8 ms·

> without central authority over who could connect to the network or firm control over groups and their contents Moderation. In public forums, everything else

> without central authority over who could connect to the network or firm control over groups and their contents Moderation. In public forums, everything else is trivial and moderation is the invisible stinking hairy elephant in the room. To the question "why isn't there a decentralized open protocol free software X" the answer is moderation. Think or it as the discreet but efficient bouncers without which a sufficiently popular public place cannot maintain a welcoming atmosphere. Newsgroups became sufficiently popular, death by inadequate moderation ensued.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Obviously, this is why 4chan died back in 2012. If only they had moderation, they might still be around today.
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  4chan has moderation.
- pjc50 3y ago
  They're a special niche, and I believe they've been forked multiple times over moderation disasters resulting in 8chan etc. If 4chan "breaks cover" into the mainstream in the way that, say, Facebook has, it will make for some very entertaining Congressional hearings.
- dopa42365 3y ago
  4chan has a million jannies, it's heavily moderated...
dragontamer 3y ago
There were plenty of well moderated newsgroups actually. A moderated newsgroup had all messages going through the moderator's system, with their programs deciding whether or not the message should be forwarded to the rest of the newsgroup. This doesn't necessarily mean that a human read all messages either. Some of the oldest flamewars I've participated in are about moderated vs unmoderated USENET newsgroups. It amuses me that we're still debating the issue today.
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  What kind of moderation programs were people using then? Word filters? I can't imagine anything that isn't both easy to circumvent and likely to catch innocent posts merely quoting a "bad" word.
  - jghn 3y ago
    People used Killfiles [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      I don't think a "kill file" was the same as "moderation". A kill file is "User X is tired of seeing User Y, so X stops reading posts from Y". Everyone else can still read Y. A moderator is "Moderator is tired of seeing User Y, so Y cannot post to Newsgroup anymore". A much stronger action. --------- Its been a few decades since I was part of any Usenet though. So maybe I'm mis-remembering the lingo. Or are you saying that the moderators used kill-files that somehow applied to the whole newsgroup? Because... the later would make sense. But I really don't know how things worked back then.
      - pm215 3y ago
        The machinery for a moderated newsgroup works by the news server you post an article to having a list of moderator email addresses for moderated groups. Instead of posting your article the server emails it to the moderator. The mod will then either just discard it, or else post it to their own news server with an Approved header to say it's moderated (and these days some crypto signing stuff). Then the post gets propagated as usual. The "approve/deny/edit" stuff is handled by moderation software, which in principle can do anything you like.
      - jghn 3y ago
        No, killfiles were at an individual level. But they were more than "I'm tired of seeing User Y", as you could also plonk text patterns and the like. IIRC group-wide moderation was handled per-post in that every post was approved by hand.
phpisthebest 3y ago
[flagged]
- mavhc 3y ago
  More it was overwhelmed with bad actors spamming everything, and no way to stop that. Free speech is not about letting you post your conspiracy theory in the wrong group
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    I can see you are a "I support free speech but [except]" and then proceed to explain that you do not actually support free speech
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      I, for one, own that label. I support free speech except in some circumstances where curtailing it makes almost everyone's lives better. Where I support it to the most extreme: criticizing the government. Where I want it most throttled: my own living room, so I can have some peace and quiet. I think most functioning adults have a similar spectrum of allow / deny and aren't absolutists on the topic. And, I mean... I don't think we need to look deep into the history of the Internet to see that becoming the dominant pattern. USENET failed. Email without spamblockers failed. Every forum either eventually adopts moderation policies or goes underground where barely any casual user hears of its existence. The user interprets lack of censorship as damaged and routes away from it.
      - amadeuspagel 3y ago
        > Where I support it to the most extreme: criticizing the government. > Where I want it most throttled: my own living room, so I can have some peace and quiet. This is a category error. What if someone wants to criticize the government in your living room?
        3y ago
Scarblac 3y ago
