That said, a bad implementation could easily be worse than the status quo. Some obvious risks are:
It could seem like (and/or actually be) an unhelpful form of suppressing debate.
External critics will probably characterise it as such, no matter how well the relevant tradeoffs are struck.
There may be various other valuable functions (e.g. a read on community mood, a venue to let off steam) that significantly offset the cost of distraction.
I don’t have quick thoughts on what a good implementation would look like, beyond:
(a) The general view that it should exploit “the power of defaults”.
(b) Maybe look at what Hacker News does. From memory, their algorithm attempts to detect politically charged topics and emerging flame wars.
(c) On the posting side, perhaps there could be a “want to take a break before posting?” prompt, or even an enforced delay. This might increase the quality of debate without much downside risk. I have noticed social media platforms experimenting with UI features along these lines.
Strongly agreed that a bad implementation could be net-negative, which is why I didn’t float an explicit proposal myself.
I’m most worried about 1. Regarding 2, a bit of additional criticism isn’t that large a cost compared to how distracting the current situation is. Regarding 3, there definitely be somewhere to blow off steam, but I don’t think it has to be the front page.
In spirit I think the answer is “yes”.
That said, a bad implementation could easily be worse than the status quo. Some obvious risks are:
It could seem like (and/or actually be) an unhelpful form of suppressing debate.
External critics will probably characterise it as such, no matter how well the relevant tradeoffs are struck.
There may be various other valuable functions (e.g. a read on community mood, a venue to let off steam) that significantly offset the cost of distraction.
I don’t have quick thoughts on what a good implementation would look like, beyond:
(a) The general view that it should exploit “the power of defaults”.
(b) Maybe look at what Hacker News does. From memory, their algorithm attempts to detect politically charged topics and emerging flame wars.
(c) On the posting side, perhaps there could be a “want to take a break before posting?” prompt, or even an enforced delay. This might increase the quality of debate without much downside risk. I have noticed social media platforms experimenting with UI features along these lines.
Strongly agreed that a bad implementation could be net-negative, which is why I didn’t float an explicit proposal myself.
I’m most worried about 1. Regarding 2, a bit of additional criticism isn’t that large a cost compared to how distracting the current situation is. Regarding 3, there definitely be somewhere to blow off steam, but I don’t think it has to be the front page.