site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2867 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 29, 2023

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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Huh? What adminhood? They're blocked by you.(So am I)

Hmm. They blocked me too, as I see when giving a joke reply just now.

Why mass block posters? What impoverished empty version of the Motte do they inhabit?

Same (in fact, I think he's the only person who I know has blocked me).

That said, you can see that they're admins here.

Blocking admins doesn't actually do anything, for what I hope are understandable reasons.

I would hope even Reddit doesn't just let a user vanish from the scrutiny of the mods, but I genuinely don't know if that's the case. That would be suboptimal, to say the least.

How did they choose the new mods? I know in the past there was some complicated system.

Multiple rounds of selection.

In the initial round, a bunch of users who the mods considered trustworthy and generally representative of the forum were selected, mainly going off AAQC count and other things, and then asked to nominate the next set of voters, who would go on to nominate the final set, who were then to nominate the people who they wanted to see as mods. I have genuinely lost track of whether there were 2 or 3 preliminary rounds before the final vote.

At that point, the candidates were asked if they were willing to take on the responsibility, and quite a few demurred. The remainder were finally vetted by the existing admins, and the results came out a few days ago.

As you can imagine, this took a while. I think a few intermediate steps could be taken out of the picture, because the people nominated in the second step were almost all the same people who showed up for the final vote, but at least it brought in new faces who hadn't been chosen by the mods at the start.

@ZorbaTHut based it off the election of the Doge in Venice. It seemed to work well enough last time, and if it ain't broke and also happens to be mildly exciting, don't fix it!

Votes were submitted in private to him, but there was no barrier to people declaring or discussing their choices, in a channel made for them. A surprising lack of acrimony, and I don't recall anyone being uncouth enough to nominate themselves, though I'm not sure if that was expressly ruled out.

You couldn’t nominate yourself or a currently banned poster and were limited to 4 nominees were the instructions I got in the third(final) round.

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!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats