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Comment by raganwald | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but Jeff's post seems to suggest that there's something special in the design that contributes to more civilized discussion. I'm curious as to what that is. For example, does having a modern interface do that all by itself? Is there something special about the moderation interface? Little tricks isomorphic to the way HN makes you wait before replying to replies, and so on?

Whether used by hackers or not, these design features interest me greatly.

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A lot of the moderation stuff and trust metrics isn't visible on the surface. And to be honest, we've only implemented the first two (new user, not-new user) and final (appointed moderator) trust levels at the moment.

One way to think of this is as follows: what happens when posts get flagged? What's the sequence, who knows about it, and how? For that matter, who can flag?

We do have basic rate limits throughout the app, and they're all configurable as well.

Much of this has to evolve. I'd love your input on it, too!

Wait, your saying how awesome its trust metric is and how it will change everything. Then you say no one can see it. Then you admit that its not implemented yet.

I really think you are onto something. If you can bring the goodness from StackOverflow (automaticly gaining privileges based on how you interact etc) and provide a place for interesting discussions (yes, it seriously bugs me when several of the best answers i find on SO are marked as "Closed as not constructive.")

Looking forward to see it in use. Hopefully this will provide a more modern way to ask all those important questions that needs discussion.

I think the one word answer to Reginald's question is: curation.

Community moderation based on increasing levels of trust worked well for StackOverflow and appears to be implemented for this as well. It's not unique to SO, but it works really well there and not (IMO) for Slashdot, so perhaps there is some difference that matters.

HN relies on a panel of hand-picked moderators, right? It works for HN, but perhaps not in other contexts.

Isn't that what karma thresholds are for on HN?

I guess I don't have enough Karma to know how much moderation I could get in HN -- thought it was limited to downvoting. In SO, it gets quite thorough and you also get prompted to do some moderation (approve edits, etc).

This looks to be a technical solution to a social problem. What exactly is wrong, from a participant's perspective, with existing forum software? Sure, EE and phpBB et al are terrible technologies, but are the needs of the various communities really not being met? If so, how is Discourse an improvement?

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