Moderation in thinking and learning communities has a clear purpose: to cut through the noise. When it works well, it improves readability, removes spam and trolling, and prevents people from getting dangerous or obviously wrong advice. The problem arises when the criterion for “good” is reduced to what is the easiest and fastest to filter, and not to what makes the community better in the long run.
In practice, good filtering can have unexpected costs. If anything controversial, speculative, or outside of the current consensus is quickly deleted or automatically shot down.. we lose more than “bad” posts: we lose the embryos of ideas. Context is lost (what the author was trying to show, what assumptions he is using, what he is trying to test) and the authors may give up because they see that the system does not reward the attempt, but punishes imperfection.
This raises several unpleasant questions, which cannot be avoided by saying “we have rules”. First: who decides what is “harmful”? Second: how do you balance the short-term benefit—less forests today—with the long-term risk of the community becoming too homogenous and too slow for new ideas? Third: are there systemic biases in moderator decisions (topic, writing style, demographics, epistemological habits, authority/reputation)? And fourth: how ready are we to accept that one thing that is initially “strange” or “poorly packaged” can later turn out to be valuable?
I’m not suggesting the abolition of moderation. But I suggest a shift: less “black and white” punishment, more experiments and learning about one’s own consequences. we have literally come to judge every even remotely orderly and logical text of llm as the work of another llm. if a translator is used, there is a big chance that it will desecrate the original text, my language has 7 cases, for example. he uses generic terms and again leads the llm detector to make a wrong assessment… we lose here again, the irony is that the quality of the writing becomes an indictment. should you sacrifice quality for the sake of simply checking the machine? It sounds like we should give up potentially useful knowledge for society just for the sake of less inconvenience when scrolling. I understand that you take me with a grain of salt, but not that you should delete my account if I want to remain anonymous. I still think that logic and ethics have nothing to do with the source they come from as long as they are sound.
Here are a few suggestions that would be relatively low-risk to test:
Clearer reasons and a quick appeal process If something is removed or restricted, the author should be given a specific reason and a quick appeal mechanism. The goal is that errors in judgment do not become permanent.
“Staging” or quarantine space for frontier ideas Instead of deleting it immediately, let the more controversial or speculative posts go to a space where they can receive criticism without cluttering the main feed.
Selective “blind” assessments Trying to view reported content without identifiers (eg without user data) can help to see if the argument is actually being filtered, or if whoever is making it is being unknowingly penalized.
Small experiments (A/B) on the level of rigor In limited groups or sub-segments of the community, it is possible to measure how a change in strictness affects the quality of discussion and the number of problematic posts.
If we want to be serious, we need to measure, not just feel. Some practical metrics to start with might be: the frequency of appeals and their outcome, the number of post-appeal reversals, an assessment of the quality of discussions (eg through rubrics), and the ratio of “removed vs. missed” over the period. I don’t mean destroying the system just for the sake of it, but questioning if the system has become an autoimmune disease to humanity, where the defense mechanisms moderation or rules are killing the very ideas they were supposed to protect. I mean I would rather focus on spreading some ideas or seeking inspiration to solve real problems. is there a tyranny of process above essence everywhere? Tyranny of ignorance, in the form of arrogance or tyranny of knowledge, in the form of dogma? in short, does epistemic authoritarianism prevail? That shouldn’t be the case, especially on ethical forums. Let’s find better solutions, I’m sure there are some. Call to the community: Do you have any examples of when moderation really improved the discussion? Or examples where a removed idea later proved valuable (or at least wasn’t worse than average, just annoying)? Which of the above-mentioned interventions seems most feasible to you immediately, and what would be the most realistic first set of measures?
Moderation and epistemic diversity: can signal-to-noise go the wrong way?
Moderation in thinking and learning communities has a clear purpose: to cut through the noise.
When it works well, it improves readability, removes spam and trolling, and prevents people from getting dangerous or obviously wrong advice.
The problem arises when the criterion for “good” is reduced to what is the easiest and fastest to filter, and not to what makes the community better in the long run.
In practice, good filtering can have unexpected costs. If anything controversial, speculative, or outside of the current consensus is quickly deleted or automatically shot down..
we lose more than “bad” posts: we lose the embryos of ideas. Context is lost (what the author was trying to show, what assumptions he is using, what he is trying to test)
and the authors may give up because they see that the system does not reward the attempt, but punishes imperfection.
This raises several unpleasant questions, which cannot be avoided by saying “we have rules”.
First: who decides what is “harmful”?
Second: how do you balance the short-term benefit—less forests today—with the long-term risk of the community becoming too homogenous and too slow for new ideas?
Third: are there systemic biases in moderator decisions (topic, writing style, demographics, epistemological habits, authority/reputation)?
And fourth: how ready are we to accept that one thing that is initially “strange” or “poorly packaged” can later turn out to be valuable?
I’m not suggesting the abolition of moderation. But I suggest a shift: less “black and white” punishment, more experiments and learning about one’s own consequences.
we have literally come to judge every even remotely orderly and logical text of llm as the work of another llm.
if a translator is used, there is a big chance that it will desecrate the original text, my language has 7 cases, for example.
he uses generic terms and again leads the llm detector to make a wrong assessment… we lose here again, the irony is that the quality of the writing becomes an indictment.
should you sacrifice quality for the sake of simply checking the machine?
It sounds like we should give up potentially useful knowledge for society just for the sake of less inconvenience when scrolling.
I understand that you take me with a grain of salt, but not that you should delete my account if I want to remain anonymous.
I still think that logic and ethics have nothing to do with the source they come from as long as they are sound.
Here are a few suggestions that would be relatively low-risk to test:
Clearer reasons and a quick appeal process
If something is removed or restricted, the author should be given a specific reason and a quick appeal mechanism. The goal is that errors in judgment do not become permanent.
“Staging” or quarantine space for frontier ideas
Instead of deleting it immediately, let the more controversial or speculative posts go to a space where they can receive criticism without cluttering the main feed.
Selective “blind” assessments
Trying to view reported content without identifiers (eg without user data) can help to see if the argument is actually being filtered, or if whoever is making it is being unknowingly penalized.
Small experiments (A/B) on the level of rigor
In limited groups or sub-segments of the community, it is possible to measure how a change in strictness affects the quality of discussion and the number of problematic posts.
If we want to be serious, we need to measure, not just feel.
Some practical metrics to start with might be: the frequency of appeals and their outcome, the number of post-appeal reversals, an assessment of the quality of discussions (eg through rubrics), and the ratio of “removed vs. missed” over the period.
I don’t mean destroying the system just for the sake of it, but questioning if the system has become an autoimmune disease to humanity, where the defense mechanisms moderation or rules are killing the very ideas they were supposed to protect. I mean I would rather focus on spreading some ideas or seeking inspiration to solve real problems.
is there a tyranny of process above essence everywhere? Tyranny of ignorance, in the form of arrogance or tyranny of knowledge, in the form of dogma?
in short, does epistemic authoritarianism prevail? That shouldn’t be the case, especially on ethical forums. Let’s find better solutions, I’m sure there are some.
Call to the community:
Do you have any examples of when moderation really improved the discussion?
Or examples where a removed idea later proved valuable (or at least wasn’t worse than average, just annoying)?
Which of the above-mentioned interventions seems most feasible to you immediately, and what would be the most realistic first set of measures?