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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1969 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025

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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You're not my dad! I just tend to use whichever thread is newest.

Yeah as a mod, I think you shouldn’t do this. You and vanilla increasingly take up a larger and larger share of the overall site content as your personal slice of life blogs, which is… fine. But at least have the courtesy not to shit all over any sense of structure on the site to do so. Especially not while also policing others for their usage of the site

It's interesting to ask why it should be bothersome when you feel that someone is "monopolizing" the site with posts you don't like. It certainly is bothersome, I won't deny that. But it's not clear why it should be. The site has an in principle unlimited amount of server space. It's not a zero sum game. One person posting a thread you don't like doesn't prevent you or other people from posting threads that are more to your liking.

There are certain popular genres of threads here that bore me to tears (mainly the policy wonk posts, and the posts that get into obsessive minutiae regarding current events). But I know that by the same token, there are people who hate the types of posts that I like to produce and read as well (borderline schizophrenic free associative rants about philosophy and psychology). If I start harping on people for writing posts I don't like, then I know that they can just turn that around and say "well we don't like what you're trying to turn themotte into either". So I generally just try to keep my mouth shut when there's a post I don't like and I just ignore it or collapse the thread.

I suppose that although the site in principal has space for an unlimited number of threads, it only really has space for one dominant culture, and in this sense it is more zero sum. The fear could be that threads you don't like will attract the types of posters that you don't like, which will over time shift the culture in a direction that makes the site less valuable to you.

My answer in two parts.

First while there is unlimited server space, there is not unlimited share of posts. That is zero sum. If someone posts enough proportionally they have a bigger effect on the culture and tone of the board.

Consider ad absurdem a sleepy friend group chat where people occasionally post life updates, coordinate events, or made small jokes. One day somebody starts dialing up the posting with personal drama and political screeds. Nobody is afraid they will run out of space. But the character of the group chat is compromised.

Selfmade has noticeably dialed up his proportion of theMottes engagement (which is a function also of this place kind of cooling off possibly unrecoverable). More and more it feels like self made’s spot. Which I said is FINE. He can do that regardless of how I receive it.

But the second part is extending that into also knocking down any loose structure that keeps the site gardened. It comes off as flaunting that he can swing his voice around the site for his own amusement and break down any even superficial sense of organization

I don't really get it either, and it's not something that's worth policing 99% of the time. We eventually crack down on blatant single-issue posting, especially if it is obnoxious, but that's a high bar.

We have a button to collapse threads. We have a block button. The last is a nuclear option, but the former? Just use that to skip past what you don't care for.

Fine, we mods had a talk and agreed that @self_made_human should have posted this in the fun thread. He is duly chastened.

We also agreed you're being kind of an ass about this, and not just because you apparently think all Indians are the same.

  • -11

What the fuck does this have to do with being Indian?! I am complaining about posting topics and you accuse me of racism. If this was anyone else they’d get modded by you.

Vanilla and Self made both post quite a bit about developments of their personal lives in a very episodic way. Which again is fine, but gets tedious when it’s obviously not even relevant to the threads topic.

Vanilla used to do it more and self made has really turned up the volume recently. None of it had anything to do with being Indian you fucking asshole

After discussing this with other moderators, we are reducing your ban to "time served."

A couple of things, for you and for everyone:

First, other people's behavior is not, never has been, and never will be an excuse for your own. Directed invective like "you fucking asshole" is ban-on-sight behavior even if the other person did something to deserve it. This is pure heat. Use the "report" button instead.

Second, our moderators are generally pretty thick-skinned, and we usually avoid modding in a thread where we're participating. But sometimes users think that means it's open season on the mod team. This is not the case.

Finally, it seems to me that a combination of Internet-mediated communication and partially hidden information (specifically, some "user reports" on various comments, and some inter-user histories) combined here to create conversations that were effectively "garbled" by how they played out. This is one reason I personally try to avoid the "meta," if at all possible.

Anyway, I'd like to end the litigation of this here, and hope everyone is willing to cooperate with me on that.

None of it had anything to do with being Indian you fucking asshole

I don't know what kind of a crash-out this is, since you posted something so obviously cruising for a ban and then reported yourself, but wish granted. If you're have a bad week, you need to take it out on someone else.

3-day ban. You can complain about the modding, but not like this.

  • -14

>impute racist motivations

>get (somewhat understandably) upset response

>reach straight for the banhammer

Outstanding move. This is not your first mod decision I consider objectionable, but it's definitely the most naked flex so far. I don't mind the blogposting myself, it's entertaining if nothing else, but when the volume reaches several posts per week (from the same posters, on roughly the same themes) people are absolutely allowed to complain. At no point is race required to enter the consideration.

