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You and the toplevel commenter may be talking about two different kinds of systems. You are describing "well managed communities". HN is arguably one of those.
by Zak 6y ago
You and the toplevel commenter may be talking about two different kinds of systems.
You are describing "well managed communities". HN is arguably one of those. Many topic-specific forums, IRC channels, mailing lists, and communities on platformy things that seek to reinvent those are as well. They tend to be centered around a topic or purpose and have rules, guidelines, and social norms that facilitate that purpose.
I think the toplevel comment is talking about global many-to-many networks where people connect based on both pre-existing social relationships and shared interests (often with strangers). Those require a different model, and centralized moderation based on a single set of rules is probably not the best one.
- alex_g 6y agoI see the former just as a subset of the latter. ie Twitter is huge, but there are sub-communities that exist within it (some well managed, others not so much), and Twitter is building community features to that point. Twitter can certainly do a better job of moderating its sub-communities, taking into account shared values and context, but I still don't see how the solution is to have users deal with content moderation.
- timeslip1523 6y agoBecause otherwise you unilaterally shut out speech half your users want to read, because you're shoehorning the broad swathes of humanity into the limited set of boxes that the censors can understand and find palatable.