There's been a lot of discussion recently about the asymmetry implicit in "free speech" online. Many services naively subscribe to the principle that More Speech is Better, and that the way to defend yourself against harassment is through more speech. In practice, that's largely bullshit. (See this article from Yonaton Zunger for one good exploration of the topic; it's what got me thinking about the problem more concretely today, on top of ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
siderea's related article a little while ago.)
At the moment, none of this is really a concern for Querki: I initially started with the hyper-safe approach that *only* members of a Space can comment in that Space. This is precisely the opposite of most websites: it means that you at least aren't going to get harassment from outside the community, and you can always boot somebody out of the Space if they turn into a problem.
But in the medium term, that's too limiting: many Querki Spaces are public, and their use cases are going to *want* to allow public commentary. (Part of the inspiration here is that Querki is about to become a viable blogging platform, and public comments are, I believe, necessary for many blogging use cases.) The plan has always been to put moderation front-and-center in such cases, but as I get closer to actually implementing this (it's only a couple of steps down the Roadmap now), I'm starting to chew on this asymmetry, and its implications.
Oh, and keep in mind: while I'm framing everything below in terms of comments, the same policies are likely going to apply to *contributing* to this Space. That is, we're eventually going to provide ways for non-members to suggest new Things in this Space. I *think* the considerations are the same as for comments, since "Things" tend to be text-heavy, so the potential for abuse is the same.
Here are some thoughts and plans, but I welcome your ideas and comments -- this is *not* easy stuff, and I want to get it right, at least in the long run. The following is a combination of long-planned features and thinking out loud about how to make them better.
(NB: Yes, I'm probably overthinking this, and not all of the below will be implemented immediately. But I think it's best to take the problem seriously from the outset.)
( Assumptions and Theories )( Designs and Features )
What Else? Ideas? Comments? This is a challenging and important topic, and one I care particularly passionately about doing well. I'm open to any brainstorming folks might be interested in here...
siderea's related article a little while ago.)At the moment, none of this is really a concern for Querki: I initially started with the hyper-safe approach that *only* members of a Space can comment in that Space. This is precisely the opposite of most websites: it means that you at least aren't going to get harassment from outside the community, and you can always boot somebody out of the Space if they turn into a problem.
But in the medium term, that's too limiting: many Querki Spaces are public, and their use cases are going to *want* to allow public commentary. (Part of the inspiration here is that Querki is about to become a viable blogging platform, and public comments are, I believe, necessary for many blogging use cases.) The plan has always been to put moderation front-and-center in such cases, but as I get closer to actually implementing this (it's only a couple of steps down the Roadmap now), I'm starting to chew on this asymmetry, and its implications.
Oh, and keep in mind: while I'm framing everything below in terms of comments, the same policies are likely going to apply to *contributing* to this Space. That is, we're eventually going to provide ways for non-members to suggest new Things in this Space. I *think* the considerations are the same as for comments, since "Things" tend to be text-heavy, so the potential for abuse is the same.
Here are some thoughts and plans, but I welcome your ideas and comments -- this is *not* easy stuff, and I want to get it right, at least in the long run. The following is a combination of long-planned features and thinking out loud about how to make them better.
(NB: Yes, I'm probably overthinking this, and not all of the below will be implemented immediately. But I think it's best to take the problem seriously from the outset.)
( Assumptions and Theories )( Designs and Features )
What Else? Ideas? Comments? This is a challenging and important topic, and one I care particularly passionately about doing well. I'm open to any brainstorming folks might be interested in here...