See here’s the thing - to get the ability to downvote / flag articles, you have to say stuff in public enough times to get the 200 (400?) karma to unlock that. Well, how do you get that karma? You say the things that people on that site want to hear so they click upvote. Spot the curricular bias problem? It was intentionally designed this way.
I remember on stack overflow in order to add a comment with a critical addendum to a question someone else asked, I needed to scrounge around and beg for rep like a second class citizen. Eventually I gave up and posted my addendum as a question with a link to the original, then got in trouble with the mods. I told the mods what the fuck and they added the comment for me under their name. Eventually I earnt enough points to speak; which was then retracted when they increased the minimum rep required to comment again.
I’m not sure there is a better way - all the user moderation approaches I’ve seen involve leaning on the regulars to spot stuff. The alternative is dedicated moderators which tends to lead to it’s own problems. I don’t think you want to rely on those who have just signed up as that would be open to abuse pretty quickly.
I always liked old slashdot. The meta moderation system applied to reddit like moderators would be an interesting experiment allowing the community to police the moderators…
He links it at the end, life imitating art: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49817280
See here’s the thing - to get the ability to downvote / flag articles, you have to say stuff in public enough times to get the 200 (400?) karma to unlock that. Well, how do you get that karma? You say the things that people on that site want to hear so they click upvote. Spot the curricular bias problem? It was intentionally designed this way.
I remember on stack overflow in order to add a comment with a critical addendum to a question someone else asked, I needed to scrounge around and beg for rep like a second class citizen. Eventually I gave up and posted my addendum as a question with a link to the original, then got in trouble with the mods. I told the mods what the fuck and they added the comment for me under their name. Eventually I earnt enough points to speak; which was then retracted when they increased the minimum rep required to comment again.
Made me boycott that website forever
But “want to hear” on HN is sometimes just intelligent or interesting comments, not necessarily bias confirming…
I’m not sure there is a better way - all the user moderation approaches I’ve seen involve leaning on the regulars to spot stuff. The alternative is dedicated moderators which tends to lead to it’s own problems. I don’t think you want to rely on those who have just signed up as that would be open to abuse pretty quickly.
I always liked old slashdot. The meta moderation system applied to reddit like moderators would be an interesting experiment allowing the community to police the moderators…