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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4867 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 26, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Two questions about The Motte;

  • Is the site growing or stagnant?
  • If it is stagnant or decaying in popularity, do we have any tool or method to attract new people?

Communities like this have the problem of attracting fresh meat.

Stagnant is fine; decaying is bad. The Motte is decaying. My suggestion was to stop banning good quality longtime posters just because the Nazi contingent starts diligently reporting their every plausibly inflammatory statement, but the mods seem to disagree.

Which longtime posters were banned recently? I don't even know, there used to be a weekly thread about who got banned in the last week.

All I can think of was Hiynka and he's a far-out third (fourth?) positionist calling 80% of the political spectrum progressives.

he's a far-out third (fourth?) positionist calling 80% of the political spectrum progressives.

Not a bannable offense. In fact, plausibly true, given some conceptual understanding of those words and the concepts underlying many people's positions. Kinda funny that this is what comes top-of-mind when thinking about why he was banned. Really bolsters jkf's claim.

He perpetually misrepresented his opponent and refused to engage with points actuality made, and he was snotty while doing it.

His average quality of engagement was low.

He perpetually misrepresented his opponent

I read through the various comments cited for the ban, and I didn't really see much of this. I saw a more direct, "I think you're 'hiding your power level'." I don't think I've seen any clarity from the mods on whether stating such beliefs are against the rules.

refused to engage with points actuality made

Here, I think he did so in a way that was actually kind of reasonable. He openly and clearly stated that he rejected the underlying framework that led to the point being made. He gave reasons why he rejected it. This is good comment behavior, even if it really pisses off some of the people who have their entire underlying framework rejected.

he was snotty while doing it.

This is probably the most accurate claim. Poor aesthetics. Oof for a permaban.

His average quality of engagement was low.

I think any commenter that continues to engage in discussion is going to end up with a low average, depending upon how "engagement" is defined. All long comment threads, for the sake of not-taking-infinite-time result in some amount of paring down, dropping some things that feel incidental, etc. I've had plenty of experience of times when I've repeated a point that I thought was significantly not incidental, calling out that it was dropped, perhaps on grounds that they thought it was incidental, but that I thought it was not. It is only after a couple/few repeated refusals (without explanation) that you can essentially build a pattern that they're simply ignoring a point because it's inconvenient, rather than due to believing that it's incidental or because they reject the underlying framework of the point.

Kind of hilarious that even Darwin came to his defense on this topic of dropping some points in the interest of time and trying to get to the crux, considering that he was a prime example of someone who would do the precise thing I'm contrasting - repeatedly refuse to engage at all with a repeatedly-stated point that was simply inconvenient (among other bad commenter things that he did).

He would not accept that many of us are color-blind meritocracy fans and recognize the factual reality of HBD. That combo just broke his brain. Perpetually misrepresenting the views of one’s opponents when explicitly corrected is shitty and intolerable behavior.

He would avoid dealing with the concrete evidence provided for the reality and utility of IQ, and its correlation to racial groups. He would make deluded attacks on academia—where IQ is not so popular a metric—and fail to acknowledge the contradiction. This is not denying the underlying framework. It’s being retarded and illogical. Several people who don’t like HBD pointed this out at the time.

If he had been consistently retarded but polite on the IQ issue, he wouldn’t have caught the ban and his average comment quality would have been good. Civility and order break down when those with status consistently and flagrantly violate rules and norms and the mods’ hands were forced.

Personally, I don’t care whether he caught a forever ban or just a really long one. Redemption is nice when you can get it.

To be completely honest, as someone who doesn't really participate in the IQ/HBD wars, this mostly sounds like regular petty whining that all sorts of people have lists of for their pet issues. When I've looked at the actual comments people cite for their similar claims, my statements hold.

Well lots of people, including the mods, saw it differently.

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