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naraburns  nihil supernum  8mo ago (text post)   3205 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for December 2025

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.

Happy New Year to all!

Quality Contributions to the Main Motte

@self_made_human:

@Sloot:

@TheAntipopulist:

@George_E_Hale:

@Dean:

Contributions for the week of December 1, 2025

@naraburns:

@100ProofTollBooth:

@self_made_human:

@gog:

@FtttG:

@FCfromSSC:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@Rov_Scam:

Contributions for the week of December 8, 2025

@Rov_Scam:

@FtttG:

@RoyGBivensAction:

@ThenElection:

@iprayiam3:

@functor:

Contributions for the week of December 15, 2025

@faceh:

@gattsuru:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

@HereAndGone2:

@Markass:

@DoktorGlas:

@birb_cromble:

@BreakerofHorsesandMen:

Contributions for the week of December 22, 2025

@self_made_human:

@wemptronics:

@aqouta:

Contributions for the week of December 29, 2025

@100ProofTollBooth:

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People still do it. Yes, often authors do write from their own experiences and yes, we often don't realise the influences things have had on us. But I think if he clearly said "This is not about the war (except insofar as my physical experience of marching etc. went towards plotting out routes and how much ground the Hobbits could cover in a day)", then it's no good to go "Okay, he said it's not about the war, but it's really about the war".

We like interpreting things which strike a chord with us as "ah, this must be about the thing it reminds me of!" even if the author says "No". I remember in Stephen King's "On Writing" he talked about how people were always trying to get at the hidden motivation which caused him to be a horror writer, and after one session of such "but surely there must have been some traumatic formative experience?" questioning by an interviewer, he dredged up a memory of his mother telling him that when he was a kid, he had seen a railroad accident (I think). King said he didn't remember this and only was going by what his mother told him, and it honestly never affected what he wrote, but the interviewer was delighted because aha! now we have the real reason he writes horror!

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).

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