- A post can get all the "shares" in the world from someone getting payed .08 cents per "share" but if nobody follows that person, that's a waste of money. A post can have a full hub wheel from 20 dummy accounts and still, the only people that will see it will be the 20 dummies.
I think you mostly nailed it. The way hubski is designed makes it difficult to for spammers to gain quick and easy popularity since they must gain not only share but also non-bought followers -- the latter of which is a slow and more deeply involved process than simply clicking a button. People being paid 8ยข an hour (or per follower, or whatever) won't bother with that. However, a poster that no one follows can still be visible through the "external posts" feature, which I personally keep on "show many." And while it is possible to ignore users on an individual level, the post will still be visible by anyone not blocking that particular user -- which, when you account for lurkers and new folk, is probably the majority of people who see the site (if not now, then in the future). I think it is at that point, or ideally before that point, that we will start to seriously discuss the issue of moderation.
As for the external posts getting hit with BS posts, I think lessismore is right, just "ignore" someone and they will no longer show up. The only thing I see as a potential problem for the future are people commenting. How to ignore a user that comments on everything but has nothing to say or someone that is annoying or a blatant troll? How to avoid that is the question. Can you block someone from posting a comment on anything you post? Maybe if you ignore that user, they can't comment on your posts? This is a problem to be solved.
I'd rather visibility to the community as a whole to be a transient thing, dependent upon the quality of your most recent posts and comments, and not upon a legacy. Of course, a user will keep most of the followers they have earned, but if they want to get more of them, they have to keep providing good reason for it.
I am all for enabling a user to filter their own experience, however. So if you are ignoring someone, it would make sense that their comments would drop closer to the bottom in your view of a post. As for general moderation, if and when we get into that, I'd like it to be as dependent upon user input as possible. Ignoring does give a pretty good metric for that, at least to raise a flag that there might be an issue.
I'd ignore them, so their comment would sort to the bottom, and if others ignored them, the same would happen. My guess is that they would run out of steam eventually. If we don't take the good with the bad, then we are left to determine which is which. If it became real problem, I'd probably consider some other approaches, but I don't think civility can be enforced very well.
You're right about civility, it can't be enforced.