Agreed. Though a more elegant solution IMO is to discriminate between votes. Something crass could simply be to not allow voting via certain feeds (like all). On reddit it could be painfully obvious when a post hit all. Having moderated a sub that strove for constructive discussion it consistently killed discussions. It makes sense that a person would have to be part of a community before contributing.
It is one of those things I am personally looking when trying to find "future" forums/communities to get invested in. Reddit was a news aggregate website and not built for discussions and there are seemingly a lot of sites that are just copy pasting reddit without considering this new intent.
I very much agree,but there are also "pioneers" who want features. There are plenty of people who's immediately look up a website's "whitepaper", who is looking for a specific design. After the reddit debacle there was tons of " I made a forum lul" type of situations. I get a little bit the same vibe from mainchan, even though it is not a new idea or place. It's basically towing the old line of dogmatic flat hierarchy and privacy that you see on places like 4chan. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it feels like a theater group trying to make it big in 2023. It's important to keep in mind that archaic message boards definitely needs this sort of snowball effect, because they are archaic message boards.
Now people's first response might be to ask what I want, but that isn't as relevant. The point is that the creator gave us a venue and nothing else. There is seemingly no strong conviction or idea behind it, therefore there is nowhere for the website to go. The people that are moving on and actively looking are probably more hardcore users and content creators, and they want a place that is deliberately designed. This is undoubtedly more true now than before, as more and more people are using forums.
I think a lot of people are still wallowing in the notion that the internet is the wild west and that that won't change. That is a much more radical idea compared to the idea that forums can't be designed in a better way as to have more constructive discourse for example.
They are sort of opposites I would say. Mainchan have the chan culture and is radically free speech. Tildes does not care all that much about anonymity, and strives to humanize users. Tildes has the singular mod, which seems to have a very paternal style of moderating. For example he locked a threading starting to go awry, saying that nobody wants to have the same conversation again and again. Tildes tries to solve problems inherent to reddit, so is a continuation of that type of vote based forum. Mainchan keeps to the old and simple, but with the convenience of vote based forums.
Frankly I am more positive towards Tildes, because at least it is trying to solve fundamental problem, while other sites seem to get more caught up surface level issues or modularity. If you got unjustly banned from a place, being able to jump into another universe doesn't fundamentally solve the problem of how to have good discourse for example.
Yes if we want mainchain to be successful in the broadest possible sense. If a name has negative connotations to it, why keep it? This not a partisan thing either. It's the same with reddit, 9gag, etc etc. However if Mainchan wants to have exclusively have a chan culture and attract people that like that, then keep the chan. I think the question that needs to be answered here is what mainchan is supposed to be.
It's not just about culture though, but also about design. Plenty of people are looking for websites and are joining ships based on what they aim to be. Mainchan seems to just be reddit+4chan. In that case, keep the name.
I'm not. If you look at the discussions on reddit about finding alternatives, people are looking for sites and what they are going to be in the future. If things haven't been laid out by the creators already, then there isn't much else you can do than ask about their vision and/or plans.
Well it all started the day I banged your mom, but I'll cut it short. In the end I managed to weasel my way out of paying child support and that's why you can't read today.
I'm sure it's just pity votes. Yes I totally agree. It is a scaling problem if anything and there is no need to act today if ever. It is probably safe to say that most people here are prosumers and see their effort here partially as an investment. So people stay not just for how things are, but for what the site can become. Therefore it is a good idea for people designs sites like these to expand upon their vision or perspective. Everything so far I like(even monetization). Ultimately the end results is what matters, not the specific solutions. By that I mean if the top dawg doesn't consider x to be a problem, then x won't ever be solved(in whatever way). If x is a problem, then I at least know there will be attempts at solving x at some point in the future.
