rsaarelm gave an excellent explanation early on about how the issue seems to be an incompatibility between forum mechanics and blog mechanics, rather than an issue with moderation itself. It would be unfortunate if the point was overlooked because it misunderstood as “moderation is bad”.
It is fair to say that a blog with a policy “I’ll moderate however I like, if you don’t like it leave” works fine. It’s the default and implicit.
When it comes to a forum system with as many potential posters as there are commenters then “If you don’t like it leave” is the implicit ultimatum from every single user to every other. But if the feed system that governs content exposure doesn’t allow leaving individual posters, then the only thing that could be left is the entire forum.
This is why all other significant sites with a many producers → many consumers model all have unsubscribe, mute and/or block features. It helps ensure a few weeds in the Well-Kept Garden don’t drive away all the plants with low toxin tolerance.
It sounds like—particularly from testimony from habryka and Eliezer—moving to a more meta-blog like system is/was critical to lesswrong being viable. Which means leaning in to that structure and fully implementing the requisite features seems like an easy way to improve the experience of everyone.
rsaarelm gave an excellent explanation early on about how the issue seems to be an incompatibility between forum mechanics and blog mechanics, rather than an issue with moderation itself. It would be unfortunate if the point was overlooked because it misunderstood as “moderation is bad”.
It is fair to say that a blog with a policy “I’ll moderate however I like, if you don’t like it leave” works fine. It’s the default and implicit.
When it comes to a forum system with as many potential posters as there are commenters then “If you don’t like it leave” is the implicit ultimatum from every single user to every other. But if the feed system that governs content exposure doesn’t allow leaving individual posters, then the only thing that could be left is the entire forum.
This is why all other significant sites with a many producers → many consumers model all have unsubscribe, mute and/or block features. It helps ensure a few weeds in the Well-Kept Garden don’t drive away all the plants with low toxin tolerance.
It sounds like—particularly from testimony from habryka and Eliezer—moving to a more meta-blog like system is/was critical to lesswrong being viable. Which means leaning in to that structure and fully implementing the requisite features seems like an easy way to improve the experience of everyone.