From downthread:

We both thought it was odd that he grouped the two Indian posters together like that in such an unrelated fashion.

Maybe because they are the two posters who liberally blogpost as of late? If I'd made @iprayiam3's point they would've been my go-to examples as well, no Nooticing required.

Ctrl-F'ing the first 5 pages of @iprayiam3's post history turned up 0 mentions of Indians specifically and one direct mention of immigrants. What, respectfully, are you on about? How does race even factor in here, why does your theory of mind go straight to race-based motivations? I held my tongue last time I got warned for off-handedly mentioning "jewish tricks" without a meme disclaimer (point taken) but here I'll say it - I understand janitorial duties take their toll but you really gotta fix your racism/antisemitism detector, the false positives are visibly stacking up.

I agree that @iprayiam was factually correct about the frequency of blogposting by specific mottizens, and that racism seemed to play no role in it, and that the mods read too much into it.

But his reaction was also clearly out of bounds and did deserve punishment.

I agree it was out of bounds, but considering the circumstances of @Amadan (I think undisputably) firing the first proverbial shot here it would be more prudent to warn first, and tempban after if he does not chill.

IMO it's hard to find a sweet spot here. For the language used by @iprayiam, a mere warning seems too light, even given the circumstances. And it is only a 3-day ban. I just hope it won't be held against him in future mod decisions.

Unfounded accusations of racial prejudice seem roughly as bad as calling someone an asshole; claiming to have made them as an attempt to lighten the mood crosses the line into straight up dishonest argumentation. Mods closing ranks on this is pretty bad too; I suggest that smh was a bad choice for a mod, and this should be rectified. Iprayim has the right of it downthread; nothing personal but the guy is bad for the forum. (as a mod)

Unfounded accusations of racial prejudice seem roughly as bad as calling someone an asshole

TBH I think it's a quite a bit worse - for many of us we live in a situation where being called racist in real life would be a profound existential threat, and in the overall blue milieu it is pretty much the worst thing you can call people.

I know I have an involuntary autonomic reaction to it even if I know I'm safe through anonymity or whatever.

I think this is the first time I have ever been utterly confused and disgusted by a moderation action on this forum.

If you are confused that calling someone (including a mod) a fucking asshole will earn a ban, then I am not sure what your expectations were.

  • -14

It seems like a pretty reasonable reaction to being accused of racism by two different moderators for absolutely zero reason that I can see.

As I said in a reply before I found out he was banned, I do not actually think he was being racist towards me. I was more mildly peeved by the idea that my writing would be clubbed in with silver's. It really was a joke, I have thicker skin than that.

We did not call him a racist. We both thought it was odd that he grouped the two Indian posters together like that in such an unrelated fashion. But he wasn't modded for that.

There is almost no situation in which calling someone a fucking asshole is going to be considered a reasonable or acceptable reaction.

  • -13
More comments

Eh? I'm slightly hurt that you'd lump the two of us together. Is it because we're Indian?

On a more serious note, we do not moderate the non-CWR daily threads very strongly. They are explicitly chill places. I find it unfair for @ToaKraka to call me out when several of his legal briefs stretch the definition of "fun" on a Friday (as much as I personally enjoy them). The effort rules are not enforced here, nor is much effort needed or expected.

If I was going to rules-lawyer this, and I don't care to, I could trivially throw a question on at the end. Should I go out with a woman who will bite me?

Reported you and Amadan for accusing me of racism to try to bully me against reporting something completely irrelevant to race. Extraordinarily low and a further abuse of your mod click.

I find this very troublesome.

You and vanilla both like to post long episodic slice of life updates, and increasingly do it in whatever thread is open. Beyond that there are no further similarities. The fact that you are both Indian is irrelevant and not even remotely on my mind.

Is it because we're Indian?

On a more serious note

This was intended to make it clear that I was being less than serious at first, and that I do not really think you're being racist. Even if you were, I wouldn't particularly care.

Look dude, as forms of mod abuse go, posting in a slightly off-topic thread because the old one seemed dead is not very high on the ranking. I did that before I was a mod, none of the mods bothered with it then, it's not favoritism.

Your objection to me doing so wouldn't warrant an actual reverse accusation of racism from me out of sheer outrage. As a concession, I've already volunteered to be more mindful of where I post, which is where I hope we could let the matter lie.

Maybe we ought to have a Blogpost...there's no weekday for B. Diary D....Dienstag? Donnerstag?

Shitpost Saturday? I'd fuck with that.

Well, we're almost out of days of the week. We must now live in paranoid anticipation for a whopping two new threads for a day. Not sure the backend can take it.

Slice-of-life Saturday

Less prurient, but it has my vote. I'll being it up with the other mods.

I was joking! But if it amuses you go ahead by all means :)

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