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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1715 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 27, 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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I'm serious when I ask this: Can we have a discussion somewhere about removing the ability of people to delete or edit their posts on here after some set time period? An acquaintance found some EA stuff and was doing some digging and asking about who the good commenters other than Naraburns are, I was trying to show them some good old threads I have saved but half of the comments are responses to deleted top level posts or effort replies which makes it basically unusable.

The discussion has been had somewhere on here before. The reason we allow deletions is that some people have reasonable fears about doxxing and malicious actors using their writing against them in real life.

Having said that, if someone is quickly deleting all of their posts we look at that as troll adjacent behavior. People who want to give a minor "fuck you" to the community usually delete all their stuff after a ban.

For individual commentors I'd suggest quoting the important bits of any discussion you are having. It stays readable even if the other person deletes their comments.

For the record I know of at least one freely accessible public scrape of this site (though it isn't actively updated): https://huggingface.co/datasets/x65617379/themotte_260508

do you know of any publicly-accessible scrapes of the old subreddit?

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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!

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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.


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