> Sorry to repost. This was up for 20 mins last week then got taken down by the moderators (I think because there was a waitlist). We've removed the waitlist and would be grateful for feedback.
I didn't see a way to browse the content. There is no version of the world where I would pay before I see the content. If I like what I am seeing I will be driven to want to join the conversation and maybe would pay for it then.
Does each user have unlimited votes to give to others? Could a small party spend all their time voting for each other and skew the intention of the site?
E.g. if a large enough cultural group - woke brigade, christians, alt-right, whatever - seeds the website, and they upvote mostly each other's posts and comments, I can imagine that this creates a very strong echo chamber effect. Even stronger than reddit, because any contrarians would have to pay for the privilege of being shouted down, and because you don't yet have segmentation of the website, and because there are no downvotes. I can't imagine anyone staying, if they're not a member of the dominant tribe.
I know OP pictures "being nice and helpful" the Schelling point around which activity crystallizes, but it doesn't have to be so, and it won't necessarily remain constant, imho. It might as become a libertarian hub, and the only discussions will be about libertarian talking points and memes. Or a hub for any of the other major sides in the culture war or other strong internet subcultures.
"You start with 10 reputation points. 1 reputation point is awarded for each question/answer given. 4 reputation points is awarded for each like received on an answer."
It would be really interesting to hear how you guys arrived at this model, any testing you did, etc. I see, for example, there's no downvoting. I assume because it didn't model out well.
Doesn't this encourage reddit-like power users that have multiple people operating the account? Look at any of the 1M+ karma accounts and you'll see what I mean. As soon as there's money involved I expect this to get even worse.
I actually just tried to sign up and when I click on the "Pay $5.00 and Subscribe" button, I get a little popup that says "K is undefined" and nothing happens.
Hate to be that guy but unless the payouts are reduced for “dumb” answers. The site is doomed to become same as any other answer site because top answers will always be something like. “Is it ok to switch from tide to gain in my washing machine”. Actual difficult questions will never make money so the premises will not bring anything new
Not sure whether this model could work. But not sure it won't either. Maybe it would help to know what topics will be covered? For programming I could prove helpful but maybe not as much for other domains. Good luck with this experiment
Not completely sure what you mean by this, but if you’re saying HN moderators “moderated down” your submissions — no one was moderating them down, they simply didn’t have enough votes to stay on the front page.
I'll give it a try, but I'm already turned off by the "free speech" mention which has become synonymous with "give people a place to be a racist" and "all things Q."
Edit: for clarity, I believe everyone, including the racists, should have freedom of speech. Though, forcing companies to host that speech is not freedom of speech. And the speech that is supposed to be protected, dissenting views, seems as protected as it's ever been. Freedom of speech is not there to protect objectively harmful hate and conspiracies that intend to manipulate the vulnerable.
Yeah, that was an immediate red flag for me too. It's the same kind of rhetoric used by sites like Voat and Gab which are immediately taken over by the far right (and I definitely don't want a single cent of my money going to them).
I've honestly never understood the appeal of a completely unmoderated space. I'd prefer a site that was moderated fairly and competently so I didn't have to wade through extremist dross looking for content.
And I'd always thought that undesirables were a relatively smallish percentage of the population. As long as they are, we don't actually have to decide who's undesirable. They get outvoted. It's pretty clever.
Until the point where mean, angry, stupid people become a majority -- or worse, a near-majority with ancient thumbs on the scale favoring them. Then we've got a lot of very uncomfortable decisions to make.
Yeah as a Mastodon user whenever I see someone touting "free speech" as a feature of their social media platform it's a huge red flag that usually just means "alt-right, racists and transphobes welcome"
So this is a comment variant of an account tontine.
The only reason to join is if you think you can make back your $5/mo or more. And because some people make more and others lose money and that sum equals 0, makes this a 0 sum game.
And thats not even discussing the echo chamber eventualities of $bad_group taking majority stake.
The reason that the cancel mob is a problem is that it's a tiny vocal minority convincingly pretending they're the majority. If an actual majority of people wanted something cancelled, then it probably should be cancelled.
>If an actual majority of people wanted something cancelled, then it probably should be cancelled.
I encounter this sentiment on hackernews all the time, and it's honestly baffling to me. Apply this logic to the fifteenth century - the vast majority wants blasphemers "cancelled", there is no Enlightenment, no Renaissance, Galileo is banned from Facebook for hate speech [against religion].
I would assume that you don't think blasphemers should be stoned, now or in any age, right? Then why do you trust the majority to make moral decisions now, but not then? Do you think that we've achieved perfect understanding of society and ethics exactly when we invented the internet?
How is one supposed to semi-reliably distinguish between a tiny vocal minority “cancel mob” and an “actual majority” when the end result is the same: $thing is cancelled. I suspect the only discernible difference between the two for most people is one of opinion - whether they agree or disagree with $thing being cancelled. If they agree, they’re in the majority and if they disagree it’s obviously that pesky vocal minority.
" If an actual majority [of an internet forum] of people wanted something cancelled, then it probably should be cancelled." I added to your statement lest people think simple majority is a good way to determine what viewpoints should be allowed to be presented!
Why is it always up to the users to moderate online content instead of the host? If someone is acting like a jerk in a restaurant, it's not the job of the other patrons to eject them, it's the job of the staff.
> Sorry to repost. This was up for 20 mins last week then got taken down by the moderators (I think because there was a waitlist). We've removed the waitlist and would be grateful for feedback.
But it looks like the waitlist is back...