might be good for hn, I guess? I think the problem with voting on HN (and in general) is that people downvote things they disagree with rather than just spam and trolls, and they use upvoting to mean "I agree" rather than to mean "well written" or "you are contributing to the conversation".
of course, this gets into a deeper discussion... many people /want/ to only talk with people who agree with them. For most people, the 'groupthink' that results from voting moderation systems /improves their experience/
The original article is suggesting paid moderators. Personally, I think PG coming on here and setting social expectations (he dressed me down, once.) probably has more to do with hn being a tolerable place than anything else. Paid or not, having a 'community owner' who can designate things as unacceptable, either by having a large amount of social capital (as pg does) or by having access to the banhammer as a paid moderator would, I think, is more important than anything else when it comes to maintaining an online community.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 16.1 ms ] threadof course, this gets into a deeper discussion... many people /want/ to only talk with people who agree with them. For most people, the 'groupthink' that results from voting moderation systems /improves their experience/
The original article is suggesting paid moderators. Personally, I think PG coming on here and setting social expectations (he dressed me down, once.) probably has more to do with hn being a tolerable place than anything else. Paid or not, having a 'community owner' who can designate things as unacceptable, either by having a large amount of social capital (as pg does) or by having access to the banhammer as a paid moderator would, I think, is more important than anything else when it comes to maintaining an online community.