From d3c992b397697337ec96f2686e2818004127f67e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rohan Kumar Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2022 10:49:31 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] New note: better vote-enabled forums --- content/notes/better-vote-enabled-forums.md | 18 ++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/notes/better-vote-enabled-forums.md diff --git a/content/notes/better-vote-enabled-forums.md b/content/notes/better-vote-enabled-forums.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb4c7d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/notes/better-vote-enabled-forums.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +title: "Better vote-enabled forums" +date: 2022-06-14T10:53:12-07:00 +description: 'Armchair speculation: how we can learn from Redit, Lemmy, "Hacker" "News", et al to build forums for discussion rather than validation and attention-seeking.' +--- +Armchair speculation: how can we learn from Reddit, Lemmy, "Hacker" "News", et al? + +1. A vote should be part of a reply with at least N words. N could be increased by mods and admins. Instances could federate votes conditionally based on the length or activity of a comment. Word counts can be problematic; I don't know a better alternative (maybe clause-count?). Flagging doesn't need a minimum word count. + +2. Forums shouldn't host their own top-level posts and comments. Those should be links from authors' own websites with microformats (think [IndieWeb](https://indieweb.org/)). The forum should be Webmention-enabled. + +3. Larger communities should have ephemeral chatrooms ("ephemeral" in that public history has a retention limit if it exists at all) to incubate posts. Authors (yes, original authors) could share their work and collect feedback/improve it before it's "ready". They could then post with increased visibility. + +4. One reason to flag a top-level comment could be "didn't look at the post". I say "look at" instead of "read" because certain posts are huge essays that could take hours to read. Top level commenters should at least be expected to skim. + +These qualities will make a forum less active, since the quality of content will be higher and some validation and attention-seeking will be filtered out. Low activity means higher visibility for good content. Forums could "get of the ground" by starting invite-only, gradually enabling these rules one-by-one before opening to the public. + +(psst: I might be working on "a thing").