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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2461 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 6, 2023

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.

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Previous versions of CWR did not have this length requirement, and yet fostered many, fantastic discussions for half of a decade.

What did precious versions of the CWR have that allowed them to be so high quality, and yet not require the length requirement you are outlining here?

As far as demanding content etc. again I just ask you to look at previous CWR threads back on SSC. These seemed to follow a traditional discussion style where a topic is introduced, and as you go down the tree the posts become deeper and longer. There were many, many, many really good discussions that happened in these spaces.

Those were valuable and I think we have lost something now that they’re not allowed to happen in that form. There are a LOT of places to write the type of blog posts that have taken over the CWR threads.

I understand you have had this discussion a lot, but I think that’s because there are enough people who found value in the types of discussions that were previously allowed, and miss that. Originally when themotte splintered off of the SSC sub, and then finally off of Reddit, it was proposed and grown as an extension of those existing communities and the move was being done for practical reasons, not to change the format to more blog like posts.

That could be where the frustration is coming from. If the pitch had been to move away from the existing CWR style and towards the current blogpost style, I suspect there would have been more pushback.

My first point in the list is how you don't really need that much effort to meet the minimum standards. If two paragraphs is hard for you to write, what are you doing here? It took you what, 5-10 minutes to write this response to me, and its double the length you need.

The longer posts have happened organically.

I think we are just going to go in circles on this forever.

I don’t believe that length is a proxy for quality, and I think they enforcing length requirements for a discussion forum results in people writing extremely low quality posts so as to avoid being banned or having their discussions removed. The noise has gone up substantially, and the signal has gone down. While I understand the intent, I think that the effect is obvious.

You’re right that I don’t have a problem writing several paragraphs to accompany submissions. The reason I don’t like the length requirements are not because I’m unable to fulfill them. It is exactly as I keep saying: this policy drives the quality of posts down because it incentivizes bad writing.

I think this is a bad thing. Obviously.

It's not a length requirement, it's a requirement to start a discussion and invest some amount of effort. Length is easy to quantify and generally people say enough things within certain lengths that I can give that as guidance.

We have a general policy of not removing discussions. If you see disappeared posts it's cuz the user deleted them.

Ban lengths are pretty light for low effort posting. Usually no ban at all. 1 day recently.

I am not asking for length I am asking for some/any signal. Not a signal from the outside world but from the poster, the one who is supposedly posting because they are interested in a discussion.

I am typically trying to stop posts that have no signal at all.

I don't get why writing two paragraphs is destroying quality. It barely takes any effort, and if it does take a bunch of effort for someone, then I don't get how the rules forbidding them from dropping bare links is somehow preventing a quality contributor from being here.

I'm not incentivizing long posts I'm disincentivizing content-less posts.

This post is longer than it needs to be. I do this all the time when I write. I make the same points in multiple ways. I have found over many years of online discussions that this is sometimes the most efficient way to get through to someone.

If I don't say it all up front it just ends up coming out over multiple posts. But by the end of it those posts are long buried and the casual readers have dropped off. That's if the other participant even wants to bother having a multi day back and forth.

I think what is happening is that we are asking people to say something, and they are realizing it's hard to say things in a short and concise way. So they have longer posts. Or they start saying something and realize they have a lot to say.

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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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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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