I wrote a long comment with some questions, but decided it was too wordy and wanted to just say this: I have some ideas about addressing some of these issues, and one of the things I haven't been able to figure a way around is in the differences in user ability or desire for interaction or level of effort.
Therefore, I think that a good next-gen social media website is going to have to offer multiple levels of interaction depending on the level of the user themselves.
For example, some users want twitter level interaction. Others want a bit of expansion, maybe some commentary, but nothing too cumbersome or technical.
Another group wants citations for everything, but may not want discussion too extensively.
Yet another group wants extensive discussion that flows ideas back and forth, and educates all participants.
Another group wants both citations and discussion (I know it's hard to seperate, but bear with me).
To me, the fundamental mistake is that we are throwing all users of all types into a pool of mediocrity, to the point where perhaps trolling is somewhat limited, but excellence in discussion is also limited due to interuptions of the limited trolling. The troll doesn't want to and generally can't participate in the lengthy discussion.
So my proposed social media site works in two ways:
1) Stories are segmented into expected level of complexity. Eg, there is a twitter version of a story, a short paragraph version of story, an article version of story, and an extensive version with citations version of story. Any user can access whichever level they choose at any time... but...
2) Posting, instead of arbitrary points which tend to be about liking vs disliking arguments despite things like reddiquette, is about two factors.. quality of comment (upvotes but no downvotes for comment quality) and logical strength regardless of position, handed out in a slashdot style random mod distribution to those who opt in to participate in logical analysis of comments...
Users all start with limited commenting and submission capabilities. As a user shows they are adding value though, they get more priviledges, and conversely, as trolls troll, they get temp and perma-bans based on level. (so a troll can still troll the twitter level comments, but not the citation level comments)
What do you think about a system like this, or do you have any other ideas on how to defeat this kind of warping of the social media world without excluding the users who just want to make pun threads all day?
The bottom line is that I want a way to encourage and reward logical and rational discussion and debate for all levels of users, but allow users who wish to remain stagnant to at least participate in the way they so desire.