Would Boing Boing ever implement a “commenter entry fee”?

If it doesn’t end with “comrade”, I tend to assume it’s genuine.

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I could do without those, too, which is why what @orenwolf suggests for first posts of TL0 users is a better option. The snarky “Velcome, comrade” messages can be fun (especially when aimed at new users from the I.R.A. factory in St Petersburg), but they have a tendency to derail topics.

Entry Fee, a.k.a. “Unless you have a valid credit card and money to spare (which may include conversion fees on non-US currency) you are not allowed to have on opinion. No poors allowed.”

Sure, it doesn’t seem like much for a one-time only admission but there are probably people here who couldn’t afford even that. Even though I could, I am not sure I want to hang around somewhere that only values you if you can.

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I still think Slashdot still has the best user-moderated comment system of any forum and I’m certain you have considered adapting that for Discourse. Maybe it’s time to revisit that idea?

Specifically, I think you could let users tag a comment with more than just a heart. Why not have a row of buttons for troll, funny, agree, informative, etc…? Users that are here just for the lulz could sort by funny. I might be interested in contentious comments and could find them by listing for comments deemed by the community as both trollish and insightful.

It would open up a whole new set of badges.

The slashdot meta moderation system is very cool, but it requires a very large number of active users to work, more than most forums have. You have to have enough users to make a small number of users temporary mods, and enough users to make some meta moderators. And you still have to have actual mods. And even when it does work, the upvotting system favors early posts over quality posts. And when decent posts get upvoted “too high” they can get retributive down votes that take the posts way below their actual value. So as impressive as I think the slashdot system is, their threaded, ranked comment system has its own issues.

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HAVE YOU SEEN SLASHDOT COMMENTS?

It was always a shitpool, is a shitpool, and always will be. It turns out giving unchecked power at random with no accountability always ends badly.

We need more mods like Oren. And the dragon. And disemvoweling.

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Agreed; especially going into this next (neverending) election season. We need more good mods.

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Any moderation system can only act on the comments that are there. It’s like Facebook having some of the most talented software developers on the planet, yet they are making something many of us think is bad.

That’s true. The exact system wouldn’t work here, but I think it does show that there are other idea out there other than the Facebook/Twitter model that Discourse is stuck on. All I’m really asking for is more buttons to click and some filters that use that data. For example, Jason’s dog recently died and it feels bad clicking on a “like this post” button. A more Boing Boingish button might be a hug button.

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I’d really like a “I hate this information, but I appreciate you bringing it to light” button, too :wink:

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This. —/\

It does make me wonder what YC news does right, though. Excellent informative comments, with bad actors being shut down very effectively. It basically is what /. could be / may have once been.

Facebook’s problem is the one of the “Never ending September”, scaled up to billions of global users instead of thousands rather more regionally.

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You mean like the greys in Kinja? I don’t know if that’s going to work… getting out of the greys in Kinja is both easy and hard… if you’re a normal schlub making a first time comment, you’re not gonna get noticed. OTOH, there are probably enough people at TL3 on this BBS that you have one or two believers in freeze peaches that’ll let derails through. Kinda like how trollish assholes and their sock puppets always seem to get out of the greys in Kinja…

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What’s being proposed is a little different. Unlike Kinja, it would be only the first comment (or the first comment in a couple of years) of a TL0 user and it wouldn’t be visible at all except to TL3+ members. Once they’re past their first comment there aren’t any more greys, just working up through TLs as currently happens.

There are definitely a few freeze peachers and champions of so-called “unpopular” or “politically incorrect” (e.g. racist dog-whistling, JAQ-off apologism for fascists, disinformation, etc.) opinions at that trust level.* A simple voting mechanism might be in order to offset them. Say it takes 3/3 or 2/3 TL3+ members approving or denying the post to render a decision.

Voting mechanism or not, the main goal would be to reduce the incidence of first-comment drive-bys and hobbyhorse-riders/fanbois and spammers, which are only going to increase during election season.

[* discuss here if you must]

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I’d love more reaction buttons. A hug button would be a good one, though having extra reaction buttons would actually be bringing Discourse more in line with Facebook :slight_smile:

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45 posts in and they’re not all:

no

no

no

?

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I’d take a WAG that… 75%? of flags are either drive-by trollies, or spammers. That means 75% of the community time flagging is spent on this issue

Yeah reducing 75% of the flag burden is appealing.

Yeah logistically the $5 commenter fee would be kind of a pain, no doubt about it.

Who would be approving TL0 new user posts though? :thinking:

The old Civil Comments model (RIP) was for the TL0 users to approve each others’ posts collectively (3 random new users would have to vet each new user post), and that surprisingly does work well. It also puts all the labor on the people who are creating the work in the first place.

That’s not currently possible in Discourse but I’ve always found the idea intriguing.

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If I’m reading him right about community involvement, TL3 and TL4 users would be doing that.
If it’s not a major pain to implement, you could make it a simple process where any (let’s say) three TL3+ people (first-come, first-served basis) could choose to “Approve” or “Deny” or “Hold and Refer to Official Mod” (with text field for explanation). 2-3 Approves and it’s made public (this would be the case with, say, all the new and long-dormant users expressing condolences to Jason about his dog). Anything else and it remains unpublished. The reason for the vote is discussed above.

This would easily get rid of most of that 75%, leaving relatively few borderline cases for the mods to render judgment on. I’m sure you and @orenwolf can refine or improve on this suggestion if you go in that direction.

The Civil Comments model is interesting, but since the main goal is to eliminate all those drive-bys I don’t know if it’s going to work so well – spammers approving other spammers, that sort of thing. Better to work with Trusted members already active and invested in the site and its rules.

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Yeah, I tend to think TL3+ is probably the right number of people versus the number of new folks joining. Maybe opt everyone in by default but let them opt out of notifications of items in the queue to review?

I don’t know if the quantity of new users is so high that we need to ratelimit users to approving them. not to mention I’m guessing that’d be a whole new thing to code for, versus a new TL0 approval queue tied to trust level is probably a good fit for the new queue model in general?

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I don’t want us to be Something Awful and worry a fee would. I think a patreon would be a better idea. Maybe set up a forwarding email - patreon folks can get an @bb.net or something addy

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