5 ms·

Not to be a snarky, but this worked in 2002(?) to combat 12 year old trolls. The point it really speaks to is What is an appropriate barrier to entry for an o

Not to be a snarky, but this worked in 2002(?) to combat 12 year old trolls. The point it really speaks to is What is an appropriate barrier to entry for an online community where two conditions are satisfied? 1. The online community can scale. 2. The online community is susceptible to what is essentially a sybil attack. It may be the case these two conditions are inversely related and can't be simultaneously satisfied. In the case of SA the admin correctly identified that 12 year old trolls aren't willing to pay 5 dollars to troll. This is an economic barrier to entry that just doesn't apply in the current landscape.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
The current landscape also includes 12 year old trolls who aren't willing to pay 5 dollars to troll. If a barrier stops some but not all trolls, it's still useful. The problem with charging is, I probably wouldn't pay for the privilege of posting here. I suspect I'm not alone. If you charge to deter trolls, you deter (some) trolls, but you also deter some fraction of real users. It would result in a different community.
- cntrlaltdlt 9y ago
  Let me put a few caveat on why 5 dollars in 2002 DNE 5 dollars in 2018 for a 12 year old. Ease of payment, when SA instituted this barrier a young troll intent on disruption had less of a problem coughing up 5 dollars for an account, and more of a problem finding a means to pay this 5 dollars. This is not the case for today's youth. See Xbox live and twitch donations if you don't think I'm being fair here. Scale-ability, which you directly touch on. Enforcing an upfront cost is a very real value calculation one must make prior to having extracted any value from the service and something most people my self included are currently adverse to. This directly impedes a communities ability to scale. I can completely relate to your idea that I wouldn't pay to post on the forums. For years I had friends telling me to sign up and I always just shrugged and responded MEH why would I pay for that sort of thing? I didn't understand (at the time) the point or the reason for doing this. My (and many people's) value structure was in-congruent with the owner of SA. Moving forward, people have to value the idea of an online community free of trolling in order to even put a price tag on that idea. I would find it very hard to believe that a.) enough people (I'm talking an order of magnitude equal to the number of facebook users) value a troll free environment b.) that, said people would have a unified enough of an idea of what an act of trolling is such that focused discussion doesn't boil down to pointing fingers. Maybe this point would merely resolve it self over time.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

The current landscape also includes 12 year old trolls who aren't willing to pay 5 dollars to troll. If a barrier stops some but not all trolls, it's still useful. The problem with charging is, I probably wouldn't pay for the privilege of posting here. I suspect I'm not alone. If you charge to deter trolls, you deter (some) trolls, but you also deter some fraction of real users. It would result in a different community.

cntrlaltdlt 9y ago
Let me put a few caveat on why 5 dollars in 2002 DNE 5 dollars in 2018 for a 12 year old. Ease of payment, when SA instituted this barrier a young troll intent on disruption had less of a problem coughing up 5 dollars for an account, and more of a problem finding a means to pay this 5 dollars. This is not the case for today's youth. See Xbox live and twitch donations if you don't think I'm being fair here. Scale-ability, which you directly touch on. Enforcing an upfront cost is a very real value calculation one must make prior to having extracted any value from the service and something most people my self included are currently adverse to. This directly impedes a communities ability to scale. I can completely relate to your idea that I wouldn't pay to post on the forums. For years I had friends telling me to sign up and I always just shrugged and responded MEH why would I pay for that sort of thing? I didn't understand (at the time) the point or the reason for doing this. My (and many people's) value structure was in-congruent with the owner of SA. Moving forward, people have to value the idea of an online community free of trolling in order to even put a price tag on that idea. I would find it very hard to believe that a.) enough people (I'm talking an order of magnitude equal to the number of facebook users) value a troll free environment b.) that, said people would have a unified enough of an idea of what an act of trolling is such that focused discussion doesn't boil down to pointing fingers. Maybe this point would merely resolve it self over time.