Sounds like more hierarchy. That's not a good thing. We don't need to build a classfull forum online that dreams of a classless society. This whole idea is totally counterproductive. What problems are we trying to solve with this? We should discuss the problems and then come up with solutions as a community rather than... this
Thanks for your response. I responded at length to screamobmo because their response was longer but I think it covers your points too if you want to read a novel.
The short version.
I think my main concerns are around how power posters lead to a more insider/outsider feeling, which I think we already struggle with. I think the issues of wreckers and bots are absolutely real issues and need to be addressed, but I think that making this strata of powers among posters is going to lead to other issues which I think are less easy to solve for. Whereas I think solving for bots and wrecker can be solved with better tools and more mods, so efforts should be focused there.
Either way I think you are all doing things well here and I know if it's not working you'll be happy to reverse course, but I just don't think this is the best answer.
This is a website, not an actual socialist project. And if it were, this site would be under a state of siege socialism. Of course we want to make things as fair as possible, and thankfully the stakes are a lot lower than in a real life socialist project, but the point of this measure is to combat spammers and wreckers form bombarding this place from new accounts. This measure is a much better alternative to logging ips and doing ip bans, which would be very fed indeed. But yeah, this is a proposed solution and we are discussing it.
Not to debate bro, and if this is debate broing I'm happy to remove, but I did want to lay out my thoughts to each of your well thought out points because you put a lot of time and thought into this response and I think I owe you some of my own explanations.
A) I pretty much agree, but I used that language specifically because I think it sets up the rest of my thoughts on the topic.
B) Yes, agreed mostly in principle. Of course someone has to own the site...we live in a society that demands that. But I think it's wrong to abstract posting away from society fully in a way that renders the concept of heirarchy meaningless. This site can be and should be used (I think) for community organizing, even if that community is just a community of the chronically online, and I think that community organizations work best with as little heirarchy as possible. Of course some is unavoidable...we need mods and we need owners, but that's a side effect of the type of society this organization is within rather than the goal.
C) I agree this is a problem. I disagree that power posters are a solution to that problem. In my mind and in the internet communities I have been a part of, power posters would solve this specific issue but would cause or exacerbate new ones. This community (rightfully in some ways!) has a lot of insider/outsider feel already. Amplifying that feeling is going to make it harder for good faith actors to find their home here and find their voice here. I think that a concept of power posters will lead the expanding that insider/outsider feeling, leading new users to feel unwelcome to participate. This is what heirarchy does. It's good because it will make it harder for bad actors, but it cuts both ways and makes it less welcoming to newer, good actors.
D) I'm back to mostly agreeing. I think a site like this in the world it exists in demands some level of heirarchy. As much as my anarchist partner would protest...yeah, we do need some level of gulag, and some folks with the power to do it, because we are under constant attack from other communities who want to see us fail. I am always though skeptical of too much centralized power. Yes sure, it's a website, but it is still a community and I think that communities like this need to have as much freedom as possible to be what they need to be while causing as little harm as possible.
So to sum everything up...I basically agree that we need to have the correct amount of power users to help ensure the site stays a safe welcoming place. And I think there is definitely such a thing as too many. That balance is going to be key and I'm not convinced this is it. I guess in closing it sounds like you just need better automod tools and / or more mods, and I wonder if working on those is a better more sustainable solution that causes less of the issues with insider/outsider.
Just going to expand on what you asked me to expand on, although I appreciate the insight on the rest.
This community very naturally is in an insider/outsider space...it's a niche community built off a niche subreddit built around a niche community. As we try to link the former niche with the latter niche in the absence of the subreddit itself, there's definitely plenty of things that are lost in translation. We already have a big problem of (jokingly or not) people looking at account age, asking how long they were on the subreddit, etc, etc. I think it's a dumb problem in leftist spaces generally, folks trying to "out intellectual" each other (how much THEORY have you read BRO), but that's amplified by the nature of this particular community being leftist, online, and branched off of a no longer existing community. Creating a measure for people, in good faith or not, to hold over newer members is going to exacerbate that problem. Imagine you're a new member who is pretty lib but maybe you've been a to a DSA meeting once, and someone hits you with a :PIGPOOPBALLS: , and you have no idea what they're on about, and you think they're doing some bad faith thing, and you say as much. Someone being a dick about you "not getting the meme" is already likely to dissuade a new member, but someone being a dick with a blue checkmark of "I've been here for 9 months, am a Verified Pre-Subreddit Ban User with over 10,000 posts" means that new member is just never going to come back. It's similarly aligned to why I can't go anywhere and see my "karma" or anyone else's...creating a kind of space around points, badges, tags, whatever...just leads to people farming for those things and using those things as a cudgel more often than people using them in good faith. Sure, for every bad Verified Poster or whatever there will be plenty of good ones, but as we all know 1 bad actor can easily harm an entire community if they want to, and 1 bad actor with power can do so tenfold. I also generally think that any tool that leads to sidewide cliques is bad for new members, and more power users is definitely something that can lead to more cliques. I don't think it really helps the old members either...as power posters leave (or are banned because they abused their power poster privilege, which is going to be a whole new kind of fun mod activity) , they need to be replaced, and its new members with new bits that are going to replace them.
Hopefully that all makes sense. Again I really think you all are doing this (and other stuff) in the best interest in the community, I'm just worried that this community is in a fragile state and riskier things like this could be the catalyst to really pushing it off the cliff. I think there are better options.
