Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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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
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if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
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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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Notes -
This is how I rate them, if I think the comment is breaking the rules but isn't likely to lead to more breakages then I'd say bad. If it breaks the rules and will likely lead to more breakages I rate it with a warning. I think I've only ever said something deserved a ban once but I save that for anything I think deserves a permaban only.
I'm more lenient than the mods (not lately though, things are pretty chill these days compared to reddit) but I also find it hard to ever say something definitely deserves a ban without context so most of the time I treat the warning as if it would lead to an actual warning/a short ban/a week ban because with more context it could be any of those things. I also rarely get served up with duty for egregious comments, anyway.
I mean how should you rate it? Use the metarule and treat janitor duty as a way to hopefully shape this place in the way you'd want it to be through suggestion. Otherwise I wouldn't dwell on it too much. I don't think they're using the janitors as juror votes.
We do see the overall results of the user moderation, but not the specific votes. I'm not sure how zorba set up the calculations behind the scenes.
I think it's good that you are basically seeing what we have to do.
Leave alone vs warn vs temp ban vs permanent ban. The added complication for us is that we have to also write something to go along with a punishment decision. That does make me marginally less harsh as a mod. Especially if there are just lots of small things wrong. But it probably makes me more harsh when it's just one really bad thing in an otherwise ok post.
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