There was moderation. There was even a newsgroup that probably has some overlap with here that required you to circumvent it in order to post.
pierat 3y ago
"Moderation" is a terrible excuse used by the corporate types as a reason to stick in their safe walled gardens. We had moderation on Usenet. It was simple, but damn, did it work. We had plonka lists (client selected ignored users), keyword scoring, server level scoring, some anti-spam. There was EARLY work in Bayesian filters built in to clients, but was too late for the "big event". (When ISP's everywhere killed Usenet servers, for what is pretty surely assumed as anti-piracy.) But lets look corporate moderation. It's done in secret, with vague rules that may or may not be stated, and by content moderation farms that use and abuse people. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-content-moderators-ireland https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-content-moderators-... . Or worse yet, you fool people in faux-ownership (reddit) and get them to do your moderation for you. Well, that is unless you do a bad job and get your subreddit banned for "low/no moderation". I'd much rather see everything, and craft my own blocklists as I see fit. You know, just like Mastodon. Sure, there's some fediblocks at admin-level over pervasive content from a single server. But aside admin tasks, its pretty damn sweet. And it's loads better than the shit that happens over on Twitter, Reddit, or Facebook.
- liotier 3y ago
  We, the technologically literate, are not the target audience. Client-side filtering requires awareness of client-side filtering. How many Reddit users want that ? Facebook users ? Oh, maybe they want to fine-tune their scoring rules library or tweak they bayesian filters - so much fun ! And lacking social intelligence, client-side filtering fails against organized harassment. By the way, who is liable for infractions to the local law ? Enter the party, meet regulars, meet new faces, enjoy a drink and don't even think about safety. Sure, you can manage it yourself for a birthday party at your home but at larger scales even the wild rave party thrown in an abandoned hangar out there will have some form of institutionalized enforcement, even if they are not corporate security. Yes, that means that successful large public places tend towards bland - the same reason why successful edgy underground dives are small affairs and their character can't survive growth.
  - pierat 3y ago
    > We, the technologically literate, are not the target audience. Highly disagree. It's the early adopters of ANY platform, hardware, or whatever that drive real organic demand and adoption. And those early adopters ARE exactly that: technologically literate. Alienating that group is how you get relegated to the "Digg v4" area of history. > How many Reddit users want that ? Facebook users ? Oh, maybe they want to fine-tune their scoring rules library or tweak they bayesian filters - so much fun ! How many Facebook or Reddit users even HAVE the capability of client side anything? The big threads are that Reddit's killing most API access unless you pay a pound of flesh. And Facebook does enough horrible things in their coding that makes it impossible to even screen-scrape. The text "Sponsored" shows up as shittery like "essprnodo". For those gated islands, you'd need their permission to really do any sort of client side anything. Places like Mastodon make blocking trivial. Ive shared that link, and no, you don't need to know about Bayseian weights or whatever new mod scheme you want to make. Its there, the initial functions are easy-peasy, and the API hooks are there to add whatever you want. > And lacking social intelligence, client-side filtering fails against organized harassment. And that already is a major problem on the corporate side. Reddit calls it "brigading". HN has chill-down scripts to defuse flamewars. Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit all have mass-reporting as harassment. There's even current 4Chan threads to organize just that. Sure seems like an unsolved problem, not just "unsolved for federated systems". > By the way, who is liable for infractions to the local law ? Irrelevant. Someone in another area could read content that is illegal to them. That's *their* responsibility, not mine. As long as I follow the laws in my jurisdiction and where my server is located, I'm fine. And 17 USC 512 covers me as long as I do good-faith DMCA process. > <example of comparing physical real world with raves/alcohol/drugs with online "dangers"> And in your latter half, your other problem is that you're equating online "safety" with in-person bodily safety with alcohol and drugs. Those 2 aren't even remotely the same, and its laughable that you'd try to compare them. If someone is coming on to you in a sexual manner, and your "No" isnt effectively heard or acknowledged, you have a big problem. If someone uploads a bad image (say, animal torture, for something abhorrent), you can block the user, the server, report the user to their/your server admins. You can also choose not to show images. It's terrible, but physical assault is no comparison to a bad image or terrible text.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

