This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).
As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.
These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful.
Quality Contributions to the Main Motte
Contributions for the week of August 25, 2025
Contributions for the week of September 1, 2025
Contributions for the week of September 8, 2025
Okay, Chuck. Another Fine Mess You've Gotten Us Into.
- "Way back in the 90s, there was a popular freakout about video games making young men into killers."
Contributions for the week of September 15, 2025
@kky:
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This months takes feel a little weak to me, maybe it's because I'm starting to outgrow this place. The same happened at LW, my first impressions of that site were good, but then I gradually became able to see flaws in peoples arguments, and now most of the posts on there are simply annoying to read, and none of them blow me away or make me feel like I'm not qualified to read them (a feeling which I happen to enjoy, and actively seek out). My method of evaluation is rather non-standard. I consider a unique and insightful take to be superior to a mediocre, but relevant take. I suppose I also find it frustrating to see people debate a X-year-old issue, with none of the arguments being any better than they were X years ago, especially for large X on issues that I consider "solved".
Some of the takes on here are also completely obvious to a lot of 'regular' people, or they're things which used to be common knowledge, but now manages to be uncommon knowledge, especially in educated circles. Some people also advocate for traditional ideas, but do so in a way which has integrated a modern perspective. As a fictional example: If somebody were to say "Borders are an extreme, but necessarily solution" then they'd be refusing the modern position of open borders, while buying into the ridiculus, modern idea that borders are something which needs to be defended in the first place, rather than something obviously necessary. As you fight against bad ideas, you shouldn't also integrate them into your own worldview. You shouldn't buy into a wrong context even if you can refute some ideas from within it. Good takes on general issues are timeless, so a forum which is too strongly colored by the current year will have takes which are only useful within the context which prompted them (causing poor generalizability), they'd be purely reactive. It also creates the fear that moderators would punish you for writing something outside of the overton window, which would be considered completely inoffensive in some other culture and/or some other century.
Most things that frustrate me are very minor, but still impactful, like the idea that loneliness and a lack of sex are the same thing, as if seeing a prostitute would make you less lonely. This very framing is pathological. (I realize it might just have been a simplification though)
Not that all takes are mediocre, a few are quite good (and I'm completely spoiled by having internet access, so I have very high standards), and the only way I can describe it is that reading them feels completely different from the average comment, they're refreshing to read (unlike my own comment. I'm not a good writer and the arrogant tone is probably off putting as well)
Bro, this place is just a hangout without pretensious ideals like Less Wrong, I doubt there's a lot of people who post here with the goal to blow lurkers' minds, and the ones that do are probably eyeing a S***tack career. Anyway, if you're mainly here for consoooming instead of participating as an equal, you're probably doing it wrong.
I once asked which internet community had the most intelligent people, and that's when I was recommended this site.
I don't want to be a parasite on the community, but in order to engage with a comment, I feel like I have to understand most of it, but most comments speak of specifics that I have never heard of before (and which doesn't interest me). And I'd feel bad responding to a long text, just to discuss a minor part of it, as that's just nitpicking or directing the conversation towards what interests me but which may not interest the other person.
As for your link, the reason communities don't "feel like home" to most people is because they feel like public spaces instead. It does not feel outside the panopticon, it doesn't feel like a place where one can take off their 'mask'. For this feeling to go away, every layer of the structure will have to be unrelated to something that I consider hostile to myself, which means that this website and every layer that it's contained within (the host, for instance) will have to forgive me for being an imperfect human, not just now but until it ceases to exist. It's hard to say if the internet changed, or if I did (oversocialization?), but 99% of websites feel as homely as a public shopping mall to me. Now, I don't know if this feeling is correct, but I do know that it correlates with age, so it's probably socially conditioned
Please don't feel bad about that. I frequently find that the most interesting content is 1 - 2 branches off of a top level post.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link