This is the bi-weekly visible open thread (there are also hidden open threads twice a week you can reach through the Open Thread tab on the top of the page). Post about anything you want, but please try to avoid hot-button political and social topics. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit or the SSC Discord server – and also check out the SSC Podcast. Also:

1. 26 teams have signed up for the adversarial collaboration contest so far! But don’t feel overwhelmed; if people flake out at the same rate as last year, there will still only be 10 or so final entries. I’m curious why the second post was so much more successful at encouraging signups than the first. Was it the rule that only people with A-M names could propose? The rule that nobody could post non-proposal comments in the comments section? Or did people just need more time?

2. I’ve been taking more advantage of a feature where any comment that more than three users report gets removed until I can check it over for appropriateness. Most of these comments are inappropriate but not worth banning people for, so I usually just keep them removed and take no further action. I know people don’t like moderator actions without transparency, but I don’t have enough time/energy to moderate in a transparent way and so you are stuck with this for now. Sorry.

3. Related – I want to remind people that it’s almost never a good choice to go too general. If a post like Against Against Billionaire Philanthropy is getting too many comments like “This proves that government is bad at everything” or “You are a free market ideologue too blinded to see that the free market has killed millions of people”, something has gone wrong, and it’s probably me not banning enough people. Feel free to report posts like this, though I may not ban all of them. I might crack down harder on this in the future; for now, re-read Arguments From My Opponent Believes Something.

4. Two new sidebar ads this month. 21st Night is a study program that combines spaced repetition with error logging. Sparrow is a charity app that links automatic donations to events in your life – for example, you can set it to donate 10% of your restaurant bills to ending world hunger.