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I think you're wrong and not the typical user. Personally, I would never use any social network without strong moderation and banning of toxic users, and I'm th

I think you're wrong and not the typical user. Personally, I would never use any social network without strong moderation and banning of toxic users, and I'm that many if not most people share this sentiment. Places without strong moderation turn into hellholes and are generally less interesting. Whether a network is decentralized or not is a completely different, purely technical question. I don't understand why two issues get mixed up so often. The design of a community should never be based on technical considerations.

adrr 4y ago
You don’t like hanging out on 4chan? It’s not what users want anyway, it is what advertisers want. They don’t want toxic content next to their ads.
- anoy8888 4y ago
  Wow , you are very different from most people as most (99.9999?)can’t stand toxic trolls.
  - adrr 4y ago
    It was a sarcastic remark to emphasis that majority of people don't like toxic content.
- drowsspa 4y ago
  Most people don't like hanging out on 4chan.
- astura 4y ago
  The vast majority of 4chan users are children or very young adults. Most people grow out of that.
_HMCB_ 4y ago
Agreed 100%.
bhupy 4y ago
The GP comment’s proposal is not incompatible with what you (and typical users) want. Moderation is very different from censorship. I want strong moderation and “banning” for myself. I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so. On the other hand, I don’t believe that I have any kind of entitlement to prevent other people from seeing content once it’s been permanently hidden from my own view. I don’t really care if other people are able to see content that I don’t wish to see. This article describes the distinction in a pretty clear and concise way: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moderation-is-different-from-censorship https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moderation-is-differen... Email works this way today and most people are perfectly fine with that.
- spaced-out 4y ago
  >I want strong moderation and “banning” for myself. I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so. This is fine for you perhaps, but I don't want to be a moderator. I prefer social networks like, say, Hacker News where moderation is handled for me. >Email works this way today and most people are perfectly fine with that. Most people only use email for work and don't particularly enjoy it. They prefer to spend their free time on other social networks.
  - bhupy 4y ago
    > but I don't want to be a moderator. I prefer social networks like, say, Hacker News where moderation is handled for me. I don't think we're disagreeing on that. Per my comment: "I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so." The implication of that statement is that Hacker News (or in this case, Facebook) handles moderation, but under the framework laid out by the GP commenter, one can opt out of that, or perhaps even opt into different moderation regimes. Political news outlets, for example, might be motivated to create their own moderation regimes if they feel that Facebook (or whomever else) is too biased against XYZ political group in their moderation. > Most people only use email for work and don't particularly enjoy it. They prefer to spend their free time on other social networks. I would be careful about speaking for other people. Perhaps this is true for you, but I (for one) love subscribing to email newsletters, and those are a part of my daily information diet. I'm free to subscribe and unsubscribe as I please, and others are unable to prevent me from doing so. As we can see with the continued existence of platforms like Substack, there's clearly a demand for that. Also, insofar as one might not "particularly enjoy" email, it's not particularly clear that the root cause of that is email's censorship resistance. It could also be because the email protocol is missing features that one might desire in the kind of decentralized protocol Facebook might create.
drowsspa 4y ago
Case in point: we're discussing this on Hacker News, a very well moderated website. Libertarian tech bros love the idea of technical solutions for political problems. What they don't realize is the real service platforms offer is moderation.
- Zetice 4y ago
  If you think this place is well moderated, try having a civil discussion on DNI initiatives or anything at all that gets the tech-bro SV hate culture engine fired up. You will be downvoted, flagged and throttled before the hour is up.
- ddren 4y ago
  I see many comments here every day that would get anyone instantly banned from most of the biggest subreddits. However, I think that most people would agree that this place is a lot less toxic than reddit. Smaller subreddits are somewhat better, but at this point this behavior has become pervasive in site, and users are expected to respond aggressively to any disagreement. As a result, any discussion becomes impossible and most comment sections are filled with users mindlessly agreeing with each other. Moderation is important but the way it is implemented in reddit has only managed to turn the site into an extremely toxic echochamber.
  - bink 4y ago
    Reddit admins only set some very basic guardrails, typically around things like hate speech. Everything else is controlled by the mods. There are subs that are toxic and many that are not. Which you subscribe to is up to you and will determine your experience. The example often used here is /r/AskHistorians.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    You should consider that HN is just a different bubble with a different overton window, and that neither actually reflect reality
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  > What they don't realize is the real service platforms offer is moderation. I'd rephrase this as "the real service platforms offer is better signal-to-noise ratio in the information one seeks". Moderation is not in itself the selling point, but merely one lever or device operating in collusion with some methods to increase SNR and in contraposition to others.

