people who may hold dramatically different beliefs. It is to be a place for people to examine the beliefs of others as well as their own beliefs; it is to be a place where strange or abnormal opinions and ideas can be generated and discussed fairly, with consideration and insight instead of kneejerk responses.
If someone's posting about one subject, repeatedly, over and over, then it isn't really a discussion that's being had, it's prosletyzing. I acknowledge there's some value lost in removing this kind of behavior, but I think there's a lot of value lost in having it; letting the community be dominated by this behavior seems to lead to Bad Outcomes.
Feedback wanted, though! Let me know what you think - this is also not set in stone.
Private Profiles: When we picked up the codebase, it included functionality for private profiles, which prevents users from seeing your profile. I probably would have removed this if I'd had a lot more development time, but I didn't. So it exists.
I'm thinking of removing it anyway, though. I'm not sure if it provides significant benefit; I think there's a good argument that anything posted on the site is, in some sense, fair game to be looked over.
On the other hand . . . removing it certainly does encourage ad hominem arguments, doesn't it? Ad hominems are kind of useless and crappy and poison discourse. We don't want people to be arguing about the other person's previously-stated beliefs all the time, we want people to be responding to recent comments, in general.
But on the gripping hand . . .
. . . well, I just went to get a list of the ten most prolific users with hidden profiles. One of them has a few quality contributions! (Thanks!) Two of them are neutral. And seven of them have repeated antagonism, with many of those getting banned or permabanned.
If there's a tool mostly used by people who are fucking with the community, maybe that's a good argument for removing the tool.
On the, uh, other gripping hand, keep in mind that private profiles don't even work against the admins. We can see right through them (accompanied by a note that says "this profile is private"). So this feature change isn't for the sake of us, it's for the sake of you. Is that worth it? I dunno.
Feedback wanted! Again!
The Volunteer System is actually working and doing useful stuff at this point. It doesn't yet have write access, so to speak, all it's doing is providing info to the mods. But it's providing useful info. Fun fact: some of our absolute most reliable and trustworthy volunteers don't comment. In some cases "much", in some cases "at all". Keep it up, lurkers! This is useful! I seriously encourage everyone to click that banner once a day and spend a few minutes at it. Or even just bookmark the page and mash the bookmark once in a while - I've personally got it on my bookmark bar.
The big refactor mentioned at the top is actually for the sake of improving the volunteer system, this is part of what will let it turn into write access and let us solve stuff like filtered-comments-in-limbo, while taking a lot of load off the mods' backs and maybe even making our moderation more consistent. As a sort of ironic counterpart to this, it also means that the bar might show up less often.
At some point I want to set up better incentives for long-time volunteers, but that takes a lot of code effort. Asking people to volunteer more often doesn't, so that's what I'm doing.
(Feedback wanted on this also.)
I want your feedback on things, as if that wasn't clear. These threads basically behave like a big metadiscussion thread, so . . . what's your thoughts on this whole adventure? How's it going? Want some tweaks? Found a bug? Let me know! I don't promise to agree but I promise to listen.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm uncomfortable about posting in a place that, judging from likes, contains significant support for explicit anti-semitism, and the hypothesis of a Jewish racial consciousness that leads them to seek to destroy the white race.
How do you think I would feel about telling someone else that there was a great post here that I thought made a good point? Even if that point is totally unrelated?
Do not invite them. I won’t speak for the whole forum and say “we don’t want them,” but I will say very forcefully that I do not want your normie friends here, I do not want their sensibilities to have any influence whatsoever on the direction of discourse norms on this sub, and I hope that this place stays icky enough that you remain unwilling to recommend it to them.
Do you think I like the fact that when I make what I think is a really good post here, I can’t go and brag about it or show it off to some of my smarter normie friends? If we lived in a better world, my ideas would have much wider acceptance and a place firmly inside the Overton Window, and I could show this place to people I respect, or at least acknowledge the existence of the forum and the fact that I post here. But we live in the shitty timeline, so I have to conceal the existence of The Motte, and of my profile in particular, to anyone who would be interested. This is ultimately a good thing for the forum. It should remain a hidden sanctuary, spoken of only in a vague and evasive manner, so that us witches can continue to practice our witchcraft in peace.
I think it's more of a gradient or a spectrum, really, and no one is either totally normie or radical, but I think you misunderstand the context. I might be talking to a bright, right-curious, burned ex-liberal type who tells me that he's really keen to find a place where he can discuss controversial political topics openly. Should I suggest he visit the Motte?
(I have recommended the Motte in its Reddit form to people before in exactly this situation.)
At the moment, I don't think I would, and a big part of that is because of the preponderance of certain positions, particularly those obsessed with the Jews. Heck, do you think I'd recommend the Motte to a bright young controversialist who happens to be Jewish? Heck no.
If cis white males have to tolerate the persistent hatred from the rest of the internet then everyone else can have a little bit of thicker skin here. Hell, if your friend is jewish, they're statistically more likely to be smart enough to understand why.
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You do know we have lots of Jewish posters here, right?
I think Jewish posters here are specifically selected for the kinds of Jewish posters who don't mind being in a space that regularly portrays them as some sort of malevolent parasitic subrace. That's not exactly a filter I want to run everyone through.
I'm not Jewish myself, of course, but I have been in online spaces before where my identity is constantly mocked and criticised and portrayed as a civilisational threat that must be marginalised at all costs, and while I can handle that to an extent, it is not a position that I wish for anyone else to be in. Especially not in a place whose purpose is explicitly civil sharing of ideas. The top-level culture war post still links 'In Favour of Niceness, Community, and Civilisation', after all.
Also known as, "just another day ending in 'Y' for a cis-straight-white-male living in the west"
I suppose this is the crux of the issue. While I don't think it's a particularly pleasant experience, I think it's entirely manageable, and I'm wary of people who try to claim otherwise. I also find it hard to believe such people can be described as controversialists.
I disagree, "niceness, community, and civilization" cannot be interpreted as barring bigoted views, because that will turn this place into an echo chamber in an extremely short order. Kicking out anti-semites would mean we have to kick out progressives at the very least. Kinda goes against the idea of viewpoint diversity this place is trying to go for.
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As uncomfortable as you are with this place, you're able to compartmentalize - "there's some bad dudes here, but every once in a while someone makes an interesting point about something". By saying we should sanitize this place in order for you to feel comfortable inviting your friends here, you're implying they would be unable to compartmentalize in a similar way, and all potential issues with giving inches / taking miles aside, I am not particularly interested in hanging out with people like that. If I was, I'd still be on Reddit.
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