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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   1728 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 4, 2026

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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How long do you think The Motte will continue? Will we still be here in thirty years?

30 years is a bit much. Are there any websites from 30 years ago still active? I think there's a good chance we're still here in 10 though.

I’m pretty sure SomethingAwful is still active and has been around for at least 20 years, maybe 25

It'll be 26 years in a couple of months, I've been there for 24. It still my most used website, but I can't imagine a new user would get much out of it. We've all known each for a couple of decades now and its a lot of very old inside humor. One thing I really do enjoy is that most Goons are over 40 now and a lot of us are in some fairly important roles in society, particularly tech. I've had connections on SA help me out with things I'd never have known someone IRL who could. People in gov't, upper management of FANG companies, etc. Its like the Internet Freemasons. I can join pretty much any semi-popular online videogame and there will be a Goon group waiting to teach you the game and give you stuff to get started.

Technically, yes. But as a shell of its former self, with its former admin having committed suicide.

The WWW goes mass-market around the time Mosaic (1993) and Netscape (1994) are released. So there has only just been 30 years of web history that a website could have been active for.

You can see a lot of 30-year-old websites here most of which are corporate/government/university websites which are "still active" in the sense that IBM or Stanford still has a website. Amazon launched in 1995, which is now >30 years ago. As far as I can see the only 1993-4 vintage websites that are still up that are not information pages put up by pre-existing orgs are Yahoo! and the now-Yahoo-owned Altavista and Geocities.

Are there any websites from 30 years ago still active?

Slashdot is almost there -- granted a shadow of its former self, but I'm pretty sure I could think of more if you need me to. Maybe Zorba will be running an ad-infested MotteMediaCo into his golden years!

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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