site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2d ago (text post)   Edited 2d ago   1839 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for October 2026

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

@FiveHourMarathon:

Contributions for the week of September 28, 2026

@100ProofTollBooth:

Contributions for the week of October 5, 2026

@kky:

@YE_GUILTY:

@ThenElection:

@FtttG:

@roystgnr:

@YoungAchamian:

@KingOfTheBailey:

@Shakes:

@hanikrummihundursvin:

@OliveTapenade:

Contributions for the week of October 12, 2026

@4bpp:

@Rov_Scam:

@coffee_enjoyer:

@FCfromSSC:

@rockbier1218:

Contributions for the week of October 19, 2026

@Shakes:

@Iconochasm:

@Dean:

@Primaprimaprima:

@naraburns:

@satirizedoor:

Contributions for the week of October 26, 2026

@Shrike:

@hanikrummihundursvin:

@FCfromSSC:

@SecureSignals:

@Nerd:

@Goodguy:

@Shakes:

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm kind of sad that I missed all the Malfoid discussion. Glad to find it here though.

It was good fun, but to be honest my main takeaway from it is that I hate culture warriors.

Malfoid is a cute premise and led to lots of adorable creativity, and within approximately five seconds discussion around it was hijacked by 1) right-wing morons who think that it's somehow evidence that the masses yearn for their retarded combination of racism and ethno-nationalism, and 2) left-wing morons who think that the whole thing is evidence of incel misogyny and radicalisation.

It really makes me want to strangle both camps.

Can you not just... let nice things be nice?

Let people have good things. For once. You parasitic idiots.

and within approximately five seconds

Looks like from the original viral drawing until the first viral use of "foid" was actually more than half a day? I would not have guessed that, but I'm not finding any similarly popular use of "Malfoid" any earlier, and it doesn't become a hashtag until 5 days later.

The best defense I've heard of the culture-warring here is the idea that "foid" acted as a shibboleth, preemptive offensiveness to keep away the "We have to do this My Way, because Your Way is Too Offensive" crowd and enable more creativity ... but I'm not sure the timeline works for that theory.

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).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats