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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2955 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 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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Is there a roving gang downvoting all the topics? Why is this at -1 and the Culture War thread at 0? Are we being brigaded or is someone just having fun?

I've noticed a while ago that a disproportionate number of my posts have exactly a single -1 , and then whatever number of upvotes, except a small number of posts with zero downvotes and another small number of posts with higher numbers of downvotes (which are usually noticeably more controversial). At the time, I checked out some other posts and noticed a similar pattern. It seems likely to me that there was some kind of downvoting bot/person, but just one. However, looking at posts now the distribution actually seems more natural; Lots of 0 downvotes, a few -1 downvotes, even fewer -X. So maybe it was a fluke, maybe the bot got banned, hard to tell.

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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."

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