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Comment by msteffen | Hacker News Reader

It seems like no one has figured out a good system for moderation on the internet.

IIUC, Facebook hired contractors to do it, then realized that that didn't work and created XCheck to cover the visible cases, and is now in trouble because XCheck also doesn't work and rubber-stamps everything. Even before this there were news stories about the horribleness of those contract moderator jobs. Reddit tried to federate moderation, but it's since become clear that all top subreddits are moderated by the same people. Even HN only works because dang busts ass to keep it good, and that has obvious limits (what happens when dang goes on vacation or retires?)

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The only systems that have figured out moderation at scale are Wikipedia and StackExchange. But see what HN thinks about that.

Nobody wants to admit that the only type of moderation that actually works at scale is an entrenched group of somewhat-expert overly-attached users gatekeeping contributions with (what looks like to the novice and sometimes even to the established user) extreme prejudice on a website with intentionally highly limited scope.

StackExchange’s moderators have a huge bias issue against newcomers to the field (some can say it is justified) and sometimes, (though I have only personally noticed this), there is a huge bias against those who can’t speak English well. I have noticed at times, people with high rep make rude remarks as they misunderstand what the original author had to say.

For me, I take time to edit questions with poor grammar and help people solve their problems from time to time.

i think that's the point that the parent is trying to make: the only sites that have "figured out" moderation have erred almost ridiculously on the side of rejecting a ton of content, often in biased ways. the sites that do this generally seem better for it, even if it's not really fair.

moderation that works well is generally not very nice. content moderation that isn't somewhat cruel doesn't work very well.

Sounds a bit like the interviewing problem, eh? Maintaining a quality bar fundamentally seems to involve a high false negative rate.

Sort of, except the difference in scale is important. there's a lot fewer candidates in interviewing, so each false negative is more significant.

The false negatives in the content moderation process are essentially irrelevant to anybody other than the person being moderated because there's enough other content being generated, so there's very little downside to being overzeaous in content moderating. at anything other than the very largest companies, being overzealous in rejecting interviewees will severely limit your talent pool.

If the moderation is extremely prejudiced, then it doesn't work.

Though I don't disagree that lots of well-intentioned humans could be a path to moderation that works.

> The only systems that have figured out moderation at scale are Wikipedia and StackExchange.

Some edit wars on Wikipedia suggest the opposite.

I don't think that the wiki moderation is good at all for anything where opinions really matter. (Politics, certain movements and such)

Wikipedia is horrible regarding moderation. Trust is mostly gone.

I don't think universal moderation (a moderation standard across all users) is possible or even desirable.

Different users want different things. There are users who never want a single even mildly insulting word. There are users who want unlimited freedom.

The best you can do is to break down moderation and let people opt into a level and form of moderation. Tell them upfront what they are getting and let them pick (or let them make their own moderation rules that apply clientside).

The common denominator in platforms going to shit is scale.

Most social media platforms get their initial users by targeting a specific niche or demographic. Forums of olde typically revolved around some specific subject matter (e.g a particular game, or band, or subculture). Facebook targeted college students. Reddit targeted techies. But once the platform reaches some critical threshold of popularity, the platform strays from its vision to realize some commercial potential. The admins and moderators, in the interest of growth, try to appeal to a lowest common denominator, which ends up alienating the now-veterans, and the original purpose of the platform is diluted into obscurity.

Ironically, HN's great moderation caused it to become very popular, which has made the task of moderating it all much more difficult, which is having a noticeable effect on discussions and which articles make it to the front page.

HN only works because YC doesn't sell ads and explicitly treats it as a loss leader to support their investing business.

I wouldn't be surprise if they turn a profit on YC running sentiment analysis. The website seems like it isn't the most expensive to host either.

Reddit could change their TOS tomorrow to prevent users from moderating more than 2 subreddits if they wanted; others would take their place. But the mods of subreddits that have not been banned are advertiser friendly.

I think part of the problem of "moderation" is exposition, and incentives to maximize user engagement. Posts that nibody sees don't need to be moderated. The problem comes from the fact that platforms offer the most visibility to the worst content, because getting users riled up, excited or upset is the core of their business. It's their only business.

Maybe moderation could be solved by regulating the number of likes or reposts a given user can make or a givzn post can receive. Seems a little far-fetched but worth thinking about.

I fear the day when dang retires.

I would vote that whenever dang is on vacation that HN shutsdown. Everyone could probably use a HN vacation occasionally.

> It seems like no one has figured out a good system for moderation on the internet.

I use locals.com; lots of small disjointed communities, where posters have to pay (or not) a small fee per month (1$ to 5$). which keep the trolls and influence campaigners away.

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