alt Hacker News> Moderators are a downright scare resource.
if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators.
> When you let people spew hateful things you drive away the people you want in the community
can't people just unfollow or block others whose opinions they don't want to see?
> Then there's the fact that it takes far more energy to refute bullshit than to spew it
there is no obligation to refute bullshit to begin with. it's a personal choice about how to spend your time.
> and this asymmetry means that "just let them speak" means the toxic liars win.
what's there to win? there is nothing to win for anybody. there's only something to lose and that's time.
Replies
if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators.
On mastodon, porn-like content is mostly welcomed. Especially with anime or fox characters. Not sure why.
> if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators.
Have you ever been involved with moderating even a small subreddit or Discord server? I'm on a server with one moderator and it routinely gets spammed while the guy is asleep.
> can't people just unfollow or block others whose opinions they don't want to see?
How do I block people BEFORE seeing the opinions I don't want to see? Trolls can roll up a new account for every single post they make, if they want to.
> there is no obligation to refute bullshit to begin with.
No, but if you're neither blocking nor refuting it, then your community is going to quickly become majority bullshit.
> what's there to win? there is nothing to win for anybody.
There are ideological battles to be fought by all sorts of parties - convincing groups to hate each other, to support or oppose the governments in power, to spread division and destroy societies.
There are trolls who consider it a battle to be won, and the more they succeed the more everyone else leaves the platform.
The party currently in control of the United States is there largely due to people who were fed divisive narratives (often in online channels) to make them hate other groups and a significant number of them consider it more important to "own the libs" and "hurt the right people" than to have the government actually improve their own circumstances. So yes, there's absolutely things to be won.
> what's there to win? there is nothing to win for anybody. there's only something to lose and that's time.
If there's nothing to win and you're only losing time around here... why are you here in the first place?
Stop losing by trying to convince us how cool it is to lose... because all of your suggestions amount to urging good men to do nothing.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"