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I desperately do not want this to succeed. Who moderates it? No moderation means a fractal of spam, hate, propaganda, and low-value posts. You cannot have a sys

I desperately do not want this to succeed. Who moderates it? No moderation means a fractal of spam, hate, propaganda, and low-value posts. You cannot have a system like this that's resistant to Sybil attacks without centralization or federation (or at least not without forcing users to get into crypto to use it... No thanks). You either accept that it's centralized, and it becomes siloed (see: reddit, Twitter) or you federate it and it's an echo chamber or nearly empty.

LightBug1 3y ago
Who moderates wikipedia?
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Unpaid contributors who care a lot about maintaining the quality of articles (and spend a lot of time doing so).
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  Editors, controlled by a (mostly benevolent) centralized authority
  - _def 3y ago
    I really don't think that is the case, but I'm interested to hear why you think it is. In my understanding the community is not controlled by a central authority.
    - bastawhiz 3y ago
      The rules for how Wikipedia is edited are ultimately set by the people who run Wikimedia. They have the final say. It's a centralized service (there is a single Wikipedia at a singular domain, being the sole source of truth). In the context of this discussion, there is no such notion of a federation of wikis on various hosts contributing to the content. There's obviously no decentralization of Wikipedia. Wikimedia is therefore the centralized authority.
phatfish 3y ago
Yup it sounds awful, at least with Reddit and to a much lesser extent Twitter the conversation is kept somewhat in control by people having to subscribe to a Subreddit or follow accounts that interest them. Imagine the signal to noise ratio on some random NY Times article, or any other moderately popular website. I expect most people are thankful the NY Times only enables comments on selected articles.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  > Imagine the signal to noise ratio on some random NY Times article Yes, it's pretty fine on the articles they enable it for. They're sorted by upvotes so the first few comments are usually pretty decent. There's no reason to think it would be different on the articles they don't enable it for, since they're enabled on a wide range of types of articles (straight news, divisive opinion, etc.). > I expect most people are thankful the NY Times only enables comments on selected articles. I think it's the exact complete opposite -- nobody is thankful for that. Comments don't appear unless you click to open the comments panel, so anybody who never wants to see comments, never does. But of course people who do want to see comments, are prevented from doing so if they haven't been enabled.
crazygringo 3y ago
OK, let's spitball. Maybe too much for an HN comment, but here we go: - Define an open protocol - There are multiple viewers (browser plug-ins), so different users can choose a different viewing/comment ranking interface experience - There are multiple "channels" of comments for any piece of content, but usually channels will be topic-wide, sitewide, or even internet-wide. All content for a channel comes from a single server. If channels were pulling from existing sites, an episode of TV might have a channel of Reddit comments, a channel of Vulture comments, a channel of AV Club comments, and anyone can create a channel. (Maybe Reddit and Vulture don't participate at all) - The person/group who runs a channel does/delegates all of the moderation for that channel. They do this out of the good of their hearts, much like Reddit moderators - Each plug-in gives you a default, or a choice of, approved/blocked channel lists according to your political/cultural/etc. preferences. These lists are maintained similar to adblock lists, each of which are curated by groups with those preferences. So you can avoid unmoderated toxic channels or view them exclusively - And so each viewer will combine all of the comments from all approved channels into a single comment list. Each top-level comment can come from a different channel, but all subcomments always belong to that same channel. When you leave a top comment, you can choose which channel to leave it in (or have it default to whichever channel is most popular, similar to picking the most popular subreddit on a certain topic) - User accounts are managed by separate servers, but user servers don't hold comments/upvotes/etc. They merely provide signing to prove comments came from the same user, index comments left by that user, sum the user's received votes (which can be independently verified by the channels), etc. These servers are similarly moderated to kick out abusive users. Channels don't allow comments from users from user servers that don't kick out abusive users. Ultimately your identity is proved by a private key you can always take to a new server. Probably, the groups behind the most popular channels and/or most popular lists will provide these user servers as well Whaddaya think?
- Blackthorn 3y ago
  I thought about this sort of thing as a reddit replacement. Browser extension that creates a forum on any arbitrary page. Backend is just nntp so pick your own server. Can't work on it because of corporate ip ownership and all that nonsense. It's a pretty trivial idea though, pretty much anyone could implement it if you don't bother writing a bespoke news client.
andromeduck 3y ago
I want it to be a small-ish group of people I care about.

