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While I enjoyed the article, in the end, I can't see any of these new techniques working in a meaningful capacity. I think traditional moderation techniques sti

While I enjoyed the article, in the end, I can't see any of these new techniques working in a meaningful capacity. I think traditional moderation techniques still are relevant to the discussion. The "problem" that the whole distributed paradigm brings to communities is the same as its greatest strength: if nobody controls the system, then anyone has just as much influence as their peers. This means that systems will have to be put in place to give some power over others in order to control the community. This is where I believe the crux of the issue lies: in the distribution of power. If anyone can decrease someone's federated reputation, then so can the trolls. If you require people to "join" a community, whether by participation or time or other means, trolls will do that as well if it is easy to do so. If I were trying to create a community of people who are at a higher risk of being harassed I would have my community structure take some cues from HN, Reddit, and the like. One of the things I love about HN is that you need a certain amount of rep to downvote. This alone eliminates a lot of the issues Reddit has where everything turns into mob rule as everyone, including community outsiders, have the ability to influence discourse. Going one step further, I would propose an invite system. While an invite system would mean slower growth initially, we're trying to optimize for quality in the community, not quantity. I had some alarms go off in my mind while reading this article's seemingly nonchalant approach to what is effectively censorship, but in a distributed system I guess this is of no concern as everyone can just "fork" the community and start their own.

generic_user 10y ago
> if nobody controls the system, then anyone has just as much influence as their peers. This means that systems will have to be put in place to give some power over others in order to control the community. As time goes on I'm beginning think that no matter what the original design of the platform was they will all inevitably regress into something like IRC. The rules will be changed so that groups can split of or filter and focus on some specific area to try to keep the discussion on topic and productive. And inevitably there will be some group that captures control of that group and turns it into a dictatorship. Dissenters will start a new group if they can or leave the platform. Any other design will just become so noisy and unproductive that it turns into a dumpster fire. The reason why HN is not a total shit show is because they sometimes put down the hammer and knock out off topic discussion from the core set of topics that revolve around the practice of programming. > Going one step further, I would propose an invite system. Some of the most productive people who make the best posts are hermits. There people who rarely check in to social media to see whats going on and have little or no friends they could ask for a invite. And on the other hand some of the most crap people are online all the time and have huge networks and can get an invite to where ever they want.

generic_user 10y ago

> if nobody controls the system, then anyone has just as much influence as their peers. This means that systems will have to be put in place to give some power over others in order to control the community. As time goes on I'm beginning think that no matter what the original design of the platform was they will all inevitably regress into something like IRC. The rules will be changed so that groups can split of or filter and focus on some specific area to try to keep the discussion on topic and productive. And inevitably there will be some group that captures control of that group and turns it into a dictatorship. Dissenters will start a new group if they can or leave the platform. Any other design will just become so noisy and unproductive that it turns into a dumpster fire. The reason why HN is not a total shit show is because they sometimes put down the hammer and knock out off topic discussion from the core set of topics that revolve around the practice of programming. > Going one step further, I would propose an invite system. Some of the most productive people who make the best posts are hermits. There people who rarely check in to social media to see whats going on and have little or no friends they could ask for a invite. And on the other hand some of the most crap people are online all the time and have huge networks and can get an invite to where ever they want.