4 ms·

The moderation of this site is top notch and a key component of its quality, and I say that as someone admonished by dang more than once.

Razengan 1y ago
Oh please. Vote-based social networks are way too vulnerable to burying the truth and boosting lies. It just takes the first 3-4 viewers to downvote you to prevent the next 10000 people from seeing what you said. There's no downside to downvoting just because you don't like what someone says, even if it's true. And usually no amount of corrections can outshout a lie/mistake with 100+ votes.
- econ 1y ago
  There has to be a better formula to design this game. It seems valuable enough to explore. It will be hard to design a formula that can only be gamed by making quality contributions. A quality discussion requires parties who disagree, exchange of ideas and facts and ideally some kind of eventual agreement. The hardest part is to make it enjoyable to use.
  - Razengan 1y ago
    Maybe transparent AI is the only way to fairly govern masses of people? Let people regularly vote on which prompts should be added/removed, and have the AI justify all of its decisions, show which information it used etc.
    - integralid 1y ago
      That's the most dystopian thing I've read today
      - Razengan 1y ago
        Dystopia is the status quo: A handful of people controlling access for millions.
    - flancian 1y ago
      I believe this is likely true and will become evident in time to most, but not all, carbon based systems.
    - econ 1y ago
      An automated internet trial with robot judges and lawyers nominating users for warning banners of shame.
    - econ 1y ago
      I was thinking of discussion platforms but for general government I had a great idea: we know how to write and publish new laws but we are terrible at unpublishing outdated garbage laws. AI would be great for finding all laws that it thinks are dubious, impractical or otherwise undesirable in today's context and zeitgeist. There can be various manual deletion processes for different categories of absurdity.
- lurk2 1y ago
  Vote manipulation is a non-issue here because users require a minimum of 500 karma to vote, and because the site is so much smaller than Reddit it can take months to reach that threshold. Downvoting is also capped so that you're very unlikely to get pushed back below the 500 karma threshold unless you are consistently making comments that the community doesn't like. I post things I know won't be well-received here all the time and it's quite rare for a comment to go below -2 karma, but comparatively common for these sorts of comment to get flagged despite not breaking any rules. 4chan was great in 2015 precisely because anyone could comment, but it's a young man's website in that scrolling through a 300 comment thread to find the worthwhile parts of the discussion will require upwards of fifteen minutes, whereas on Reddit or Hacker News most of that sorting is already done. This does have censorial effects, so it isn't ideal for controversial topics like politics, but it's better for almost everything else.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    What stops people from setting up and aging (or buying) sockpuppet accounts to the point where they control 10+ or even 100+ flag-capable / vote-capable HN accounts, and then using them as a network to deny or boost certain topics? This kind of behavior almost certainly goes on here.
    - lurk2 1y ago
      > What stops people from setting up and aging (or buying) sockpuppet accounts to the point where they control 10+ or even 100+ flag-capable / vote-capable HN accounts, and then using them as a network to deny or boost certain topics? It’s a single board with a full-time moderator and almost everyone on it has a background in information technology. These kinds of networks leave very obvious signatures, and the site simply isn’t a big enough place for them to hide. > This kind of behavior almost certainly goes on here. Do you have any examples?
      - ryandrake 1y ago
        Of course, only the site admins would be able to show you actual examples. But this kind of stuff happens everywhere on the internet where you can post for free, so there is no reason to think it's not happening here.
lavezzi 1y ago
yes, them constantly locking threads about content they don’t agree with is stellar
- pstuart 1y ago
  Do you think that there should be zero moderation of this site?

Razengan 1y ago

Oh please. Vote-based social networks are way too vulnerable to burying the truth and boosting lies. It just takes the first 3-4 viewers to downvote you to prevent the next 10000 people from seeing what you said. There's no downside to downvoting just because you don't like what someone says, even if it's true. And usually no amount of corrections can outshout a lie/mistake with 100+ votes.

econ 1y ago
There has to be a better formula to design this game. It seems valuable enough to explore. It will be hard to design a formula that can only be gamed by making quality contributions. A quality discussion requires parties who disagree, exchange of ideas and facts and ideally some kind of eventual agreement. The hardest part is to make it enjoyable to use.
- Razengan 1y ago
  Maybe transparent AI is the only way to fairly govern masses of people? Let people regularly vote on which prompts should be added/removed, and have the AI justify all of its decisions, show which information it used etc.
  - integralid 1y ago
    That's the most dystopian thing I've read today
    - Razengan 1y ago
      Dystopia is the status quo: A handful of people controlling access for millions.
  - flancian 1y ago
    I believe this is likely true and will become evident in time to most, but not all, carbon based systems.
  - econ 1y ago
    An automated internet trial with robot judges and lawyers nominating users for warning banners of shame.
  - econ 1y ago
    I was thinking of discussion platforms but for general government I had a great idea: we know how to write and publish new laws but we are terrible at unpublishing outdated garbage laws. AI would be great for finding all laws that it thinks are dubious, impractical or otherwise undesirable in today's context and zeitgeist. There can be various manual deletion processes for different categories of absurdity.
lurk2 1y ago
Vote manipulation is a non-issue here because users require a minimum of 500 karma to vote, and because the site is so much smaller than Reddit it can take months to reach that threshold. Downvoting is also capped so that you're very unlikely to get pushed back below the 500 karma threshold unless you are consistently making comments that the community doesn't like. I post things I know won't be well-received here all the time and it's quite rare for a comment to go below -2 karma, but comparatively common for these sorts of comment to get flagged despite not breaking any rules. 4chan was great in 2015 precisely because anyone could comment, but it's a young man's website in that scrolling through a 300 comment thread to find the worthwhile parts of the discussion will require upwards of fifteen minutes, whereas on Reddit or Hacker News most of that sorting is already done. This does have censorial effects, so it isn't ideal for controversial topics like politics, but it's better for almost everything else.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  What stops people from setting up and aging (or buying) sockpuppet accounts to the point where they control 10+ or even 100+ flag-capable / vote-capable HN accounts, and then using them as a network to deny or boost certain topics? This kind of behavior almost certainly goes on here.
  - lurk2 1y ago
    > What stops people from setting up and aging (or buying) sockpuppet accounts to the point where they control 10+ or even 100+ flag-capable / vote-capable HN accounts, and then using them as a network to deny or boost certain topics? It’s a single board with a full-time moderator and almost everyone on it has a background in information technology. These kinds of networks leave very obvious signatures, and the site simply isn’t a big enough place for them to hide. > This kind of behavior almost certainly goes on here. Do you have any examples?
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      Of course, only the site admins would be able to show you actual examples. But this kind of stuff happens everywhere on the internet where you can post for free, so there is no reason to think it's not happening here.

lavezzi 1y ago

yes, them constantly locking threads about content they don’t agree with is stellar

pstuart 1y ago
Do you think that there should be zero moderation of this site?