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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2589 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 17, 2024

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 often come across events in a shallow way (like Musk's Grok AI) that I don't have the time/knowledge to write up, but I'm kind of hoping someone else will comment on.

What do people think about a 'Culture War Request Thread' where people without the time (or wordsmithing skills) can suggest current hot topics that others may be interested in investigating/developing?

Has this been considered or tried before? Would it drain energy from the main thread? Is the main thread fine in the sense of 'if no one has made a top level post, its probably not that interesting' sense?

What do people think about a 'Culture War Request Thread' where people without the time (or wordsmithing skills) can suggest current hot topics that others may be interested in investigating/developing?

Isn't that also sort-of the Small-Questions Sunday thread?

Somewhat? The Sunday thread isn't culture war focused, though.

The intro says

Culture war topics are accepted

so that suggests to me that simple requests for topics would fit here. I don't think it would drain energy from the main thread and, if it worked, would actually drive more discussion there, as long as the small scale questions didn't consistently spin off into a length discussion of the topic here in this thread before a big post was made.

as long as the small scale questions didn't consistently spin off into a length discussion of the topic here in this thread before a big post was made.

That's what I'm worried about. A request thread would mean to draw attention to developments, but not stunt discussion in the way the Bare Link Depository did. I think maybe you would be able to post items, but not discuss them here. If you wanted to discuss them, someone would need to main thread them.

It might be appropriate (or just tempting) to have some level of discussion, at least on the meta-level, regarding whether other people agree or disagree with the request or potential difficulties they anticipate arising from it or something.

Like, literally right now, you have in this post made a suggestion and we are having a meta level discussion about it, though it's about site content rather than a specific CW topic. As long as the discussions remained brief and meta level that would be fine, but when it comes to CW topics that's always a slippery slope.

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