lvxferre, 11 months ago

Just don’t be surprised when you have no users.

Depending on which are those standards, you might get a lot of users. We had examples of that even in Reddit, where a few subs (like r/AskHistorians) had fairly specific rules that boil down to “don’t be a moron” and they were still fairly popular, even in a site that could as well have as slogan "lasciate ogni ragione, voi ch’entrate"¹. That’s because not even the stupid benefit from the others’ stupidity, so they still gravitate towards environments with higher standards².

So what !OpenStars said might be actually viable; the Fediverse (or at least, some chunks of it) could hold itself to a higher standard. The question is how; perhaps through instances? User culture? Or even UX changes that make context harder to ignore and stupid shit sink to the bottom (against the Fluff Principle³)?

(At those times I really want a c/TheoryOfTheFediverse…)

1. give up all reasoning, you who enter.
2. I believe that this is one of the things that make well-kept gardens die by pacifism.
3. “on a user-voted news site, the links that are easiest to judge will take over unless you take specific measures to prevent it.”