Well before Meteor Blades' departure, and certainly since, there has been a pressing need on DK to reform the way in which our community deals with what Kos calls "problem comments."
That's light fare to describe our community's inability – with the impotency of the hide rate – to effectively deal with those who break site rules by doing, among other things, defaming and degrading others in vile and troubling ways.
Now, it seems Kos is kicking around an idea for a corrective, which was just posted in his "Diaries" or "Stories" post:
We are in the process of sketching out a new community adjudication process for problem comments. The "hide" rating is not long for this world. It'll be replaced with a process that allows individuals to flag potential problems. The broader community would then adjudicate the comment.
The end result would be real punishment: if the community ruled against the commenter, then that commenter would receive a time out (exponentially increasing in length each time a new comment was hidden). If the community ruled FOR the commenter, the people flagging the comment would suffer their own time outs.
This is still a very early concept. At some point in the next month I'll have wire frames and a more fully developed plan, and I'll bring them to the community so we can all discuss the full concept and have you guys offer your feedback. I just wanted to make sure you all knew that we are working hard to come up with a way to better moderate the community.
I, for one, am very pleased to see a move toward some type of corrective. And I think the general framework being considered is a good one.
However, as with all auto-systems, it must be constructed in a way as to minimize users' ability to game it.
One glaring red flag? How to avoid groups of individuals who, acting in concert, attempt to achieve an auto-ban on a user in a low-trafficked diary by targeting specific comments, regardless of whether or not content is against site policy.
However, aside from this particular gap, and absent the ability to hire actual moderators capable of keeping watch over the vast amounts of writing that takes place here, it seems to be a good start.
Is this what our community needs? Is the idea of an auto-system delivering punishments too obtuse to serve the public interest?
I'm very interested in our collective thoughts on this matter as we try to increase our sites' ability to create environments in which we can all, together, engage in meaningful, substantive and honest debate.
Particularly when we disagree.
Author's Note: It appears that perhaps problem comments might, after being flagged, be put up for the community to adjudicate. If such adjudication happens in the diary itself, then my original concern stands. However, if we are talking about a separate venue (unlikely), this would be something else entirely. Thoughts?