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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28724 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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We need the Bare Links Repository back. There are tons of things I would have liked to post here which I never did because I don't have time or energy to write an effortpost.

"Beware Trivial Inconveniences".

Absolutely not. The BLR lets people engage in the worst impulses the culture warrior within creates. It is not helpful to anyone to constantly engage with "Boo Outgroup" articles.

If the choice is between ignorant boredom and culture-warring engagement, I will very much advocate for the ignorant boredom side.

The BLR was full of outrage bait the last time we had it. There's Twitter for that.

The BLR was excellent for interesting information that did not warrant its own post. Not every interesting link requires its own post.

The line has been repeated many times that we don't want to suck oxygen out of the main CW thread. Some weeks we barely get a thousand comments, and it hasn't been increasing. Although mainly staying stable.

If we add a BLR do you think it will increase the activity here? Or just pull a lot of people over there and further deplete the CW thread?

Why is there such a great need to crack 1000 comments? I’d much prefer quality over quantity here, and if I got 200 high quality posts and a few high quality responses on a given topic, that’s much more informative than 500 middling posts and another 20-30 inane responses.

To answer the other part of the equation, I’m Not talking about lengthy posts necessarily, but high quality posts that deal in facts, evidence, and use well founded arguments to argue for a position. I’m talking about giving links that directly support the positions taken, logic that follows. If you can do so in a couple of lines, great.

Why is there such a great need to crack 1000 comments? I’d much prefer quality over quantity here, and if I got 200 high quality posts and a few high quality responses on a given topic, that’s much more informative than 500 middling posts and another 20-30 inane responses.

There's a great need because we pretty recently did a move off of Reddit, and many of the communities that move off of Reddit die a slow death of a thousand cuts. Less than six months ago the majority of posts on here were about how the site is doomed and we'll be dead in a year.

I think the mods correctly still see that as a potential problem, and are doing a good job navigating the threats to the long term health of the forum.

Maybe it’s a me thing but I’ve left more communities over stupid content than over a lack of content. Shitposts ruin sites because they prevent useful conversations.

That's by design and working as intended. A daily Dread Jim linkdrop isn't interesting.

Would you be open to a poll on the matter? Let the demos decide?

It's not my call, but for my part, no.

No. The people who don't make effortposts shouldn't have the same voice as the lurkers who never comment or just hop in for short retorts. Lurkers are everywhere, having a crop of people who are willing to take time out and write high quality posts about contentious issues are hard to find.

Except frequently it isn’t quality. It is meandering, not very novel, and navel gazing.

Let a hundred flowers bloom :^)

(Seriously, the BLR mainly seemed to nurse people's basest CW instincts when it existed, polluting the culture of the whole community. It's like saying you want a civil workplace but then add one notice board on which people are allowed to post smut and insult their colleagues without repercussion, and then expecting the rest of the workplace will stay civil.)

How low does activity here need to drop before things aren't working as intended anymore? Will you be happy with one post per week as long as it's four times longer than it needed to be?

Agree, which is why I'd suggest having a BLR, but just admin-delete posts like that with no appeal.

BLR was interesting because it spurred conversation.

If letting the motte die is the intention then sure.

The Motte isn't dying, but if the alternative is becoming a more verbose and unfiltered CWR, then yes, I think letting it die would be preferable.

What is this place?

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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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