Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree with you, we need content moderation and some political beliefs are just toxic. But Reddit just takes it to the absurd: - Automods which remove posts which simply contain certain words (e.g. "coronavirus", apparently because too many covid deniers). I get trying to restrict covid misinformation, but I'm not even exaggerating, they remove anything discussing covid even if it's supporting. - Mods rem…
Social bookmarking site moderation is in need of an overhaul. Moderators have turned into gatekeepers who can’t be unseated. I’m dreaming of an “old Reddit”/HN-esque discussion board where moderation policies are opt-in. E.g. submit a thread to /r/bayarea, users compete to moderate e.g. ban/censor content. Users “follow” moderators to opt-in to their moderation policies. Basically upvoting/downvoting but for moderati…
Smaller communities can rely on simple upvote/downvote, possibly with some intelligent logic to notice who you tend to agree with - I think Slashdot was primarily this?
But past a certain scale, just dealing with spam is a huge deal. Plus you need 24/7 coverage, and you want mods to be reasonably responsive. Assuming each person can put in 42 hours/week of moderation that still means you need four moderators.
And of course you need a default for people who have just arrived at the site, so that they're not buried in spam or attacked by trolls on their first post.