Mods seem, to me at least, less of the internet police force that they are intended to be and more of an outlet for socially awkward individuals to anonymously hold (and later, abuse) power. I can't find any mods on this site, other than the site creators, and I think I like it this way. There's no arbitrary banning this way, and the "policing" is done by the community.
On the other hand, mods are useful for getting rid of scammers and hackers who could potentially endanger the community and the quality of the site. So I guess my real question is does Hubski need mods?
Hubski's mechanics are a bit different from the other sites I've frequented, but I don't know of any good website that isn't moderated in some way. Admittedly, 4chan isn't too bad, but there isn't any way to get any more specific than what the site has predefined, as far as I know. I like the Autos section, for instance, but most of the threads aren't interesting, so you still have to browse through a bunch of turds to find a gem. If a system of accountability was incorporated where you could see what, or who, was banned, and by who, then we can probably avoid the problem of bad moderation. Another thing mk could also do is incorporate a system where you subscribe or unsubscribe to people as moderators, so if you disagree with that person on what is and isn't appropriate, you could unsubscribe so that their moderation doesn't affect your Hubski experience. I don't know if this would really be a good idea since it could complicate things. I think a system of accountability would probably be better.
I agree about the non issue thing. It just seems weird to have a forum-like environment without mods, but this site seems to handle itself well.
I like the idea of that system, but I wonder of it would keep moderators in line. Sure, accountability would be refreshing and maybe deter some mods from waving around their power, but what's stopping them from lying about the reason? If the answer is the community, then who would monitor the banning list for innocent users? Don't get me wrong, I would love mods to be accountable for all the actions they take, and this system would be more attractive to helpful mods. But corrupt mods could bypass this system by lying, turning a simple disagreement into a ban because of "scamming". This would be a good step towards having better control over mods, but it by no means erases all the negatives.
I'm one of the new hubskiers (is that a thing?) that found out about it from a post over on reddit in /r/theoryofreddit. And honestly, I'm pretty weary of reddit after about a year of redditing. I think the lack of moderation in the default subreddits is a big part of it. Absolute freedom combined with the karma system is causing the whole thing to placate to the lowest common denominator, except on subreddits with more moderation. As a new user here I don't know if I can judge whether or not mods are a good idea yet, but if it really takes off like reddit has, content could go downhill fast.
IIRC, the default subreddits do have mods, and a lot of them at that. So there really isn't absolute freedom except in new subreddits where the population is small enough to contain would-be delinquents with downvotes. This site also has a small population and even smaller divisions, and at this point remains largely untouched by annoyances. But how can we, as a community, prepare for a future where the scum of sites like reddit come here? Mods can be used to stave off the crazies, but copying the mod system from other sites could just push it towards the same ill-fated content that we left.
I think that what might insulate hubski a little bit from the proliferation of trashy content is the lack of karma. The culture, it seems, is more about sharing than narcissism, and the structure of the site reflects that. The promotion system is fuzzier and more obfuscated than reddit's, and that makes it seem more genuine. I do think that moderation of hashtags over time could become an issue. With the ability to only attach one tag to a post, the really big tags like music, science, technology, news, politics, etc. will eventually get bloated. A potential solution is to strictly limit certain hashtags, or possibly automate the worst offenders. For example, if image memes were to take off here, they could only be posted in the #memes tag or risk deletion - and the tag would be autosuggested when the site parses the quickmeme url. That could be used to keep certain hashtags more 'true', without the need for multiple tags with varying degrees of purity (/r/gaming, /r/games, and /r/truegaming).
I guess since this site revolves around following, anyone who would be banned can just lose their voice altogether if no one follows them. I really hope that this holds out because it already looks more promising than reddit.
We would certainly prefer to keep content curation to an absolute minimum. If there is anything illegal posted (e.g. kiddie porn, as an extreme), we will remove it as soon as we see it. We haven't really had any real problems with abuse of users by users, so we haven't exactly figured out what to do in that case, other than to say we'll look at it case by case. Beyond that, the site is yours to do as you please. Post what you want; use it as a blog; share your thoughts, or anything else that strikes you. The basic thinking is that if other users find your content compelling they will follow you and share what you post with their followers. Mods aren't necessary, because anyone is free to follow or not follow any other user. Obviously, we can't force people to play nice, but we hope that this format cultivates a respectful, thoughtful atmosphere. If you ever have any specific suggestions, comments or questions, you can post to #bugski, or use the mail feature to send mk, thenewgreen or me a message. Hope you enjoy it here!