site banner

The Motte and the future

So the move has been made. Potential shut down by Reddit has been avoided. Huzzah!

But people are still worrying about where new members are going to come from. And things are still being organized in the same terrible way as /r/ssc when they were trying to quarantine the culture war from the rest of the sub. And sprinkles around you have a few small threads for other weekly topics or talking about the new site.

A dedicated site deserves a nu start. Rather than purposely making quality writing harder to find, it should be highlighted. (I know the quality contributions roundup exists, but it certainly isn't exhaustive.) Seriously, have you ever gone back and tried to read an old weekly culture war thread with its thousands, potentially tens of thousands of comments? It is an unnecessary slog if you are looking for something and don't have a link. And sometimes you 'continue reading' and go back only to find that you've lost your place. It just makes you say, "I blue myself."

I do have some suggestions on some of the changes I'd like to see more that there is a dedicated website. First, I'd like to see a webpage highlighting quality contributions and other content from the forum. Something that I can easily link a friend to rather than a nested comment in response to some insane person ranting "There's a man inside me!" Or whatever.

Secondly, I think some editorial prompts for content for the sure would be good. Adversarial collaborations and whatever else. Just easier ways to find good writing from the site.

18
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Because no matter how much I argue that assuming the worst of others needs proof, there are always 10 more comments I saw but didn't have the time to respond to.

This is the key. Political diversity of opinion and quality of opinion are orthogonal to each other. A discussion place can be a place for learning and intellectual growth without contributors uniformly across the political spectrum to maintain an ideal measure of political diversity. It can't survive a flood of commenters who won't check each other's sources. The moment when there are nobody left but people who congratulate each other for correctness of their opinions is when a forum has become distinctly uninteresting.