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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27876 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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Most people don't feel like writing long toplevel posts most of the time, and the BLR isn't allowed because at least 'long effort post' is a content-neutral filter and the mods don't want to have a filter that isn't content-neutral (both for philosophical reasons and because it'd take more mod effort). I think this is a mistake.

Also, is there so much interesting stuff going on right now? Seems about usual to me.

Most people don't feel like writing long toplevel posts most of the time

I feel like most of the really enjoyable stuff I read here has the same template. Someone wants to talk about a topic but lacks an interesting opinion about it or haven't really thought it throughly. They make a clumsy top level post. Then they get dunked on by 2-3 second level posts explaining why the OP is wrong. The second level posts are typically much more heavily upvoted and well written/argued. Being that OP sucks a bit. I had an experience with this trying to start a discussion about a topic without a clear argument and then the comments destroying me were selected for quality contribution. They were indeed quality contributions but the whole discussion wouldn't exist without me sticking out my neck first and saying something possibly unpopular.

Where are people getting the idea that you need a longpost on the top level? Just write a conversation starter. A good writer could do it in a paragraph, a bad one would need 2-3 tops.

Some interesting stuff going on:

Elon Musk antisemitism controversy, advertisers defecting, etc

Beff Jezos doxed

Henry Kissinger dies

Israel vs. Palestine ongoing developments

2024 election developments

Apparent strength of US economy vs disconnect from voters

Cybertruck debut (not really culture war but a big story)

Russia vs. Ukraine ongoing developments

Protests/riots in Ireland

I would hardly say the news cycle is slow

Those are all pretty lame though.

Yeah, and we’ve discussed all of that here, so it seems like a baseless complaint.

The same amount of interesting stuff was present year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, 4 years ago and so on.

On the subject of the BLR, I have been wondering if we could allow a reduced effort level in exchange for disallowing current events. Something like allowing a paragraph-long post with a link for things more than 1/2/4/8 weeks old. Not convinced that would work, but it at least (mostly) avoids stomping on someone writing a longer post.

"Bare links more than one year old" ?

That could be worth a shot. +1

I like that idea a lot.

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