Maybe, just maybe, the whole "no moderation" thing is a doomed experiment.
1) It's not an experiment, it's a goal. 2) It cannot be allowed to fail. If it isn't working at the moment, methods need to be changed so that it does work. Communities are governed either top-down or bottom-up. Top-down is the most obvious because it's a hierarchy that humans have ascribed to since, like, fire. The problem with top-down hierarchies is that the community size and behavior is limited by governance. Good governance, good community. Bad governance, bad community. Which means if you want a good community you need the incentives necessary to attract governance - prestige, money, fulfillment, etc. Which, really, means money. Reddit worked up to a point - small community, active involvement from people with a vested interest in its success, etc. Eventually the number of people that didn't add outnumbered the people who did, and the only people interested in governance left are either (A) young and inexperienced or (B) power-hungry. Facebook works because their moderators are paid. So Hubski either needs to pay people to keep the content pure, or it needs to refine an architecture such that it NEVER requires moderation. Switching from self-moderated (bottom up) to designated-moderated (top-down) will kill the community. Not immediately, but inevitably.
Unrealistic goals need to be reconsidered. And to avoid blindness, every goal must be considered allowed to fail. The creation of good leaders is every bit as part of human nature as the corruption of bad ones. Trying to wish away that fact is futile - and wishing away is all that's happening here. For meaningful discussion, some form of top-down moderation absolutely is required. That does not mandate imitating any particular other site's manner of top-down moderation, however. So ask yourself, what about top-down moderation is harmful? If you want to ensure that no central party can cause harm, the only possible answer is for each cluster of users to host it themselves, e.g. like Diaspora - and likely also exchange the data over something like Tor to prevent ISP-level meddling. You can't just pretend that any single host or network is infallible. (And related - currently, on Hubski, whoever is the first to post a certain link gets unquestioned moderatorship over that thread, which is clearly worse than subreddit moderators who have to post at least some sort of rules). If you want to create communities under the fundamental requirement, there has to be something better than following users (who won't share everything I want to read) or following tags (which offer absolutely no moderation). Think about how small communities work on Reddit - someone has an idea for a subject, they create a new subreddit, act as its (usually sole) moderator, people post/view content there. Since the moderator only has localized power, corruption is minimal, and since they do have localized power, abuse is also minimal. To expand from that smallness, remember that there are often multiple small communities with a similar focus, with some number of overlapping subscribers, but completely unrelated moderators. To actually produce a workable system, we need something like: every user is the moderator of their own personal subreddit on every single subject, but anyone can post in that provided they have appropriate ranking (settable per user+tag to either "whitelisted" or "not blacklisted"). Allow anyone to add tags to any posts, but the tags will only be relevant to people who (directly or indirectly) trust them for that tag - have something similar to "upvoting the fact that a tag applies". Do not make it possible to follow users, except in a specific tag (but do provide a standard tag for "follow me in this for when I start a new tag"). But do have the sense of tag relationships - perhaps a "suggestions" stream from any particular stream you're viewing.
Says who? This site has meaningful discussions day in and day out, for years without any top-down moderation. I've been on two other social communities before Hubski that, while they employed different mechanics, also lacked any top down moderation and meaningful discussions were had all the time then too. They also had different social structures for handling goons. Feeling fed up with Reddit, I actually lurked this site for about two weeks before creating an account. Know what made me want to join? The meaningful discussions. Furthermore, it's not just on the internet, but people have meaningful discussions on numerous topics day in and day out without any outside moderation. Moderation isn't what drives meaningful discussions, it's the desire for connection and belonging, the desire to both expand who we are as people while also feeling valued and validated by our peers. There is an socially created mechanism that encourages good behavior and its called manners. You don't need your mother standing over your shoulder every day to remind you of good manners. Where things fall apart, as Reddit can be a great example sometimes, isn't by moderation or lack there of, but anonymity. Anonymity by hiding behind a screen name and anonymity of being just one voice lost in a sea of tens of thousands. When no one is gonna remember you from the next comment down the line, all of the sudden social accountability goes out the window. Site mechanics are like game mechanics. Final Fantasy and Call of Duty are both video games, but they both play out completely differently. Hubski, Reddit, and Facebook are all social sites, but their mechanics also play out completely differently as well. They all have their advantages and they all have their drawbacks. Hubski is actually a pretty nifty setup, in that you can follow users, tags, and even websites, and depending on who and what you follow, your feed is influenced. Just because you follow a certain user, it doesn't mean they control all that you see. Users can't control what you do and do not see, only you can control that. Nifty ideas, but I think they'd have drawbacks as well. mk is always up for suggestions though. The thing is, the mechanics of moderation for this site actually compliment the structure of this site very well. At the same time, I've been here just a little under a year, just like you, and I've seen multiple occasions where mk has deliberately and publicly made changes to the site mechanics to address certain issues. Every single time he does, he always says to one affect or another “Let's see how this plays out. We can always change it.” Think about that for a second. You're using the site of a man who values his creation so much, he's not only willing to accept its imperfections, but actively polishes them out. He wants to make this site better, not for income, but so that we as users can feel welcome to stay and participate, day in and day out. If for nothing else, that type of ownership makes this a site worth being a part of.For meaningful discussion, some form of top-down moderation absolutely is required. That does not mandate imitating any particular other site's manner of top-down moderation, however. So ask yourself, what about top-down moderation is harmful?