LightBug1 3y ago

Who moderates wikipedia?

spondylosaurus 3y ago
Unpaid contributors who care a lot about maintaining the quality of articles (and spend a lot of time doing so).
bastawhiz 3y ago
Editors, controlled by a (mostly benevolent) centralized authority
- _def 3y ago
  I really don't think that is the case, but I'm interested to hear why you think it is. In my understanding the community is not controlled by a central authority.
  - bastawhiz 3y ago
    The rules for how Wikipedia is edited are ultimately set by the people who run Wikimedia. They have the final say. It's a centralized service (there is a single Wikipedia at a singular domain, being the sole source of truth). In the context of this discussion, there is no such notion of a federation of wikis on various hosts contributing to the content. There's obviously no decentralization of Wikipedia. Wikimedia is therefore the centralized authority.

phatfish 3y ago

Yup it sounds awful, at least with Reddit and to a much lesser extent Twitter the conversation is kept somewhat in control by people having to subscribe to a Subreddit or follow accounts that interest them. Imagine the signal to noise ratio on some random NY Times article, or any other moderately popular website. I expect most people are thankful the NY Times only enables comments on selected articles.

crazygringo 3y ago
> Imagine the signal to noise ratio on some random NY Times article Yes, it's pretty fine on the articles they enable it for. They're sorted by upvotes so the first few comments are usually pretty decent. There's no reason to think it would be different on the articles they don't enable it for, since they're enabled on a wide range of types of articles (straight news, divisive opinion, etc.). > I expect most people are thankful the NY Times only enables comments on selected articles. I think it's the exact complete opposite -- nobody is thankful for that. Comments don't appear unless you click to open the comments panel, so anybody who never wants to see comments, never does. But of course people who do want to see comments, are prevented from doing so if they haven't been enabled.

crazygringo 3y ago

OK, let's spitball. Maybe too much for an HN comment, but here we go: - Define an open protocol - There are multiple viewers (browser plug-ins), so different users can choose a different viewing/comment ranking interface experience - There are multiple "channels" of comments for any piece of content, but usually channels will be topic-wide, sitewide, or even internet-wide. All content for a channel comes from a single server. If channels were pulling from existing sites, an episode of TV might have a channel of Reddit comments, a channel of Vulture comments, a channel of AV Club comments, and anyone can create a channel. (Maybe Reddit and Vulture don't participate at all) - The person/group who runs a channel does/delegates all of the moderation for that channel. They do this out of the good of their hearts, much like Reddit moderators - Each plug-in gives you a default, or a choice of, approved/blocked channel lists according to your political/cultural/etc. preferences. These lists are maintained similar to adblock lists, each of which are curated by groups with those preferences. So you can avoid unmoderated toxic channels or view them exclusively - And so each viewer will combine all of the comments from all approved channels into a single comment list. Each top-level comment can come from a different channel, but all subcomments always belong to that same channel. When you leave a top comment, you can choose which channel to leave it in (or have it default to whichever channel is most popular, similar to picking the most popular subreddit on a certain topic) - User accounts are managed by separate servers, but user servers don't hold comments/upvotes/etc. They merely provide signing to prove comments came from the same user, index comments left by that user, sum the user's received votes (which can be independently verified by the channels), etc. These servers are similarly moderated to kick out abusive users. Channels don't allow comments from users from user servers that don't kick out abusive users. Ultimately your identity is proved by a private key you can always take to a new server. Probably, the groups behind the most popular channels and/or most popular lists will provide these user servers as well Whaddaya think?

Blackthorn 3y ago
I thought about this sort of thing as a reddit replacement. Browser extension that creates a forum on any arbitrary page. Backend is just nntp so pick your own server. Can't work on it because of corporate ip ownership and all that nonsense. It's a pretty trivial idea though, pretty much anyone could implement it if you don't bother writing a bespoke news client.

andromeduck 3y ago

I want it to be a small-ish group of people I care about.