The current state of moderation across various online communities, especially on platforms like Reddit, has been a topic of much debate and dissatisfaction. Users have voiced concerns over issues such as moderator rudeness, abuse, bias, and a failure to adhere to their own guidelines. Moreover, many communities suffer from a lack of active moderation, as moderators often disengage due to the overwhelming demands of what essentially amounts to an unpaid, full-time job. This has led to a reliance on automated moderation tools and restrictions on user actions, which can stifle community engagement and growth.
In light of these challenges, it’s time to explore alternative models of community moderation that can distribute responsibilities more equitably among users, reduce moderator burnout, and improve overall community health. One promising approach is the implementation of a trust level system, similar to that used by Discourse. Such a system rewards users for positive contributions and active participation by gradually increasing their privileges and responsibilities within the community. This not only incentivizes constructive behavior but also allows for a more organic and scalable form of moderation.
Key features of a trust level system include:
- Sandboxing New Users: Initially limiting the actions new users can take to prevent accidental harm to themselves or the community.
- Gradual Privilege Escalation: Allowing users to earn more rights over time, such as the ability to post pictures, edit wikis, or moderate discussions, based on their contributions and behavior.
- Federated Reputation: Considering the integration of federated reputation systems, where users can carry over their trust levels from one community to another, encouraging cross-community engagement and trust.
Implementing a trust level system could significantly alleviate the current strains on moderators and create a more welcoming and self-sustaining community environment. It encourages users to be more active and responsible members of their communities, knowing that their efforts will be recognized and rewarded. Moreover, it reduces the reliance on a small group of moderators, distributing moderation tasks across a wider base of engaged and trusted users.
For communities within the Fediverse, adopting a trust level system could mark a significant step forward in how we think about and manage online interactions. It offers a path toward more democratic and self-regulating communities, where moderation is not a burden shouldered by the few but a shared responsibility of the many.
As we continue to navigate the complexities of online community management, it’s clear that innovative approaches like trust level systems could hold the key to creating more inclusive, respectful, and engaging spaces for everyone.
I had an idea for a system sort of like this to reduce moderator burden. The idea would be for each user to have a score based on their volume and ratio of correct reports to incorrect reports (determined by whether it ultimately resulted in a moderator action) of rule breaking comments/posts. Content is automatically removed if the cumulative scores of people who have reported it is high enough. Moderators can manually adjust the scores of users if needed, and undo community mod actions. More complex rules could be applied as needed for how scores are determined.
To address the possibility that such a system would be abused, I think the best solution would be secrecy. Just don’t let anyone know that this is how it works, or that there is a score attached to their account that could be gamed. Pretend it’s a new kind of automod or AI bot or something, and have a short time delay between the report that pushes it over the edge and the actual removal.
Functionality by obscurity does not work for a platform as open source and federated as lemmy
I guess that’s somewhat true if you are sharing an implementation around, but even avoiding the feature being widely known could make a difference. Even if it was known, I think the scoring could work alright on its own. A malicious removal could be quickly reversed manually and all reporters scores zeroed.
Oh I’m not saying the feature couldn’t work, and I like the idea. I’m just saying it wouldn’t be possible to keep it a secret, for obvious reasons.
You could implement it and just tell client makers its not an intended data point to display or intentionally keep it less human readable (count in hex).
I don’t get it. It’s open source. Anybody can just look at the code. Unless you’re talking about a closed-source binary blob, in which case chances are nobody will ever adopt it.
Its just to stop honest people. Not everything has to be illegal to be limited.
Even if the system and scores were fully open and public, would there even be a way to game such a system? How would that be done?
Make a minimum viable instance to get federated.
Be normal for a while.
Boost bot users such that their scores are positive.
Use them for whatever mayhem you like
Could there be a way to protect against this? What if the scores were instance specific? If a user’s score is super high on one (or a few) instances and super low on the rest, that could suggest malicious activity.