For the short term, Erwin's "let's not make this reddit" is right. However, editor-oversight of this list and, more broadly, this site has drawbacks: sustainability, non-diversity, missed opportunity.
There are many news stories that are absolute tripe by our standards and yet yield good discussions, distinctions, related works, and counterpoints. There is an insightful response to even the worst tripe. It might be a detailed criticism for the author or submitter, an explanation of phenomenon, or a link to a better blog-post on the same issue. The problem isnt that our ethic is absent there, but that it's drowned out.
Build up a public system alongside editor intervention. Technical implementation or culture may be the things that make websites deteriorate, and we can change these. Try things out, and if they seem to work, let them take over to a greater extent.
Some ideas:
* Deter 'rabble' from participating:
* Make the site have a higher usability learning curve
* Make the community extremely hostile to even potential stupidity.
* Increase the 'cost' of upmodding:
* Add a time-delayed reconfirmation for upmods
* Limit upmods per day.
* Pick up possible problems in a post or reply and ask for confirmation: "Here is a preview of your comment, possible bad grammer highlighted blue. We discourage 'memes', aolbonics, and old jokes; these are highlighted red. If these are false positives, please hit submit and a developer will address these issues."
* Put "please upmod and post insightful and well-composed comments that expand on or offer alternative views to the story" directly under the 'add comment' button.
* Add a 'criticize' field to stories and comments that would be visible or sent to the author, with "this is vague", "this could be shorter", "provide evidence", "the title is sensationalist", etc.
* Add a mandatory preview button for posts and comments.
There are many news stories that are absolute tripe by our standards and yet yield good discussions, distinctions, related works, and counterpoints. There is an insightful response to even the worst tripe. It might be a detailed criticism for the author or submitter, an explanation of phenomenon, or a link to a better blog-post on the same issue. The problem isnt that our ethic is absent there, but that it's drowned out.
Build up a public system alongside editor intervention. Technical implementation or culture may be the things that make websites deteriorate, and we can change these. Try things out, and if they seem to work, let them take over to a greater extent.
Some ideas: * Deter 'rabble' from participating: * Make the site have a higher usability learning curve * Make the community extremely hostile to even potential stupidity. * Increase the 'cost' of upmodding: * Add a time-delayed reconfirmation for upmods * Limit upmods per day. * Pick up possible problems in a post or reply and ask for confirmation: "Here is a preview of your comment, possible bad grammer highlighted blue. We discourage 'memes', aolbonics, and old jokes; these are highlighted red. If these are false positives, please hit submit and a developer will address these issues." * Put "please upmod and post insightful and well-composed comments that expand on or offer alternative views to the story" directly under the 'add comment' button. * Add a 'criticize' field to stories and comments that would be visible or sent to the author, with "this is vague", "this could be shorter", "provide evidence", "the title is sensationalist", etc. * Add a mandatory preview button for posts and comments.