If you want to create communities under the fundamental requirement, there has to be something better than following users (who won't share everything I want to read) or following tags (which offer absolutely no moderation). Think about how small communities work on Reddit - someone has an idea for a subject, they create a new subreddit, act as its (usually sole) moderator, people post/view content there.
To actually produce a workable system, we need something like: every user is the moderator of their own personal subreddit on every single subject, but anyone can post in that provided they have appropriate ranking (settable per user+tag to either "whitelisted" or "not blacklisted"). Allow anyone to add tags to any posts, but the tags will only be relevant to people who (directly or indirectly) trust them for that tag - have something similar to "upvoting the fact that a tag applies". Do not make it possible to follow users, except in a specific tag (but do provide a standard tag for "follow me in this for when I start a new tag"). But do have the sense of tag relationships - perhaps a "suggestions" stream from any particular stream you're viewing.
I disagree with a lot of what you're saying, but I'm on mobile right now and to write a full response would take the better part of this year. That said, I do have to respond to this . . . Uh, no. There are totally power hungry mods that mod multiple subreddits, sometimes related sometimes unrelated, that will not hesitate to ban you from every subreddit they control if you cross them. The mods can be just as goonish, if not worse sometimes, than regular users.Since the moderator only has localized power, corruption is minimal, and since they do have localized power, abuse is also minimal. To expand from that smallness, remember that there are often multiple small communities with a similar focus, with some number of overlapping subscribers, but completely unrelated moderators.
Perhaps those of us who have been here more than a year are less interested in giving up than you are, and view a discussion of "what to do about this" as a reason to discuss change instead of throwing in the towel. We're discussing how one man's spam is another man's treasure... and the fact that the site already handles this problem. How that leads to the maxim "For meaningful discussion, some form of top-down moderation absolutely is required" is beyond me. And I don't need to ask myself shit - I was a default mod on Reddit for like six years. I've had lengthy conversations about moderation and social design with every manager Reddit had from 2008 until 2015. So rather than ask, I'll tell you what's wrong with top down moderation: Of course small communities work on Reddit. Small communities work anywhere. The trick is in going from a small community to a large one, where Reddit falls down catastrophically... and I say that as someone who moderated 7 million users at a time. When I talk about the problems of top-down moderation I speak from experience. When you talk about "localized power" you reveal your naivete as to the system - the site-wide blacklists, the collusion, the crowdsourced spam .xml files, all the other stuff that has sprung up ad hoc to deal with the fact that Reddit Inc doesn't pay people nearly enough to manage this stuff so there isn't nearly the core of Admins necessary. Hubski will never go there. EVER. So its approach MUST be different. More different than I think you even try to understand. We have a workable system, where every user is the moderator of their own personal subreddit on every single subject. We don't allow anyone to add tags to any posts, we allow anyone who has participated in the community by a negligible amount to do so. So I reiterate: this is not a "fail" scenario, never was, never will be. This is a "refinement" scenario and I maintain that the system is fully functional within the parameters being discussed.Eventually the number of people that didn't add outnumbered the people who did, and the only people interested in governance left are either (A) young and inexperienced or (B) power-hungry. Facebook works because their moderators are paid.
Or maybe this is people showing what they consider to be valued contributions. Submissions by people who actively participate in the community are almost never tagged as spam. Self promotors, regularly are, and it's not just these two rpg submitters who get tagged. I really feel, that on Hubski, the social value of the user making a submission is just as, if not more important than the quality of the item being submitted.
Yeah, there have been many examples in the past of people posting content from their own site and interacting with the community. This changes everything. The content could even be less than stellar and it's forgiven because an effort is being put forth to participate in the community. We encourage people to post their own content but spamming is something completely different. We even created DVH to facilitate this.