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Trusting Users Too Much

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the web-two-point-doh dept.

An anonymous reader writes to alert us to an article at Forever Geek on sites that trust users too much and the users who game them. From the article: "Trusting users is a good thing. But implicitly trusting users is no good. If Digg has moderators who approve a story before it goes live on the front page, shouldn't they have moderators checking spam reports? Social sites give so much power and emphasis on users yet a handful still have the power to wreck these sites. Until these issues are properly addressed, social sites will continue to be gamed."

4 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. It happens. by nametaken · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Digg exists so that people can easily tell each other what they want to hear. Sometimes it's cool, sometimes it's bogus. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

    1. Re:It happens. by finiteSet · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I tried Digg for a while but ultimately gave up - and I think it is because they trust the user too much. Though the average Slashdot discussion is well short of, say, an academic journal, even the worst Slashdot discussion I've read was better than the best Digg one. I'm not trying to troll: I'll explain. Allowing everybody to moderate every post of every discussion, in my experience, results in a discussion that reflects the views of the majority by silencing the views of the minority. You may disagree, but I find that Slashdot moderators put more thought into how they shape the discussion - I know that I will mark a post insightful if it shows insight, regardless of whether I agree. Furthermore, leaving the majority of Slashdot posts remain unmoderated allows more room for both sides of the debate to be heard. I know, I know, proper tweaking of settings on both Digg or Slashdot can reduce some of these problems, but in the balance between trusting the user with too much control over the conversation and too little, I think Slashdot is a lot closer to optimal.

      --
      If we start buying CDs then the terrorists have already won.
    2. Re:It happens. by telbij · · Score: 3, Interesting
      You may disagree, but I find that Slashdot moderators put more thought into how they shape the discussion - I know that I will mark a post insightful if it shows insight, regardless of whether I agree.


      I agree with this. I'm always astonished at people who talk about how shitty /. discussions are and then talk about how they've switched to Digg. The /. system is far from perfect--moderators can't always be experts--but by and large there is much more opportunity for modding up of cogent arguments that go against popular opinion. Of course you still have the issues with earlier posts getting more moderated and so forth, but I don't see how anyone can even for a second say that Digg discussion is anywhere near the level of /. Digg's strength is in volume of stories.

      That said, I think the best communities are smaller and more focused. Any large and general community is gonna be pretty ignorant about any given issue. If I'm really interested in a topic I don't want moderators to ham-fistedly attempt to pull out the knowledgeable posts. I'd rather go to a focused community where everyone has something relevant to say.
  2. Ummm....wikipedia? by catbutt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe they could add a reputation system!