Sounds like more hierarchy. That's not a good thing. We don't need to build a classfull forum online that dreams of a classless society. This whole idea is totally counterproductive. What problems are we trying to solve with this? We should discuss the problems and then come up with solutions as a community rather than... this
deleted by creator
Thanks for your response. I responded at length to screamobmo because their response was longer but I think it covers your points too if you want to read a novel.
The short version.
I think my main concerns are around how power posters lead to a more insider/outsider feeling, which I think we already struggle with. I think the issues of wreckers and bots are absolutely real issues and need to be addressed, but I think that making this strata of powers among posters is going to lead to other issues which I think are less easy to solve for. Whereas I think solving for bots and wrecker can be solved with better tools and more mods, so efforts should be focused there.
Either way I think you are all doing things well here and I know if it's not working you'll be happy to reverse course, but I just don't think this is the best answer.
Burner accounts
This is a website, not an actual socialist project. And if it were, this site would be under a state of siege socialism. Of course we want to make things as fair as possible, and thankfully the stakes are a lot lower than in a real life socialist project, but the point of this measure is to combat spammers and wreckers form bombarding this place from new accounts. This measure is a much better alternative to logging ips and doing ip bans, which would be very fed indeed. But yeah, this is a proposed solution and we are discussing it.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Not to debate bro, and if this is debate broing I'm happy to remove, but I did want to lay out my thoughts to each of your well thought out points because you put a lot of time and thought into this response and I think I owe you some of my own explanations.
A) I pretty much agree, but I used that language specifically because I think it sets up the rest of my thoughts on the topic.
B) Yes, agreed mostly in principle. Of course someone has to own the site...we live in a society that demands that. But I think it's wrong to abstract posting away from society fully in a way that renders the concept of heirarchy meaningless. This site can be and should be used (I think) for community organizing, even if that community is just a community of the chronically online, and I think that community organizations work best with as little heirarchy as possible. Of course some is unavoidable...we need mods and we need owners, but that's a side effect of the type of society this organization is within rather than the goal.
C) I agree this is a problem. I disagree that power posters are a solution to that problem. In my mind and in the internet communities I have been a part of, power posters would solve this specific issue but would cause or exacerbate new ones. This community (rightfully in some ways!) has a lot of insider/outsider feel already. Amplifying that feeling is going to make it harder for good faith actors to find their home here and find their voice here. I think that a concept of power posters will lead the expanding that insider/outsider feeling, leading new users to feel unwelcome to participate. This is what heirarchy does. It's good because it will make it harder for bad actors, but it cuts both ways and makes it less welcoming to newer, good actors.
D) I'm back to mostly agreeing. I think a site like this in the world it exists in demands some level of heirarchy. As much as my anarchist partner would protest...yeah, we do need some level of gulag, and some folks with the power to do it, because we are under constant attack from other communities who want to see us fail. I am always though skeptical of too much centralized power. Yes sure, it's a website, but it is still a community and I think that communities like this need to have as much freedom as possible to be what they need to be while causing as little harm as possible.
So to sum everything up...I basically agree that we need to have the correct amount of power users to help ensure the site stays a safe welcoming place. And I think there is definitely such a thing as too many. That balance is going to be key and I'm not convinced this is it. I guess in closing it sounds like you just need better automod tools and / or more mods, and I wonder if working on those is a better more sustainable solution that causes less of the issues with insider/outsider.
deleted by creator
Just going to expand on what you asked me to expand on, although I appreciate the insight on the rest.
This community very naturally is in an insider/outsider space...it's a niche community built off a niche subreddit built around a niche community. As we try to link the former niche with the latter niche in the absence of the subreddit itself, there's definitely plenty of things that are lost in translation. We already have a big problem of (jokingly or not) people looking at account age, asking how long they were on the subreddit, etc, etc. I think it's a dumb problem in leftist spaces generally, folks trying to "out intellectual" each other (how much THEORY have you read BRO), but that's amplified by the nature of this particular community being leftist, online, and branched off of a no longer existing community. Creating a measure for people, in good faith or not, to hold over newer members is going to exacerbate that problem. Imagine you're a new member who is pretty lib but maybe you've been a to a DSA meeting once, and someone hits you with a :PIGPOOPBALLS: , and you have no idea what they're on about, and you think they're doing some bad faith thing, and you say as much. Someone being a dick about you "not getting the meme" is already likely to dissuade a new member, but someone being a dick with a blue checkmark of "I've been here for 9 months, am a Verified Pre-Subreddit Ban User with over 10,000 posts" means that new member is just never going to come back. It's similarly aligned to why I can't go anywhere and see my "karma" or anyone else's...creating a kind of space around points, badges, tags, whatever...just leads to people farming for those things and using those things as a cudgel more often than people using them in good faith. Sure, for every bad Verified Poster or whatever there will be plenty of good ones, but as we all know 1 bad actor can easily harm an entire community if they want to, and 1 bad actor with power can do so tenfold. I also generally think that any tool that leads to sidewide cliques is bad for new members, and more power users is definitely something that can lead to more cliques. I don't think it really helps the old members either...as power posters leave (or are banned because they abused their power poster privilege, which is going to be a whole new kind of fun mod activity) , they need to be replaced, and its new members with new bits that are going to replace them.
Hopefully that all makes sense. Again I really think you all are doing this (and other stuff) in the best interest in the community, I'm just worried that this community is in a fragile state and riskier things like this could be the catalyst to really pushing it off the cliff. I think there are better options.
deleted by creator
Sure thing! Never really expected a response, just wanted to voice my opinion. Thanks for giving me (and others!) the space to do so