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> Nowadays, reddit is king because it avoided the obvious mistakes of its predecessors. reddit even seem to have found a way to deal with obnoxius moderators -

> Nowadays, reddit is king because it avoided the obvious mistakes of its predecessors. reddit even seem to have found a way to deal with obnoxius moderators - allowing multiple subreddits

erikpukinskis 11y ago
The solution to all problems is let your users do it.
- iLoch 11y ago
  Not if you want to make money though or have any real control of the direction of your company though, apparently.
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    > or have any real control of the direction of your company though, apparently. Here's the secret: you never have If you push your company in a direction that gets you no customers you're done It's like a boat in the wind, if you're good you can maneuver using the sail and in a way go against the wind with some limitations, but you're still dependent on it
- nailer 11y ago
  That's actually pretty spot on. I've ran popular communities that ultimately failed because we hadn't scaled moderation. As long as your content is good, scaling moderation will be the hardest thing for any UGC site, and if you don't build it fast enough the site will either get destroyed or you won't be able to work on the product due to fire fighting.
- ghyttttgg 11y ago
  Or giving each community its own space, rather than forcing everyone into the same room.
cbd1984 11y ago
You mean the Usenet model, which worked for decades and is still working, does, in fact, work? Amazing. Edited to add: OK, that comes off as a bit mean. I'm leaving it in case someone likes it, which really just goes to show my point: Beyond a certain size, it's impossible to please everyone. You can please a good standard deviation or so worth of people, but you do that by offering content which almost aggressively cuts off the long tails. Think prime time TV circa 1990. The smaller voices just get drowned out. The solution is so rock-simple obvious to me that I'm surprised it isn't standard practice: Allow the users to create newsgroups (or subreddits, or fora...) and let them manage them mostly-autonomously. Allow the small voices a place to dominate. If they want echo chambers, fine: The mainstream is even more of an echo chamber for people who live almost exclusively in the mainstream.

> Nowadays, reddit is king because it avoided the obvious mistakes of its predecessors. reddit even seem to have found a way to deal with obnoxius moderators - allowing multiple subreddits

erikpukinskis 11y ago

The solution to all problems is let your users do it.

iLoch 11y ago
Not if you want to make money though or have any real control of the direction of your company though, apparently.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  > or have any real control of the direction of your company though, apparently. Here's the secret: you never have If you push your company in a direction that gets you no customers you're done It's like a boat in the wind, if you're good you can maneuver using the sail and in a way go against the wind with some limitations, but you're still dependent on it
nailer 11y ago
That's actually pretty spot on. I've ran popular communities that ultimately failed because we hadn't scaled moderation. As long as your content is good, scaling moderation will be the hardest thing for any UGC site, and if you don't build it fast enough the site will either get destroyed or you won't be able to work on the product due to fire fighting.
ghyttttgg 11y ago
Or giving each community its own space, rather than forcing everyone into the same room.

cbd1984 11y ago

You mean the Usenet model, which worked for decades and is still working, does, in fact, work? Amazing. Edited to add: OK, that comes off as a bit mean. I'm leaving it in case someone likes it, which really just goes to show my point: Beyond a certain size, it's impossible to please everyone. You can please a good standard deviation or so worth of people, but you do that by offering content which almost aggressively cuts off the long tails. Think prime time TV circa 1990. The smaller voices just get drowned out. The solution is so rock-simple obvious to me that I'm surprised it isn't standard practice: Allow the users to create newsgroups (or subreddits, or fora...) and let them manage them mostly-autonomously. Allow the small voices a place to dominate. If they want echo chambers, fine: The mainstream is even more of an echo chamber for people who live almost exclusively in the mainstream.