4 ms·

I was looking through /r/all yesterday, it's impressive how partisan it has become. In my view the single biggest job in Silicon Valley that nobody is taking s

I was looking through /r/all yesterday, it's impressive how partisan it has become. In my view the single biggest job in Silicon Valley that nobody is taking seriously is the role of moderation. It's nearly impossible to do properly and yet there doesn't appear to be another choice.

joekrill 9y ago
Absolutely agree. I used to like to check /r/all for a more rounded view -- but I don't get that anymore. And apparently they're planning to move toward more location-specific view -- which will only make the problem worse. It's not an easy problem to solve, I guess. I think Google is trying to make some inroads with Google News? But even then once you start personalizing the content, you're only going to see sources you like.
- naibafo 9y ago
  I thought the location specific part was about the default subs and /r/popular? /r/all stays as it is.
- observation 9y ago
  Maybe a Babel Fish, only for politics instead of language. The question might be: do we really want to understand each other? Or straight to fisticuffs? I don't regard myself as especially enlightened, I think that's another kind of trap, I think most of us just zone in and out of consciousness and 90% of this belongs to the lizard brain. I suspect most moderators conflate centrism with non-bias or neutrality - but the real reason why the job is so difficult is precisely because sometimes the extremists are correct. Simply reining in the excesses of the left and right isn't enough. I've said before: if a delay of several seconds was inserted into submissions to politically sensitive topics, that would help reduce # of death threats, name calling. If it's any consolation the Internet has proven people have big mouths and fundamentally just can not be bothered to obtain genuine pitchforks.
- davidivadavid 9y ago
  I'm not sure how that's a problem. Presumably I like the sources I deem to be of a certain quality. I don't want to see the stuff I don't like because it's probably not at the standard of quality I expect. The reason nobody's solved the "moderation" problem is because it's the wrong abstraction or the wrong problem to solve. The problem to solve is how to make filtering and discovery better.
frandroid 9y ago
It can't be truly automated, so the valley isn't interested.
yaseer 9y ago
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. As any online community expands, moderating and guaranteeing quality become extremely hard problems.
grb423 9y ago
It seems another word for "moderating" is silencing. This is going to be a very difficult sell to largely centrist Americans. While the polar edges would wish for the silencing of "hate speech" or "anti-Americanism." I believe the vast majority of normal people fear adding the power to draw those lines to the bulging arsenals of giant corporations inexorably entwined with daily lives. Much more likely IMHO we will see a move by some on the center-right to wrest some of this accidental power away from them through anti-monopoly litigation.
Iv 9y ago
It is very easy to do easily if you let go of a common assumption: that moderators are unbiased neutral entities that have to respect free speech. Free speech is a legal principle that allows communitieS of various opinions to appear, gather, discuss. When one wants to create a community, one needs to have stronger standards than that as some subjects will tend to focus the attention on them. We had an interesting experiment during a political shitstorm on /r/france (during the "Dieudonné affair" if you are interested): one month without political subjects. Heavy, exaggerated, broad, moderation line. Heh, it was a huge success! People who wanted to talk politics went to another sub (/r/francelibre or /r/politique) and the rest of the sub talked about lighter subjects. And enjoyed it. But also, on the technical side, as someone who was active on Slashdot, I find reddit's system primitive and much easier to game. I am surprised that in a decade no better system has emerged. Something that would use different weights for different people votes depending on your preferences. I would like setting to say "I want to see what people I find funny comment on that" next to "I want to see what people I disagree with, minus those I tagged troll, say about this".

joekrill 9y ago

Absolutely agree. I used to like to check /r/all for a more rounded view -- but I don't get that anymore. And apparently they're planning to move toward more location-specific view -- which will only make the problem worse. It's not an easy problem to solve, I guess. I think Google is trying to make some inroads with Google News? But even then once you start personalizing the content, you're only going to see sources you like.

naibafo 9y ago
I thought the location specific part was about the default subs and /r/popular? /r/all stays as it is.
observation 9y ago
Maybe a Babel Fish, only for politics instead of language. The question might be: do we really want to understand each other? Or straight to fisticuffs? I don't regard myself as especially enlightened, I think that's another kind of trap, I think most of us just zone in and out of consciousness and 90% of this belongs to the lizard brain. I suspect most moderators conflate centrism with non-bias or neutrality - but the real reason why the job is so difficult is precisely because sometimes the extremists are correct. Simply reining in the excesses of the left and right isn't enough. I've said before: if a delay of several seconds was inserted into submissions to politically sensitive topics, that would help reduce # of death threats, name calling. If it's any consolation the Internet has proven people have big mouths and fundamentally just can not be bothered to obtain genuine pitchforks.
davidivadavid 9y ago
I'm not sure how that's a problem. Presumably I like the sources I deem to be of a certain quality. I don't want to see the stuff I don't like because it's probably not at the standard of quality I expect. The reason nobody's solved the "moderation" problem is because it's the wrong abstraction or the wrong problem to solve. The problem to solve is how to make filtering and discovery better.

frandroid 9y ago

It can't be truly automated, so the valley isn't interested.

yaseer 9y ago

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. As any online community expands, moderating and guaranteeing quality become extremely hard problems.

grb423 9y ago

It seems another word for "moderating" is silencing. This is going to be a very difficult sell to largely centrist Americans. While the polar edges would wish for the silencing of "hate speech" or "anti-Americanism." I believe the vast majority of normal people fear adding the power to draw those lines to the bulging arsenals of giant corporations inexorably entwined with daily lives. Much more likely IMHO we will see a move by some on the center-right to wrest some of this accidental power away from them through anti-monopoly litigation.

Iv 9y ago

It is very easy to do easily if you let go of a common assumption: that moderators are unbiased neutral entities that have to respect free speech. Free speech is a legal principle that allows communitieS of various opinions to appear, gather, discuss. When one wants to create a community, one needs to have stronger standards than that as some subjects will tend to focus the attention on them. We had an interesting experiment during a political shitstorm on /r/france (during the "Dieudonné affair" if you are interested): one month without political subjects. Heavy, exaggerated, broad, moderation line. Heh, it was a huge success! People who wanted to talk politics went to another sub (/r/francelibre or /r/politique) and the rest of the sub talked about lighter subjects. And enjoyed it. But also, on the technical side, as someone who was active on Slashdot, I find reddit's system primitive and much easier to game. I am surprised that in a decade no better system has emerged. Something that would use different weights for different people votes depending on your preferences. I would like setting to say "I want to see what people I find funny comment on that" next to "I want to see what people I disagree with, minus those I tagged troll, say about this".