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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3798 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 9, 2022

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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Has the motte astralcodexten'd itself? What's your impression of the off site CW threads so far? I myself check in less frequently than before, and when I do, it seems more... boring?

I think the move off Reddit will come to be seen as a big mistake.

Why--because the forum will die? That's a possibility, however (1) the number of CW thread weekly posts hasn't noticeably dropped since the move and (2) Zorba was pretty explicit that "keep our commitment to open discourse and die" was a preferred outcome to "capitulate to limiting discourse on especially difficult topics and live." Plenty of people predicted we'd die after splitting of from the SSC sub, too. We frequently had users point out ways in which they regarded the sub as "dying." But several years later, well... maybe we're still dying? Very slowly?

the main thing that drew admin attention was a few trans activists reporting gender-critical posting

While there was certainly some of that, the co-founder of TheSchism explicitly owned up to drawing the Eye of Sauron to the sub in the first place, because he uncharitably interpreted some conflict theory posting as "calls to violence." And there were other things that AEO didn't like, for example (((parenthesis))). You may be right that radical trans advocates seeking to shut down open discourse were the main problem, but the list of problems was not short, either.

The main pipeline for new and interesting users is now cut off.

Eh. Striking the balance between Eternal September and Eternal Silence is tricky, ongoing, and probably not indefinitely maintainable regardless. I will continue to post our AAQCs in the subreddit until someone stops us, probably. The barrier to participation is a little higher, now, maybe, but in some ways that can be as much a feature as a bug.

owned up to drawing the Eye of Sauron to the sub in the first place, because he uncharitably interpreted some conflict theory posting as "calls to violence."

Where or at least when he he admit this?

Here:

On September 7, 2020, this post was made on /r/themotte and got +20 upvotes:

As the poem goes, sooner or later the Saxon begins to hate. And I have more than just begun.

[...]

The truth is that I fucking hate them. [...] I don't want a compromise anymore. I don't want to go our separate ways in peace. I want to hurt them and I want to win.

[...]

I would rather die and fail and men say 'at least he tried' than to throw my own flesh and blood to the wolves that swim in Cthulhu's wake.

[...]

I doubt we are in for a short victorious war but I think the right will come out well in any civil conflict.

I reported this to the mods, who did nothing. After waiting some time, I reported it to the reddit admins, and the AEO promptly deleted it. To my knowledge, this was the first AEO action against /r/themotte. The mods discussed it via modmail but issued no warnings or ban to the user in question.

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