Obviously, this is why 4chan died back in 2012. If only they had moderation, they might still be around today.

amadeuspagel 3y ago
4chan has moderation.
pjc50 3y ago
They're a special niche, and I believe they've been forked multiple times over moderation disasters resulting in 8chan etc. If 4chan "breaks cover" into the mainstream in the way that, say, Facebook has, it will make for some very entertaining Congressional hearings.
dopa42365 3y ago
4chan has a million jannies, it's heavily moderated...

dragontamer 3y ago

There were plenty of well moderated newsgroups actually. A moderated newsgroup had all messages going through the moderator's system, with their programs deciding whether or not the message should be forwarded to the rest of the newsgroup. This doesn't necessarily mean that a human read all messages either. Some of the oldest flamewars I've participated in are about moderated vs unmoderated USENET newsgroups. It amuses me that we're still debating the issue today.

amadeuspagel 3y ago
What kind of moderation programs were people using then? Word filters? I can't imagine anything that isn't both easy to circumvent and likely to catch innocent posts merely quoting a "bad" word.
- jghn 3y ago
  People used Killfiles [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    I don't think a "kill file" was the same as "moderation". A kill file is "User X is tired of seeing User Y, so X stops reading posts from Y". Everyone else can still read Y. A moderator is "Moderator is tired of seeing User Y, so Y cannot post to Newsgroup anymore". A much stronger action. --------- Its been a few decades since I was part of any Usenet though. So maybe I'm mis-remembering the lingo. Or are you saying that the moderators used kill-files that somehow applied to the whole newsgroup? Because... the later would make sense. But I really don't know how things worked back then.
    - pm215 3y ago
      The machinery for a moderated newsgroup works by the news server you post an article to having a list of moderator email addresses for moderated groups. Instead of posting your article the server emails it to the moderator. The mod will then either just discard it, or else post it to their own news server with an Approved header to say it's moderated (and these days some crypto signing stuff). Then the post gets propagated as usual. The "approve/deny/edit" stuff is handled by moderation software, which in principle can do anything you like.
    - jghn 3y ago
      No, killfiles were at an individual level. But they were more than "I'm tired of seeing User Y", as you could also plonk text patterns and the like. IIRC group-wide moderation was handled per-post in that every post was approved by hand.

phpisthebest 3y ago

[flagged]

mavhc 3y ago
More it was overwhelmed with bad actors spamming everything, and no way to stop that. Free speech is not about letting you post your conspiracy theory in the wrong group
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  I can see you are a "I support free speech but [except]" and then proceed to explain that you do not actually support free speech
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    I, for one, own that label. I support free speech except in some circumstances where curtailing it makes almost everyone's lives better. Where I support it to the most extreme: criticizing the government. Where I want it most throttled: my own living room, so I can have some peace and quiet. I think most functioning adults have a similar spectrum of allow / deny and aren't absolutists on the topic. And, I mean... I don't think we need to look deep into the history of the Internet to see that becoming the dominant pattern. USENET failed. Email without spamblockers failed. Every forum either eventually adopts moderation policies or goes underground where barely any casual user hears of its existence. The user interprets lack of censorship as damaged and routes away from it.
    - amadeuspagel 3y ago
      > Where I support it to the most extreme: criticizing the government. > Where I want it most throttled: my own living room, so I can have some peace and quiet. This is a category error. What if someone wants to criticize the government in your living room?
      - 3y ago

Scarblac 3y ago

There was moderation. There was even a newsgroup that probably has some overlap with here that required you to circumvent it in order to post.

