Re:Twitter co-founder: I’m sorry if we made Trump’s presiden...
by intended on Monday May 22, 2017 @05:02AM
(#14392053)
Not sure if missing an /s
But any system can be gamed. The moment the community creates any value - political/advertising/creative
People will swoop in to take advantage of it.
This sets of a cycle
1) If no moderation, debate on the need of moderation - given time this will be resolved in favor of moderation
2) Moderators try to deal with attackers, posers, abusers
3) Attackers start masking their presence, they start debating the rules, they develop increasing sophisticated counter attacks to the rules
At this stage, its important to note that common sense is thrown to the window. People will argue incessantly whether X post/comment is within the scope of the rules or not. The term is forum lawyer.
4) Moderators have to start going to greater and greater lengths to deal with rule breaking, rule defining and disruption. The best case scenario is indifference and manageable rule breaking.
5) Eventually if the process escalates, we end up at profiling users based on words, either through mod experience, or worse - automated means. IP addresses are tagged, users are tagged.
Moderation is the intersection of being a debate adjudicator and a full fledged editorial board for a newspaper.
ANY technical solution should be looked at with DEEP discomfort. Any solution to this problem can and will eventually be used to suppress or modify behavior on forums.
Whats worrisome is that this arms race is escalating, if you see how mod tools have expanded on reddit, they have completely stopped entire methods of grass roots retaliation to mod power.
Earlier - if a forum had an issue, it could split organically into a subreddit. Users would vote with their feet. Famously the split of weed lovers to r/trees.
With the creation of automod, any mention of an opposing sub can completely be removed. Stopping that entire method of dealing with mods.
Sub splits do still happen, but its a lot harder to achieve and organize.
But any system can be gamed. The moment the community creates any value - political/advertising/creative
People will swoop in to take advantage of it.
This sets of a cycle
1) If no moderation, debate on the need of moderation - given time this will be resolved in favor of moderation
2) Moderators try to deal with attackers, posers, abusers
3) Attackers start masking their presence, they start debating the rules, they develop increasing sophisticated counter attacks to the rules
At this stage, its important to note that common sense is thrown to the window. People will argue incessantly whether X post/comment is within the scope of the rules or not. The term is forum lawyer.
4) Moderators have to start going to greater and greater lengths to deal with rule breaking, rule defining and disruption. The best case scenario is indifference and manageable rule breaking.
5) Eventually if the process escalates, we end up at profiling users based on words, either through mod experience, or worse - automated means. IP addresses are tagged, users are tagged.
Moderation is the intersection of being a debate adjudicator and a full fledged editorial board for a newspaper.
ANY technical solution should be looked at with DEEP discomfort. Any solution to this problem can and will eventually be used to suppress or modify behavior on forums.
Whats worrisome is that this arms race is escalating, if you see how mod tools have expanded on reddit, they have completely stopped entire methods of grass roots retaliation to mod power.
Earlier - if a forum had an issue, it could split organically into a subreddit. Users would vote with their feet. Famously the split of weed lovers to r/trees.
With the creation of automod, any mention of an opposing sub can completely be removed. Stopping that entire method of dealing with mods.
Sub splits do still happen, but its a lot harder to achieve and organize.