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We recently discussed reddit's woes and the hiring of a new CEO. However, we have seen communities come and go for many years.
Clay Shirky wrote about his experience in 1978: "Communitree was founded on the principles of open access and free dialogue... And then, as time sets in, difficulties emerge. In this case, one of the difficulties was occasioned by the fact that one of the institutions that got hold of some modems was a high school. ... the boys weren't terribly interested in sophisticated adult conversation. They were interested in fart jokes. They were interested in salacious talk. ... the adults who had set up Communitree were horrified, and overrun by these students. The place that was founded on open access had too much open access, too much openness. They couldn't defend themselves against their own users. The place that was founded on free speech had too much freedom."
There are two clear trends. One is that less input and customization tends to grow bigger. Note how Geocities was replaced with Myspace which was then replaced with Facebook and Twitter. These newer systems take away personal freedom of expression and makes people follow a 'prescribed' system, albeit an easier one to use. The other trend is that communities that try to be truly free and open end up either stifled by that openness or give up. The only obvious exception is a platform that allows us to simply filter out everything we don't want to see, which becomes a series of the feared echo chamber. With the excessive amount of data and the build up of complex rules on how information is shared, where does this leave us? It seems that like the famous iron triangle allowing free (and legal) speech with the possibility of diverse opinions, a cohesive group, and growth only allows you to pick two.
It seems to me this is a wicked problem, perhaps unsolvable. But I wonder if the community thinks there are other design options? Is this even possible with human nature as it is?
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday July 19 2015, @01:42PM
As others have already noted, and indeed it was raised in the article itself, the outcome depends entirely on which method you choose. You can 'censor' (and therefore the published results discuss the chosen topic within certain self-imposed constraints and boundaries) or you can have total freedom (where the result might not be what was intended nor even what the the majority wanted). What it comes down to, on this site, is 'what do you, the community, want?
The current system of moderation seems to be providing the best balance so far between freedom of expression and keeping the trolls/abusers down to a reasonable noise level. However, as we seek to introduce nexuses, where some topics might only have a few regular contributors but might also attract a higher proportion of trolls and abusers, what would you prefer to see the site do? My own preference, which is far from ideal and I am sure will attract its own criticism, is that we should endeavour to control the content to the extent that creates a site that the majority wish to see. If that means occasionally erring on the 'heavy handed' side of moderation then so be it - if the site loses its community because of the actions of a small minority then we have achieved nothing. Furthermore, attracting those members back to the site once they have gone is a far harder task than trying to find the appropriate balance of moderation to prevent them being driven away in the first place.