adrr 4y ago

You don’t like hanging out on 4chan? It’s not what users want anyway, it is what advertisers want. They don’t want toxic content next to their ads.

anoy8888 4y ago
Wow , you are very different from most people as most (99.9999?)can’t stand toxic trolls.
- adrr 4y ago
  It was a sarcastic remark to emphasis that majority of people don't like toxic content.
drowsspa 4y ago
Most people don't like hanging out on 4chan.
astura 4y ago
The vast majority of 4chan users are children or very young adults. Most people grow out of that.

_HMCB_ 4y ago

Agreed 100%.

bhupy 4y ago

The GP comment’s proposal is not incompatible with what you (and typical users) want. Moderation is very different from censorship. I want strong moderation and “banning” for myself. I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so. On the other hand, I don’t believe that I have any kind of entitlement to prevent other people from seeing content once it’s been permanently hidden from my own view. I don’t really care if other people are able to see content that I don’t wish to see. This article describes the distinction in a pretty clear and concise way: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moderation-is-different-from-censorship https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moderation-is-differen... Email works this way today and most people are perfectly fine with that.

spaced-out 4y ago
>I want strong moderation and “banning” for myself. I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so. This is fine for you perhaps, but I don't want to be a moderator. I prefer social networks like, say, Hacker News where moderation is handled for me. >Email works this way today and most people are perfectly fine with that. Most people only use email for work and don't particularly enjoy it. They prefer to spend their free time on other social networks.
- bhupy 4y ago
  > but I don't want to be a moderator. I prefer social networks like, say, Hacker News where moderation is handled for me. I don't think we're disagreeing on that. Per my comment: "I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so." The implication of that statement is that Hacker News (or in this case, Facebook) handles moderation, but under the framework laid out by the GP commenter, one can opt out of that, or perhaps even opt into different moderation regimes. Political news outlets, for example, might be motivated to create their own moderation regimes if they feel that Facebook (or whomever else) is too biased against XYZ political group in their moderation. > Most people only use email for work and don't particularly enjoy it. They prefer to spend their free time on other social networks. I would be careful about speaking for other people. Perhaps this is true for you, but I (for one) love subscribing to email newsletters, and those are a part of my daily information diet. I'm free to subscribe and unsubscribe as I please, and others are unable to prevent me from doing so. As we can see with the continued existence of platforms like Substack, there's clearly a demand for that. Also, insofar as one might not "particularly enjoy" email, it's not particularly clear that the root cause of that is email's censorship resistance. It could also be because the email protocol is missing features that one might desire in the kind of decentralized protocol Facebook might create.

drowsspa 4y ago

Case in point: we're discussing this on Hacker News, a very well moderated website. Libertarian tech bros love the idea of technical solutions for political problems. What they don't realize is the real service platforms offer is moderation.

Zetice 4y ago
If you think this place is well moderated, try having a civil discussion on DNI initiatives or anything at all that gets the tech-bro SV hate culture engine fired up. You will be downvoted, flagged and throttled before the hour is up.
ddren 4y ago
I see many comments here every day that would get anyone instantly banned from most of the biggest subreddits. However, I think that most people would agree that this place is a lot less toxic than reddit. Smaller subreddits are somewhat better, but at this point this behavior has become pervasive in site, and users are expected to respond aggressively to any disagreement. As a result, any discussion becomes impossible and most comment sections are filled with users mindlessly agreeing with each other. Moderation is important but the way it is implemented in reddit has only managed to turn the site into an extremely toxic echochamber.
- bink 4y ago
  Reddit admins only set some very basic guardrails, typically around things like hate speech. Everything else is controlled by the mods. There are subs that are toxic and many that are not. Which you subscribe to is up to you and will determine your experience. The example often used here is /r/AskHistorians.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  You should consider that HN is just a different bubble with a different overton window, and that neither actually reflect reality
Dracophoenix 4y ago
> What they don't realize is the real service platforms offer is moderation. I'd rephrase this as "the real service platforms offer is better signal-to-noise ratio in the information one seeks". Moderation is not in itself the selling point, but merely one lever or device operating in collusion with some methods to increase SNR and in contraposition to others.