5 ms·

I would love to see an alternative that really focuses on moderation. Perhaps something that has three flavours of subs. 1. Public: these would be democratical

by tensor 3y ago

I would love to see an alternative that really focuses on moderation. Perhaps something that has three flavours of subs. 1. Public: these would be democratically run forums. The users would actually be able to vote for moderators, and perhaps even rules around them. This would be ideal for things like r/[country] or r/[city]. 2. Private: these would be traditional forums run by the people who found them. It should also be possible for the "person" who runs it to be a corporation or similar group. 3. Personal: This would be a users own "twitter" like feed. Other things I think would be needed are: 1. The owning company be a foundation like wikipedia, run as a non-profit. 2. The data and code should be open, so that if anything happens a clone could be setup. 3. Site wide minimal content rules set by the owning foundation. There are some things that should not be allowed at all. 4. Built in trainable AI agents. Moderation is a huge task and I believe it's on the site to supply appropriate tools. By trainable agents, I mean efficiently integrated machine learning models that moderations can personally update and train per sub to help them enforce the rules.

redmerchant2 3y ago
Democratically voted mods will never work for any moderately sized forum. The problem is the forums would be brigaded by terminally online “interest groups.” See how the alt right infiltrates gaming groups. The reasonable voices are outnumbered and taken over.
- guerrilla 3y ago
  Kind of like in real life. Shitty people have more resources.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- tensor 3y ago
  It's definitely a hard problem, but also an extremely important one as real life democracies also suffer issues like this to some extent. Obviously you'd need a bunch of rules around who could vote to prevent brigading, e.g. tenure and activity on the forum at a minimum. But also, this could be an excellent platform to experiment and discover systems that DO work. I think it's worth trying in any case, as the status quote already "doesn't work" in an even worse way. Special interest groups grab control and there is no way at all to unseat them.
- haunter 3y ago
  >See how the alt right infiltrates gaming groups Goes both ways (if you insist to use the traditional political compass). GCJ is a perfect example of that. I use the "terminally online" word for these people rather.
  - redmerchant2 3y ago
    I agree but I’d caveat the equivalency. Sure GCJ and other overly leftist subs are annoying. But there is a world of difference of spamming “[video game] is secretly about trans fem boy communism” by GCJ types. Vs alt right groups talking about (real life) minorities not deserving equal rights. Subjectively, I avoid any overly politically forced sub. However let’s not push the “both sides” argument.
- kimbernator 3y ago
  Agree. It's already democratic in Reddit's current form in the sense that anybody can just start a community to replace one with moderation they don't like. The subreddit with the moderation that works the best often wins out.
  - tensor 3y ago
    This is not remotely democratic without discovery. E.g. if you start an alt, the original would need to be force to display the alt as an alternative. Otherwise it's too easy to control the narrative and prevent anyone from even finding out about the alternative. Today, the primary sub generally actively bans any mention of alternatives. Also the most obviously named forum will attract the new users simply because of the name.
    - gremlinsinc 3y ago
      what about of each breakaway pointed to reach other under an opposing views area, where people can go to read the other side, or the group that's breaking away?
- anon7725 3y ago
  > terminally online “interest groups.” In my view, terminally online interest groups are responsible for the current protests against Reddit. Several of the smaller low traffic area-specific subs that I frequent have been taken offline (some threatening permanently).
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Yeah, that's the big issue. There's no incentive to want to be a public unpaid moderator, except arguably bad ones. Someone wanting to run for power creates and runs some of the worst communities out there. For better or worse, the best moderating schemes on a moderately large group is via a paid position. At least there a mod has a "boss" that you can hope to appeal to should they abuse their power. May not always work but it's more security than hoping an admin pays attention to a subreddit's drama.
sebstefan 3y ago
I use https://raddle.me/ https://raddle.me/ but it's small for now. They seem to have a much better approach to moderation; the moderation logs are open and admins don't let them go full authoritarian. But the API is lackluster. It's open source however so hopefully it should improve I always envisioned some kind of reddit where you could simply appeal moderation actions through a dedicated report system and if some mod goes above and beyond a certain threshold of reports, the community gets to vote on booting them out
- runjake 3y ago
  I'll save a bunch of people some trouble. This is a politically-"leftist" site (top current thread is "How did you get into anarchism", along with something about ACAB). It's not really a general purpose Reddit alternative. So, if that's your thing, check it out. If it's not, probably not a good fit and the "better approach" to moderation probably won't go in your favor.
  - 0zemp3c 3y ago
    > This is a politically-"leftist" site (top current thread is "How did you get into anarchism", along with something about ACAB) tbh how is this different than most subs? this is a feature, not a bug...it keeps these people out of the real world and glued to their keyboards where their blast radius is limited to their own echo chamber
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      > this is a feature, not a bug...it keeps these people out of the real world and glued to their keyboards where their blast radius is limited to their own echo chamber This is not preferable. Extremist bullshit is the only product of echo chambers. Eventually it breaches containment and becomes a real world problem.
    - noelsusman 3y ago
      That's not how extremist online echo chambers tend to play out. See January 6th for an easy example.
1024core 3y ago
> Public: these would be democratically run forums. The users would actually be able to vote for moderators, and perhaps even rules around them. This would be ideal for things like r/[country] or r/[city]. This is my biggest gripe about Reddit. Unlike hobbies or interests, I can't change my country of birth or (easily change) the city. So when you get banned from a geographical sub, you have no alternative. Some of the moderators have a specific bent of mind, and do not accept any other views. A typical example is /r/india which is totally under the control of radical anti-Modi mods. I got even banned from there for posting in another sub _that had been recommended to me by Reddit's algorithm_ !
- unpopularopp 3y ago
  >A typical example is /r/india which is totally under the control of radical anti-Modi mods Most geographical subs are extremely liberal leaning. I'm from Hungary and in /r/hungary pretty much 99% of the posts are anti-Orban. Same with /r/europe pushing the general federalist EU agenda [0]. Or just /r/politics for the US, good luck going against the MSNBC meta. 0, which ends up funny when the topic is food and suddenly everyone becomes hyper-nationalist
  - me_me_me 3y ago
    > I'm from Hungary and in /r/hungary pretty much 99% of the posts are anti-Orban. Younger demographic that is somewhat tech savy, is not happy with Orban? I am shocked! How could that be?
  - all2 3y ago
    Forum sliding and bots may be driving these things. Forums are historically pretty easy to manipulate and Reddit isn't so different from other BBs that have been around for decades now.
  - tasuki 3y ago
    > I'm from Hungary and in /r/hungary pretty much 99% of the posts are anti-Orban. I'm not from Hungary but I have low opinion of Orban. All the Hungarians I've talked to had nothing but bad things to say about him. Is he well liked or at least tolerated in Hungary?
dbsights 3y ago
The killer feature imo would be a forum with moderation that only moderates and doesn't censor. Right now Reddit is unusable if you have an opinion contrary to the hivemind. Go on any r/country or r/city and you would be astonished at how far the politics of that sub deviate from the politics of the people who live there. I'd like to have moderated comments be opt-in. The moderators can exercise their power and label something spam, hateful, or wrong or whatever, and if they do that job well most people will consent to having their perspective limited. But it should always be a choice, and people should be able to choose no censorship at all, or censorship of only the worst content.

