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Also very interested in this. Other social media platforms seems to be devolving into a negative feedback loop of echo chamber tribalism and outrage. HN is stil

Also very interested in this. Other social media platforms seems to be devolving into a negative feedback loop of echo chamber tribalism and outrage. HN is still pretty good, but even here there can be a lot of noise to cut through. One thing I've been thinking about lately is a discussion forum that is highly curated, featuring only comments from a whitelisted group of approved posters. Essentially a hybrid between journalism and the best of online commenting.

iamdamian 6y ago
I like this idea of a platform for curating content. I'm imagining something like Reddit (multiple, unrelated subreddits with independent moderators) but where only hand-selected discussions can be seen? It's intriguing, because it would still suffer from bias (like any platform) but maybe the diversity of moderators would neutralize that a bit, and maybe you'd see more cross-pollination between groups because of the quality of the discussion. Given 1) how hard it is to bootstrap a new social media platform and 2) the resurgence of independent blogging, I'm wondering if a prototype could come in the form of a pluggable comment system, but where you hand curate the comments that show up (or could even feature them in a subsequent blog post)? Something as easy to set up as Disqus, but OSS and designed to de-escalate rather than escalate conversations.
- nopeNopeNooope 6y ago
  So 90's Yahoo?
- shmageggy 6y ago
  Yeah, that sounds about right. I think a major challenge is that it would require a lot of work by moderators, essentially equivalent to editors for news or magazines.
jseliger 6y ago
I've written a blog off and on for many years (http://jakeseliger.com http://jakeseliger.com for the curious) and it takes a huge amount of time to do well. The amount of time Alexander put into SSC is enormous. People who haven't done it or tried to do it often don't realize how enormous. It's like software: end users often don't know how tricky it really is to get right.
- shmageggy 6y ago
  Yes, I think the major challenge would be incentivizing quality moderators, who are essentially doing the job of an publication editor.
holler 6y ago
Hey there, I'm working on a new discussion site after I couldn't find one that fit my desire a few years back (sqwok.im). Although I'm not familiar with the Slate Star Codex, my goal is to build a place where people from all walks can have meaningful discussion about any sort of topic. But in particular I'm interested in news, current events, science, tech, politics, history, etc. One thing I'm doing from the start is removing voting entirely. The site is "conversation-first" meaning I plan to develop it entirely around the conversation, only adding new features if they enhance the conversation in some way. I'm wondering if a site could be highly curated but not heavily moderated? Maybe a site that's open for anyone to post wouldn't necessarily attract the same crowd as one that was a curated collection from a known source? Originally I started thinking about this when I worked in news media some years ago and witnessed the state of online commenting back then! Fun stuff. Cheers!
- shmageggy 6y ago
  Your site looks interesting, I'm checking it out now. I agree that reddit-style voting systems are problematic. In particular, I think there needs to be a way to separate votes that mean "I agree/disagree" from votes that mean "this is high/low quality". Old slashdot had something like this. I'm not sure what you mean by "highly curated but not heavily moderated". I see curation as an extreme form of moderation, essentially operating from a whitelist model as opposed to a blacklist model like most/all sites have now.
  - holler 6y ago
    > I see curation as an extreme form of moderation Ok yeah that's how I see it as well... I was curious if you meant that you'd like a heavily curated site while accepting heavy moderation.. Full-disclosure I don't have the magic bullet for the best solution to the problem of moderation, but it's something I'm constantly thinking about as I build sqwok. I'm not really a fan of heavy-handed moderation on the current large sites, and the sort of echo-chambers that form around them, but I also realize that there will always be a subset of bad actors/trolls that try to ruin the experience for everyone else. That said I _do_ like the idea of curated content as a feature for showcasing content. Thanks for checking it out! (I'm in p/QVK5_vIww8lrGw now if you want to chat)
sgillen 6y ago
I like that idea too. I wonder if people would be willing to pay for something like this. Maybe pay for a premium account that can comment, but everyone can browse. This raises the barrier to entry already, and the money raised can go towards paying full time moderators / curators.

iamdamian 6y ago

I like this idea of a platform for curating content. I'm imagining something like Reddit (multiple, unrelated subreddits with independent moderators) but where only hand-selected discussions can be seen? It's intriguing, because it would still suffer from bias (like any platform) but maybe the diversity of moderators would neutralize that a bit, and maybe you'd see more cross-pollination between groups because of the quality of the discussion. Given 1) how hard it is to bootstrap a new social media platform and 2) the resurgence of independent blogging, I'm wondering if a prototype could come in the form of a pluggable comment system, but where you hand curate the comments that show up (or could even feature them in a subsequent blog post)? Something as easy to set up as Disqus, but OSS and designed to de-escalate rather than escalate conversations.

nopeNopeNooope 6y ago
So 90's Yahoo?
shmageggy 6y ago
Yeah, that sounds about right. I think a major challenge is that it would require a lot of work by moderators, essentially equivalent to editors for news or magazines.

jseliger 6y ago

I've written a blog off and on for many years (http://jakeseliger.com http://jakeseliger.com for the curious) and it takes a huge amount of time to do well. The amount of time Alexander put into SSC is enormous. People who haven't done it or tried to do it often don't realize how enormous. It's like software: end users often don't know how tricky it really is to get right.

shmageggy 6y ago
Yes, I think the major challenge would be incentivizing quality moderators, who are essentially doing the job of an publication editor.

holler 6y ago

Hey there, I'm working on a new discussion site after I couldn't find one that fit my desire a few years back (sqwok.im). Although I'm not familiar with the Slate Star Codex, my goal is to build a place where people from all walks can have meaningful discussion about any sort of topic. But in particular I'm interested in news, current events, science, tech, politics, history, etc. One thing I'm doing from the start is removing voting entirely. The site is "conversation-first" meaning I plan to develop it entirely around the conversation, only adding new features if they enhance the conversation in some way. I'm wondering if a site could be highly curated but not heavily moderated? Maybe a site that's open for anyone to post wouldn't necessarily attract the same crowd as one that was a curated collection from a known source? Originally I started thinking about this when I worked in news media some years ago and witnessed the state of online commenting back then! Fun stuff. Cheers!

shmageggy 6y ago
Your site looks interesting, I'm checking it out now. I agree that reddit-style voting systems are problematic. In particular, I think there needs to be a way to separate votes that mean "I agree/disagree" from votes that mean "this is high/low quality". Old slashdot had something like this. I'm not sure what you mean by "highly curated but not heavily moderated". I see curation as an extreme form of moderation, essentially operating from a whitelist model as opposed to a blacklist model like most/all sites have now.
- holler 6y ago
  > I see curation as an extreme form of moderation Ok yeah that's how I see it as well... I was curious if you meant that you'd like a heavily curated site while accepting heavy moderation.. Full-disclosure I don't have the magic bullet for the best solution to the problem of moderation, but it's something I'm constantly thinking about as I build sqwok. I'm not really a fan of heavy-handed moderation on the current large sites, and the sort of echo-chambers that form around them, but I also realize that there will always be a subset of bad actors/trolls that try to ruin the experience for everyone else. That said I _do_ like the idea of curated content as a feature for showcasing content. Thanks for checking it out! (I'm in p/QVK5_vIww8lrGw now if you want to chat)

sgillen 6y ago

I like that idea too. I wonder if people would be willing to pay for something like this. Maybe pay for a premium account that can comment, but everyone can browse. This raises the barrier to entry already, and the money raised can go towards paying full time moderators / curators.