pierat 3y ago

"Moderation" is a terrible excuse used by the corporate types as a reason to stick in their safe walled gardens. We had moderation on Usenet. It was simple, but damn, did it work. We had plonka lists (client selected ignored users), keyword scoring, server level scoring, some anti-spam. There was EARLY work in Bayesian filters built in to clients, but was too late for the "big event". (When ISP's everywhere killed Usenet servers, for what is pretty surely assumed as anti-piracy.) But lets look corporate moderation. It's done in secret, with vague rules that may or may not be stated, and by content moderation farms that use and abuse people. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-content-moderators-ireland https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-content-moderators-... . Or worse yet, you fool people in faux-ownership (reddit) and get them to do your moderation for you. Well, that is unless you do a bad job and get your subreddit banned for "low/no moderation". I'd much rather see everything, and craft my own blocklists as I see fit. You know, just like Mastodon. Sure, there's some fediblocks at admin-level over pervasive content from a single server. But aside admin tasks, its pretty damn sweet. And it's loads better than the shit that happens over on Twitter, Reddit, or Facebook.

liotier 3y ago
We, the technologically literate, are not the target audience. Client-side filtering requires awareness of client-side filtering. How many Reddit users want that ? Facebook users ? Oh, maybe they want to fine-tune their scoring rules library or tweak they bayesian filters - so much fun ! And lacking social intelligence, client-side filtering fails against organized harassment. By the way, who is liable for infractions to the local law ? Enter the party, meet regulars, meet new faces, enjoy a drink and don't even think about safety. Sure, you can manage it yourself for a birthday party at your home but at larger scales even the wild rave party thrown in an abandoned hangar out there will have some form of institutionalized enforcement, even if they are not corporate security. Yes, that means that successful large public places tend towards bland - the same reason why successful edgy underground dives are small affairs and their character can't survive growth.
- pierat 3y ago
  > We, the technologically literate, are not the target audience. Highly disagree. It's the early adopters of ANY platform, hardware, or whatever that drive real organic demand and adoption. And those early adopters ARE exactly that: technologically literate. Alienating that group is how you get relegated to the "Digg v4" area of history. > How many Reddit users want that ? Facebook users ? Oh, maybe they want to fine-tune their scoring rules library or tweak they bayesian filters - so much fun ! How many Facebook or Reddit users even HAVE the capability of client side anything? The big threads are that Reddit's killing most API access unless you pay a pound of flesh. And Facebook does enough horrible things in their coding that makes it impossible to even screen-scrape. The text "Sponsored" shows up as shittery like "essprnodo". For those gated islands, you'd need their permission to really do any sort of client side anything. Places like Mastodon make blocking trivial. Ive shared that link, and no, you don't need to know about Bayseian weights or whatever new mod scheme you want to make. Its there, the initial functions are easy-peasy, and the API hooks are there to add whatever you want. > And lacking social intelligence, client-side filtering fails against organized harassment. And that already is a major problem on the corporate side. Reddit calls it "brigading". HN has chill-down scripts to defuse flamewars. Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit all have mass-reporting as harassment. There's even current 4Chan threads to organize just that. Sure seems like an unsolved problem, not just "unsolved for federated systems". > By the way, who is liable for infractions to the local law ? Irrelevant. Someone in another area could read content that is illegal to them. That's *their* responsibility, not mine. As long as I follow the laws in my jurisdiction and where my server is located, I'm fine. And 17 USC 512 covers me as long as I do good-faith DMCA process. > <example of comparing physical real world with raves/alcohol/drugs with online "dangers"> And in your latter half, your other problem is that you're equating online "safety" with in-person bodily safety with alcohol and drugs. Those 2 aren't even remotely the same, and its laughable that you'd try to compare them. If someone is coming on to you in a sexual manner, and your "No" isnt effectively heard or acknowledged, you have a big problem. If someone uploads a bad image (say, animal torture, for something abhorrent), you can block the user, the server, report the user to their/your server admins. You can also choose not to show images. It's terrible, but physical assault is no comparison to a bad image or terrible text.