Again it's not really about moderation style, as in enforcing civility or rules or whatever. It's more about not discouraging quality posters and undermining good discussion. For example, there is no reason somebody (god save his soul) should have to wade through pages and pages of low effort comments or bait like you could see on anonymous message boards. People often writes long comments, but then is still not interested in having a discussion, stealing even more time from people. All of this has to evaluated by those who engage in good faith. Young guys have a lot of time on their hands, but for those who doesn't, having to search for that one person takes too much time. The baseline noise that is low effort comments, memes etc etc, is more akin to entropy, for sites like reddit that tries to be a lot of different things: Entertainment. Activism. News aggregate, etc etc. I'll copy paste the primer points from meta discussions on discussions:
- It takes effort to both type out a long-form text and then also to evaluate it. Therefore low-effort responses gets relatively more evaluated and voted on.
- Because of the time factor and the point above, the quickest(which necessarily tends to be the low effort ones) comments necessarily get more exposure and more evaluation, acting as a snowball effect.
- There is a lack of (social?)context online. You don't start a vigorous debate with someone waiting in a queue to the bank. Therefore having something that clarifies what kind of discussion somebody want is useful, so as not to speak past each other. Note that there is no apparent reason that this only be helped by the users(!)
- Fourthly, this is self-reinforcing. Why spend an hour typing something out, when you know somebody else give a three word answer get more exposure?
I know you asked specific suggestions here, but that isn't all that too relevant for what I am trying to bring up. I am more interested in your thoughts and perspective. I am asking in order to decide whether I want to migrate here. Perhaps it is possible to avoid the issues with rigorous and conventional active moderation, but after critical mass I doubt it's possible based on what my experiences from reddit and anonymous message boards. I am sure I am not the only one that doesn't want to stay in a place that will ultimately end up like reddit.
So if your answer was, correct me if I am wrong, that you have settled on how the website will function(or design) for the next few years. Then you have answered my question and it's all good in the hood.
I probably should have written a longer post, but it's an age old discussion I can't be bothered rehashing so often. I would just ask, now that I have your ear. If mainchan ever hits critical mass, please consider designing the site such as to give sub-chan owners a lot of flexibility. I am not necessarily talking about moderation, but the design and how the discourse has to happen. Having been a mod, there was so many no-brainers that we could not do, because the site itself would not allow it. Creating your own moderators bots isn't the easiest thing to do either.
Agreed. Though a more elegant solution IMO is to discriminate between votes. Something crass could simply be to not allow voting via certain feeds (like all). On reddit it could be painfully obvious when a post hit all. Having moderated a sub that strove for constructive discussion it consistently killed discussions. It makes sense that a person would have to be part of a community before contributing.
It is one of those things I am personally looking when trying to find "future" forums/communities to get invested in. Reddit was a news aggregate website and not built for discussions and there are seemingly a lot of sites that are just copy pasting reddit without considering this new intent.
I don't feel so good mr stark
I very much agree,but there are also "pioneers" who want features. There are plenty of people who's immediately look up a website's "whitepaper", who is looking for a specific design. After the reddit debacle there was tons of " I made a forum lul" type of situations. I get a little bit the same vibe from mainchan, even though it is not a new idea or place. It's basically towing the old line of dogmatic flat hierarchy and privacy that you see on places like 4chan. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it feels like a theater group trying to make it big in 2023. It's important to keep in mind that archaic message boards definitely needs this sort of snowball effect, because they are archaic message boards.
Now people's first response might be to ask what I want, but that isn't as relevant. The point is that the creator gave us a venue and nothing else. There is seemingly no strong conviction or idea behind it, therefore there is nowhere for the website to go. The people that are moving on and actively looking are probably more hardcore users and content creators, and they want a place that is deliberately designed. This is undoubtedly more true now than before, as more and more people are using forums.
I think a lot of people are still wallowing in the notion that the internet is the wild west and that that won't change. That is a much more radical idea compared to the idea that forums can't be designed in a better way as to have more constructive discourse for example.
Very cool, very cool. Anyway, how's your sex life?
They are sort of opposites I would say. Mainchan have the chan culture and is radically free speech. Tildes does not care all that much about anonymity, and strives to humanize users. Tildes has the singular mod, which seems to have a very paternal style of moderating. For example he locked a threading starting to go awry, saying that nobody wants to have the same conversation again and again. Tildes tries to solve problems inherent to reddit, so is a continuation of that type of vote based forum. Mainchan keeps to the old and simple, but with the convenience of vote based forums.
