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> > Forums and communities are losing authentic voices... The comments under most tweets follow the same robotic tone, and it's obvious that a lot of them exist

> > Forums and communities are losing authentic voices... The comments under most tweets follow the same robotic tone, and it's obvious that a lot of them exist only to farm engagement. I've mentioned this before, but I still think that part of the reason Something Awful was and is still fun really boils down to the fact that it cost money to join. It's not a lot of money, but enough to where it keeps bot traffic pretty low (since it would quickly get expensive to keep buying accounts as they get banned). This, in combination with the fact that there's not really a huge benefit to getting engagement other than "it's fun to be funny", and the moderators willingness to ban/probe people who make the forum un-fun, and it's become basically the only social media that I use. I'm not quite a total boomer, I do understand the appeal of social networks like Twitter or Instagram, but I kind of think that ML recommendation systems are sort of by definition antithetical to anything good. It's not like anything a YouTube or TikTok recommendation gives me is going to meaningfully improve my life, and if these systems work as intended then all they do is make me waste more time than I would normally.

cal_dent 1y ago
Agreed. It seems inevitable to me that the only valid social networks (social media or forum) will be some sort of semi-locked/curated kingdoms. As bot traffic and engagement increases on the Web the appeal surely starts to decline? Especially as users become better as spotting the less sophisticated bots seem to increasingly dominate a lot of activity. Is the Internet still fun/addictive if you're not actually engaging with people anymore?
- tombert 1y ago
  Yeah, there's a bit of brilliance in the $10 fee for SA. It's not really enough to "exclude" anyone; virtually anyone can afford to pay a one-time fee, but if they keep getting banned and having to buy accounts, then it becomes untenable to create spam. The genius is that this didn't require teams of PhDs coming up with an elaborate Machine Learning system, it exploited the most basic of human instincts: loss aversion. SA is just about perfect for me, since it has enough users to avoid the "dead mall" vibe, but it's still a relatively small community.

cal_dent 1y ago

Agreed. It seems inevitable to me that the only valid social networks (social media or forum) will be some sort of semi-locked/curated kingdoms. As bot traffic and engagement increases on the Web the appeal surely starts to decline? Especially as users become better as spotting the less sophisticated bots seem to increasingly dominate a lot of activity. Is the Internet still fun/addictive if you're not actually engaging with people anymore?

tombert 1y ago
Yeah, there's a bit of brilliance in the $10 fee for SA. It's not really enough to "exclude" anyone; virtually anyone can afford to pay a one-time fee, but if they keep getting banned and having to buy accounts, then it becomes untenable to create spam. The genius is that this didn't require teams of PhDs coming up with an elaborate Machine Learning system, it exploited the most basic of human instincts: loss aversion. SA is just about perfect for me, since it has enough users to avoid the "dead mall" vibe, but it's still a relatively small community.