by tensor 3y ago

redmerchant2 3y ago

Democratically voted mods will never work for any moderately sized forum. The problem is the forums would be brigaded by terminally online “interest groups.” See how the alt right infiltrates gaming groups. The reasonable voices are outnumbered and taken over.

guerrilla 3y ago
Kind of like in real life. Shitty people have more resources.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tensor 3y ago
It's definitely a hard problem, but also an extremely important one as real life democracies also suffer issues like this to some extent. Obviously you'd need a bunch of rules around who could vote to prevent brigading, e.g. tenure and activity on the forum at a minimum. But also, this could be an excellent platform to experiment and discover systems that DO work. I think it's worth trying in any case, as the status quote already "doesn't work" in an even worse way. Special interest groups grab control and there is no way at all to unseat them.
haunter 3y ago
>See how the alt right infiltrates gaming groups Goes both ways (if you insist to use the traditional political compass). GCJ is a perfect example of that. I use the "terminally online" word for these people rather.
- redmerchant2 3y ago
  I agree but I’d caveat the equivalency. Sure GCJ and other overly leftist subs are annoying. But there is a world of difference of spamming “[video game] is secretly about trans fem boy communism” by GCJ types. Vs alt right groups talking about (real life) minorities not deserving equal rights. Subjectively, I avoid any overly politically forced sub. However let’s not push the “both sides” argument.
kimbernator 3y ago
Agree. It's already democratic in Reddit's current form in the sense that anybody can just start a community to replace one with moderation they don't like. The subreddit with the moderation that works the best often wins out.
- tensor 3y ago
  This is not remotely democratic without discovery. E.g. if you start an alt, the original would need to be force to display the alt as an alternative. Otherwise it's too easy to control the narrative and prevent anyone from even finding out about the alternative. Today, the primary sub generally actively bans any mention of alternatives. Also the most obviously named forum will attract the new users simply because of the name.
  - gremlinsinc 3y ago
    what about of each breakaway pointed to reach other under an opposing views area, where people can go to read the other side, or the group that's breaking away?
anon7725 3y ago
> terminally online “interest groups.” In my view, terminally online interest groups are responsible for the current protests against Reddit. Several of the smaller low traffic area-specific subs that I frequent have been taken offline (some threatening permanently).
johnnyanmac 3y ago
Yeah, that's the big issue. There's no incentive to want to be a public unpaid moderator, except arguably bad ones. Someone wanting to run for power creates and runs some of the worst communities out there. For better or worse, the best moderating schemes on a moderately large group is via a paid position. At least there a mod has a "boss" that you can hope to appeal to should they abuse their power. May not always work but it's more security than hoping an admin pays attention to a subreddit's drama.

