Fellow Lemmings, how to create Social Media that does not have mods?

I am an anarchist, so the idea of the community doing all the work, creating content, and then mods basically ruling over them as a reward, just doesn’t sit right with me.

We the users should collectively be in control of all our social media, economically and with regards of controling what goes on, on there.

All social media get’s its value from the users i.e. the network effect. However the users are subjected to a hierachical place where individuals in power act as tyrants.

We create the value we should be in charge.

Fellow Lemmings how can we create social media were the users are king/queen?

post Scriptum: just having a voting mechanism, might be gamed by unsavory charcters or groups to game such a system, unless voting requires your clear name id, which comes with other issues of course.

thelsim,
@thelsim@sh.itjust.works avatar

mods basically ruling over them as a reward

Speaking as a mod (of a very easy going community, mind you). This is not how I see my responsibilities. All I do is make sure people stick to the rules, deal with reports and organize some community challenges. Basically, I’m a happy mod when I don’t have to do anything at all :)
On top of that, I hate having to remove comments or posts and always try to get in touch with the poster to let them know why I did what I had to and hope they understand.

I don’t really see how this can be seen as a reward to be honest.

TheInsane42,
@TheInsane42@lemmy.world avatar

You mean, like xitter? Perfect example of what happens without some regulation.

BigBlackCockroach,
@BigBlackCockroach@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not familiar with xitter what happened and how did it work?

TheInsane42,
@TheInsane42@lemmy.world avatar

X/twitter?

souperk,
@souperk@reddthat.com avatar

I have seen communities where every member is a mod. In order to enter the community a vote takes hold that decides if you can be a member. The decision is usually based on a majority ruling, but veto power is granted to every member.

The idea is that you can find the community online since it’s public, petition for your membership presenting your argument and other social media accounts you have.

Then, members judge if you are going to be a suitable member of the community, if you are going to respect the rules of the community, and cast their votes. Often participation is low on votes, someone vouches for you and a few other people review your accounts to make sure you are not a threat.

Sometimes there is a probation period where you have some power like posting on the community but are not fully fledged mod. Other times you become a mod from the start.

Banning members sometimes is necessary, the process needs to be more strict, maybe set participation requirements and allow for enough time for anyone to cast their votes.

It’s important to keep in mind that allowing everyone to weigh in on decisions does mean they are going to, most people don’t have the context or the time to, but the community needs to remain functional. For these reasons, vote rulings need to be decided on participation and not body size.

Last but not least, my experience is that those communities are much more pleasant and productive to participate in. Not being doxxed on every comment you make, and people actually making an effort to understand your argument, is a game changer.

Moobythegoldensock,

From what I’ve seen in your replies, you seem to agree:

  • Bad actors can easily ruin a community
  • It’s very easy for bad actors to game popularity-based systems like downvoting posts to remove them or upvoting posts to protect them
  • Bad actors can brigade communities to make it seem like active members support values different than what the majority actually held before the brigade

You’re dancing around the solution but refuse to admit it: you need a group of trusted users who have a longitudinal relationship with the community. This group of users can follow the community’s leanings over a long period of time, keep the discussion true to the community’s original vision, and easily identify bad actors. You need moderators.

It seems you’d be in favor of more laissez-faire moderation, but there’s still no better solution than moderation. Even if AI got good enough to do the job as well as a human, you’d still need a leader (the community creator or mods) to program the parameters of that AI. The truth is that your anarchist belief system simply doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in theory, and the only viable solution involves having someone in charge.

BigBlackCockroach,
@BigBlackCockroach@lemmy.world avatar

We have to assume that the majority of users will not be disruptive unless driven by the environment. Otherwise we might as well stop right there.

Assuming that it follows that such moderation without any individual in power might still be implemented by reflecting the community will through some mechanism. So voting doesn’t work as long as everybody can create a million bot accounts. Maybe there is a way to prevent that. Same with other approaches. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody can come up with a technical solution for this.

Moobythegoldensock,

Traditionally, this is done by IP, but IP spoofing is a thing.

However, choosing not to allow duplicate or bot accounts is itself an administrative decision. It’s simply preemptive moderation.

kent_eh,

We have to assume that the majority of users will not be disruptive

That’s a reasonable assumption, however it only takes a very small number of “bad actors” to do a disproportionately large amount of damage.

BigBlackCockroach,
@BigBlackCockroach@lemmy.world avatar

But the same assumption also means that one can rely on the majority of the users to be pro-social. Thus one can lean on this majority of angels to do the moderating.

hahattpro,

Do you know Nostr ?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • asklemmy@lemmy.world
  • localhost
  • All magazines
    •
    Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #