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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 20, 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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I wouldn't say fears of death are unfounded, if anything they are the voice of the reasonable. New users stumbling their way into the motte sub not being a thing anymore is still THE major issue.

It fills me with great joy to see that the motte is doing well but as the cliche goes nothing good lasts forever. Until there is a substantial amount of evidence that the forum in its current state is sustainable, I'm going to reserve my celebrations.

I wouldn't say fears of death are unfounded

It absolutely was. Most of the activity always came from regulars churning out content. I'd bet The Motte could probably be active indefinitely even if you banned everyone but the top 100 users.

FWIW, across /r/slatestarcodex, /r/TheMotte, and /r/theschism

  1. The top 20 posters authored 14% of comments.

  2. The top 100 posters authored 35% of comments.

  3. The top 200 posters authored 48% of comments.

  4. The top 1000 posters authored 79% of comments.

  5. The top 2000 posters authored 89% of comments.

Source

Obviously this says nothing about the quality of the content.

Like it or not we are still part of a much looser marseyverse network. Even in the old world the /r/drama to /r/themotte pipeline was probably responsible for more user flow than anyone wants to admit. I don't have any of the data I'd need to prove it but there were a couple rdrama posts to some post here this week and I'd put money on that being responsible for the comment uptick.

Redscarepod's reddit I s on the crossroads where they must choose to accept the cappy's help or perish.

I feel like it'd be useful to have a "who's linking here" news section (pingbacks, blogs used to call them, right?). I like knowing where people are coming from if there are any weird shifts.

New redditors stumbling into the motte was by far the biggest problem with the old site, worse than anything the admins did. Every week was just a constant cycle of "'how dare you,' he explained" that got in the way of any discussion.

With the chaff came the wheat.

At-least there was a pipeline that didn't rely entirely on word of mouth or preexisting knowledge of the rationalist sphere.

Nonetheless I'm hopeful in that the forum started off with a good seed userbase and that so many people were willing to make the move with the subreddit.