sebstefan 3y ago

I use https://raddle.me/ https://raddle.me/ but it's small for now. They seem to have a much better approach to moderation; the moderation logs are open and admins don't let them go full authoritarian. But the API is lackluster. It's open source however so hopefully it should improve I always envisioned some kind of reddit where you could simply appeal moderation actions through a dedicated report system and if some mod goes above and beyond a certain threshold of reports, the community gets to vote on booting them out

runjake 3y ago
I'll save a bunch of people some trouble. This is a politically-"leftist" site (top current thread is "How did you get into anarchism", along with something about ACAB). It's not really a general purpose Reddit alternative. So, if that's your thing, check it out. If it's not, probably not a good fit and the "better approach" to moderation probably won't go in your favor.
- 0zemp3c 3y ago
  > This is a politically-"leftist" site (top current thread is "How did you get into anarchism", along with something about ACAB) tbh how is this different than most subs? this is a feature, not a bug...it keeps these people out of the real world and glued to their keyboards where their blast radius is limited to their own echo chamber
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    > this is a feature, not a bug...it keeps these people out of the real world and glued to their keyboards where their blast radius is limited to their own echo chamber This is not preferable. Extremist bullshit is the only product of echo chambers. Eventually it breaches containment and becomes a real world problem.
  - noelsusman 3y ago
    That's not how extremist online echo chambers tend to play out. See January 6th for an easy example.

1024core 3y ago

> Public: these would be democratically run forums. The users would actually be able to vote for moderators, and perhaps even rules around them. This would be ideal for things like r/[country] or r/[city]. This is my biggest gripe about Reddit. Unlike hobbies or interests, I can't change my country of birth or (easily change) the city. So when you get banned from a geographical sub, you have no alternative. Some of the moderators have a specific bent of mind, and do not accept any other views. A typical example is /r/india which is totally under the control of radical anti-Modi mods. I got even banned from there for posting in another sub _that had been recommended to me by Reddit's algorithm_ !

unpopularopp 3y ago
>A typical example is /r/india which is totally under the control of radical anti-Modi mods Most geographical subs are extremely liberal leaning. I'm from Hungary and in /r/hungary pretty much 99% of the posts are anti-Orban. Same with /r/europe pushing the general federalist EU agenda [0]. Or just /r/politics for the US, good luck going against the MSNBC meta. 0, which ends up funny when the topic is food and suddenly everyone becomes hyper-nationalist
- me_me_me 3y ago
  > I'm from Hungary and in /r/hungary pretty much 99% of the posts are anti-Orban. Younger demographic that is somewhat tech savy, is not happy with Orban? I am shocked! How could that be?
- all2 3y ago
  Forum sliding and bots may be driving these things. Forums are historically pretty easy to manipulate and Reddit isn't so different from other BBs that have been around for decades now.
- tasuki 3y ago
  > I'm from Hungary and in /r/hungary pretty much 99% of the posts are anti-Orban. I'm not from Hungary but I have low opinion of Orban. All the Hungarians I've talked to had nothing but bad things to say about him. Is he well liked or at least tolerated in Hungary?

dbsights 3y ago

The killer feature imo would be a forum with moderation that only moderates and doesn't censor. Right now Reddit is unusable if you have an opinion contrary to the hivemind. Go on any r/country or r/city and you would be astonished at how far the politics of that sub deviate from the politics of the people who live there. I'd like to have moderated comments be opt-in. The moderators can exercise their power and label something spam, hateful, or wrong or whatever, and if they do that job well most people will consent to having their perspective limited. But it should always be a choice, and people should be able to choose no censorship at all, or censorship of only the worst content.