site banner
ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   6983 thread views

Bugs, Suggestions, Small Comments, And Site News

Have you found a problem in the site? Do you want to make a suggestion on improvement? Do you just want to say "hi everyone"? Post it here!

If you'd like to help with development, check out the Github and the dev Discord. We have a practically infinite list of small things that need to be fixed or changed.

24
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Visual design change feedback requests!

Before: https://i.imgur.com/hbl021t_d.webp?maxwidth=9999&fidelity=high

After: https://i.imgur.com/ZtvjwBx_d.webp?maxwidth=9999&fidelity=high

This is the kind of thing where I'm pretty sure I'm going to wake up tomorrow and see three major problems, so don't treat this as set in stone. This is also the kind of thing where I will never come up with a design that satisfies everyone, so don't expect me to keep working on it until absolutely everyone is happy. But I do want feedback; let me know what you think.

edit: hah, so apparently if you paste in an imgur link it mangles the URL. Fascinating. Bug filed.

Definitively an improvement, but I think it would benefit further from putting all the command links that currently take out an extra line at the bottom of each comment at the top as is done by my current custom CSS setup (perhaps right-justified to enforce more of a gap from the username and recency line).

I actually really like having the vote number at the bottom :V

Can you post a screenshot of your CSS setup, though?

I keep looking at the top of the post instead of the bottom...

I like these changes a lot. Things are clearer and subjectively less cluttered.

The new layout happens to be very similar to one that I came up with myself in writing HTML files for fun.

I personally like that top level posts are now visually distinct and the horizontal line that separates them. In the current design I always need to double check if it is a top level post or a first level comment to the previous top level post.

Yeah, I think this is the kind of design that makes a lot of sense for our site even if it's pointless for other sites. I'm pretty happy with how that turned out.

Also, you see the collapse-comments bar for non-top-level posts, that you can click to collapse that branch? It's actually there on top-level posts too, it's just invisible unless you mouseover it. No loss of functionality.

That sounds just fine -- your take looks nice to me, and the 'invisible collapse' seems nice enough. Limiting the width of comments at each level in a reddit-like way (not the substack/wordpress approach of mashing them all up against a hard right margin in deep threads) looks like all that's missing at this point.

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