4 ms·

What I got from this article is that the main reason to return to Usenet is the lack of requiring moderators. Wouldn't you still need moderators on a big enough

What I got from this article is that the main reason to return to Usenet is the lack of requiring moderators. Wouldn't you still need moderators on a big enough Usenet instance? There's also the issue of what happens in an unmoderated community of any size (4chan). EDIT: Also, I don't see "having more thoughtful discussions" as a good reason for needing to return to Usenet. Not every discussion has to be thoughtful, and really, most aren't.

amiantos 7y ago
What I got from this article was sheer nostalgia, mixed with early-internet optimism. The fact is, on the internet these days, you can't allow everyone to have an equal voice without threat of moderation, because more often than not people will use that voice to spew hatred and vitriol just for fun. In the early days it was somewhat easy for good people to shout down or ignore the bad actors, but these days there are more bad actors than there are good people--if this isn't the case, it's surely the case that the bad actors simply have more time, and the good people ultimately flee and do something else with their time.
- thosakwe 7y ago
  Agreed, especially since it's often that the bad actors aren't even human, and simply explosive in number. Moderation is hard, but ignoring it is a recipe for disaster.
filoleg 7y ago
As a sidenote, 4chan has moderators, they are just called "cleaners". And 4chan is far from the wild west people imagine it to be, with the exception of some general cesspool boards like /b/, /v/, /pol/, etc. that cater to the lowest common denominator and are super general in terms of topics discussed (which naturally attracts a ton of people). More niche boards (most of which happen to be categorized as SFW) have some pretty good material, tend to stay on-topic, and are indeed suited well for a civil discussion. My personal favorites would be /o/ (anything car/vehicle related), /toy/ (for stuff like assembling/painting/working on models), /lit/ (for literature), /diy/ (self-explanatory), and /sci/ (science&math). Yes, it isn't super concentrated serious material with no fun allowed, e.g., there are occasional threads where people do things like build a motorized bathtub and then proceed arguing about feasibility of making it street legal. But the quality of discussion there isn't that bad at all, and the moderators are pretty strict about banning people and deleting threads for either being unrelated to the theme of the board or for NSFW stuff on SFW boards.

amiantos 7y ago

What I got from this article was sheer nostalgia, mixed with early-internet optimism. The fact is, on the internet these days, you can't allow everyone to have an equal voice without threat of moderation, because more often than not people will use that voice to spew hatred and vitriol just for fun. In the early days it was somewhat easy for good people to shout down or ignore the bad actors, but these days there are more bad actors than there are good people--if this isn't the case, it's surely the case that the bad actors simply have more time, and the good people ultimately flee and do something else with their time.

thosakwe 7y ago
Agreed, especially since it's often that the bad actors aren't even human, and simply explosive in number. Moderation is hard, but ignoring it is a recipe for disaster.

filoleg 7y ago

As a sidenote, 4chan has moderators, they are just called "cleaners". And 4chan is far from the wild west people imagine it to be, with the exception of some general cesspool boards like /b/, /v/, /pol/, etc. that cater to the lowest common denominator and are super general in terms of topics discussed (which naturally attracts a ton of people). More niche boards (most of which happen to be categorized as SFW) have some pretty good material, tend to stay on-topic, and are indeed suited well for a civil discussion. My personal favorites would be /o/ (anything car/vehicle related), /toy/ (for stuff like assembling/painting/working on models), /lit/ (for literature), /diy/ (self-explanatory), and /sci/ (science&math). Yes, it isn't super concentrated serious material with no fun allowed, e.g., there are occasional threads where people do things like build a motorized bathtub and then proceed arguing about feasibility of making it street legal. But the quality of discussion there isn't that bad at all, and the moderators are pretty strict about banning people and deleting threads for either being unrelated to the theme of the board or for NSFW stuff on SFW boards.