Frankly I am more positive towards Tildes, because at least it is trying to solve fundamental problem, while other sites seem to get more caught up surface level issues or modularity. If you got unjustly banned from a place, being able to jump into another universe doesn't fundamentally solve the problem of how to have good discourse for example.
Yes if we want mainchain to be successful in the broadest possible sense. If a name has negative connotations to it, why keep it? This not a partisan thing either. It's the same with reddit, 9gag, etc etc. However if Mainchan wants to have exclusively have a chan culture and attract people that like that, then keep the chan. I think the question that needs to be answered here is what mainchan is supposed to be.
It's not just about culture though, but also about design. Plenty of people are looking for websites and are joining ships based on what they aim to be. Mainchan seems to just be reddit+4chan. In that case, keep the name.
I'm not. If you look at the discussions on reddit about finding alternatives, people are looking for sites and what they are going to be in the future. If things haven't been laid out by the creators already, then there isn't much else you can do than ask about their vision and/or plans.
Well it all started the day I banged your mom, but I'll cut it short. In the end I managed to weasel my way out of paying child support and that's why you can't read today.
I'm sure it's just pity votes. Yes I totally agree. It is a scaling problem if anything and there is no need to act today if ever. It is probably safe to say that most people here are prosumers and see their effort here partially as an investment. So people stay not just for how things are, but for what the site can become. Therefore it is a good idea for people designs sites like these to expand upon their vision or perspective. Everything so far I like(even monetization). Ultimately the end results is what matters, not the specific solutions. By that I mean if the top dawg doesn't consider x to be a problem, then x won't ever be solved(in whatever way). If x is a problem, then I at least know there will be attempts at solving x at some point in the future.
MyMan.png
Very cool very cool
Again it's not really about moderation style, as in enforcing civility or rules or whatever. It's more about not discouraging quality posters and undermining good discussion. For example, there is no reason somebody (god save his soul) should have to wade through pages and pages of low effort comments or bait like you could see on anonymous message boards. People often writes long comments, but then is still not interested in having a discussion, stealing even more time from people. All of this has to evaluated by those who engage in good faith. Young guys have a lot of time on their hands, but for those who doesn't, having to search for that one person takes too much time. The baseline noise that is low effort comments, memes etc etc, is more akin to entropy, for sites like reddit that tries to be a lot of different things: Entertainment. Activism. News aggregate, etc etc. I'll copy paste the primer points from meta discussions on discussions:
- It takes effort to both type out a long-form text and then also to evaluate it. Therefore low-effort responses gets relatively more evaluated and voted on.
- Because of the time factor and the point above, the quickest(which necessarily tends to be the low effort ones) comments necessarily get more exposure and more evaluation, acting as a snowball effect.
- There is a lack of (social?)context online. You don't start a vigorous debate with someone waiting in a queue to the bank. Therefore having something that clarifies what kind of discussion somebody want is useful, so as not to speak past each other. Note that there is no apparent reason that this only be helped by the users(!)
- Fourthly, this is self-reinforcing. Why spend an hour typing something out, when you know somebody else give a three word answer get more exposure?
I know you asked specific suggestions here, but that isn't all that too relevant for what I am trying to bring up. I am more interested in your thoughts and perspective. I am asking in order to decide whether I want to migrate here. Perhaps it is possible to avoid the issues with rigorous and conventional active moderation, but after critical mass I doubt it's possible based on what my experiences from reddit and anonymous message boards. I am sure I am not the only one that doesn't want to stay in a place that will ultimately end up like reddit.
So if your answer was, correct me if I am wrong, that you have settled on how the website will function(or design) for the next few years. Then you have answered my question and it's all good in the hood.
I probably should have written a longer post, but it's an age old discussion I can't be bothered rehashing so often. I would just ask, now that I have your ear. If mainchan ever hits critical mass, please consider designing the site such as to give sub-chan owners a lot of flexibility. I am not necessarily talking about moderation, but the design and how the discourse has to happen. Having been a mod, there was so many no-brainers that we could not do, because the site itself would not allow it. Creating your own moderators bots isn't the easiest thing to do either.