13 ms·

We actually thought the same thing about downvotes, which is why we removed them in Imzy. One of the things we've tried to do to decrease the groupthink/echoch

We actually thought the same thing about downvotes, which is why we removed them in Imzy. One of the things we've tried to do to decrease the groupthink/echochamber is get rid of any kind of "default" communities or a universal front page or anything like that, because we believe that does lead to a lot of low quality conversations and groupthink. Instead, you only join communities you specifically opt into, and hopefully that way each community only has people who are actually passionate about those topics and discussions become more in depth and informed. I'm curious, because I came around to Slashdot after its peak had passed--what parts of their system did you think worked best, so I can make sure we try to do the best we can on our platform?

protomyth 10y ago
Not OP - I was on slashdot back in the day and I did enjoy the reason for the moderation on the post. I'm also a bit convinced that the rule you could moderate a discussion or post in it but not both made for an interesting dynamic. The moderate the moderator was nice too. Downvotes do come in many forms, twitter didn't have downvotes until they added lists, then lists became a way to downvote.
- kwgardner 10y ago
  Got it. Thank you for the response! It's always helpful to be able to learn more from all other platforms. We do require community leaders to enter a reason whenever they remove a post or comment, ban someone, etc., and the OP is always notified of the reason (and soon we'll be adding it so that it's visible if you have a link to the removed post/comment as well). That's really interesting about the decision to be able to moderate or post but not both. One thing we're doing in order to be able to help with moderating the moderator is that soon there will be a public leader log that shows what actions leaders have taken in their community and why they did it, so that people can see how their leaders are behaving. Hopefully as we grow we'll be able to add more tools that help leaders manage their communities and help the communities manage their leaders. :)
  - protomyth 10y ago
    The ability to overthrow a dictator has worked in non-computer situations. I'm a bit curious, is there a stated definition of harassment that you've agreed to?
    - kwgardner 10y ago
      This is probably WAY more than you want to know, but this is a very nuanced issue that can't be addressed briefly to do it any kind of justice, as made obvious by the headline of the article we're commenting on describing us as a "warm, fuzzy, safe space." I'll copy paste this from a post we made on our site that elaborates on our community policy where a lot of this is also located, then summarize some more: > You are welcome to express your opinions, even if they are offensive to some users. We want honest and open discussion to happen on Imzy from all sides. However, these opinions cross the line into malicious speech when they specifically incite violence or hatred, or make people fear you will act against them in a violent manner. > Don't encourage violence or hatred on the basis of things like race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation. > Don’t harass others. Harassment is defined as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress in such person and serves no legitimate purpose" or "words, gestures, and actions which tend to annoy, alarm and abuse (verbally) another person". Do not engage in or provide a platform for harassment of users or communities. Harassment will not be tolerated. Paraphrasing the rest of our post so this doesn't get too long: Things like "I think all [race/religion/gender/other demographic] are [rude opinion]" or "You’re a [rude comment here]" is okay, but "All [race/religion/gender] should [have something terrible done to them]" or "I’m going to [specific threat against an individual]" is not. And even in the "okay" examples, if you continually and repeatedly engage in these actions against an individual and follow them throughout Imzy to do so, this crosses the line into harassment. Beyond that, there's a big gray area. We know there are things that will come up that we won't quite fit anywhere in the policies we've written, and we'll have to make some things up as we go and refine our policies and understanding as the community evolves. And yeah, we're human, and we'll probably make mistakes sometimes. But we're working hard to set a tone of transparency and fairness so that our users will always know why we're doing things and be able to give feedback on how they want Imzy to function.

protomyth 10y ago

Not OP - I was on slashdot back in the day and I did enjoy the reason for the moderation on the post. I'm also a bit convinced that the rule you could moderate a discussion or post in it but not both made for an interesting dynamic. The moderate the moderator was nice too. Downvotes do come in many forms, twitter didn't have downvotes until they added lists, then lists became a way to downvote.

kwgardner 10y ago
Got it. Thank you for the response! It's always helpful to be able to learn more from all other platforms. We do require community leaders to enter a reason whenever they remove a post or comment, ban someone, etc., and the OP is always notified of the reason (and soon we'll be adding it so that it's visible if you have a link to the removed post/comment as well). That's really interesting about the decision to be able to moderate or post but not both. One thing we're doing in order to be able to help with moderating the moderator is that soon there will be a public leader log that shows what actions leaders have taken in their community and why they did it, so that people can see how their leaders are behaving. Hopefully as we grow we'll be able to add more tools that help leaders manage their communities and help the communities manage their leaders. :)
- protomyth 10y ago
  The ability to overthrow a dictator has worked in non-computer situations. I'm a bit curious, is there a stated definition of harassment that you've agreed to?
  - kwgardner 10y ago
    This is probably WAY more than you want to know, but this is a very nuanced issue that can't be addressed briefly to do it any kind of justice, as made obvious by the headline of the article we're commenting on describing us as a "warm, fuzzy, safe space." I'll copy paste this from a post we made on our site that elaborates on our community policy where a lot of this is also located, then summarize some more: > You are welcome to express your opinions, even if they are offensive to some users. We want honest and open discussion to happen on Imzy from all sides. However, these opinions cross the line into malicious speech when they specifically incite violence or hatred, or make people fear you will act against them in a violent manner. > Don't encourage violence or hatred on the basis of things like race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation. > Don’t harass others. Harassment is defined as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress in such person and serves no legitimate purpose" or "words, gestures, and actions which tend to annoy, alarm and abuse (verbally) another person". Do not engage in or provide a platform for harassment of users or communities. Harassment will not be tolerated. Paraphrasing the rest of our post so this doesn't get too long: Things like "I think all [race/religion/gender/other demographic] are [rude opinion]" or "You’re a [rude comment here]" is okay, but "All [race/religion/gender] should [have something terrible done to them]" or "I’m going to [specific threat against an individual]" is not. And even in the "okay" examples, if you continually and repeatedly engage in these actions against an individual and follow them throughout Imzy to do so, this crosses the line into harassment. Beyond that, there's a big gray area. We know there are things that will come up that we won't quite fit anywhere in the policies we've written, and we'll have to make some things up as we go and refine our policies and understanding as the community evolves. And yeah, we're human, and we'll probably make mistakes sometimes. But we're working hard to set a tone of transparency and fairness so that our users will always know why we're doing things and be able to give feedback on how they want Imzy to function.