Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 72
- 5
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I am having more fun with GIS, OSM and Wikidata and Russian administrative and municipal boundaries. So, since my last weekend:
I've downloaded a different dump of Russian OSM data (slightly better, but still wonky, on the plus side it already has my fixes)
Redownloaded Wikidata records for all referenced objects
Fixed a handful of OKATO mismatches (I should copy my fixes to Wikidata, though)
Decided to switch to OKTMO, since it looks like the census data is broken down by OKTMO
Did you know that "City district the city of Yaroslavl" and "the city of Yaroslavl" are two different entities? Coterminous, but distinct. Of course, Wikidata only has the latter, and OSM links its boundary to that Wikidata record. But since I'm checking that all second-level divisions of the OKTMO classifier are present in OSM data, this leaves me with... 795 records that aren't accounted for.
So, my plan for the upcoming week is:
ask if Wikidata plans to have cities like this as two distinct entities and either
prepare a batch upload of info into Wikidata and update OSM, or
go through all 795 records in my copy of the data and update them to point to the right OKTMO record
double-check that all second-level OKTMO entities are accounted for in OSM
match the OSM and Wikidata records with census results and update both
UPD: And here I am on Sunday night, composing a letter to the Ministry of Finance that their OKATO-OKTMO correspondence dictionary is missing whole cities...
More options
Context Copy link