this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2026
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Why doesn't someone just make a social media where everyone is a moderator? (quokk.au)
submitted 3 weeks ago by Krusty@quokk.au to c/askbeehaw@beehaw.org
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So basically classic Reddit. Let the votes matter. Let people decide a down vote threshold (hide posts for me below x number.)

And let all of us who want to see the show put that threshold to negative Infinity and let's have some gosh dang fun!?

I'm kind of thinking it's only a matter of time until someone incorporates the mod log and just reintegrates those messages into a continuous comment hierarchy. Kind of like how pie fed incorporates multiple instances into a single comment tree.

Why the extra steps? Comments are never really deleted you can go look them up. Seems pedantically silly.

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[–] ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's a matter of the effort it takes to vandalize a community versus the effort to maintain it. Different communities have different thresholds for various things, of course. And, the more obscure a community, the less frequently it is vandalized, and the simpler moderation can be.

Classic reddit worked when it was small. Then subreddits, mostly to categorize, were added when it got larger. Then dedicated subreddit moderators were eventually needed and communities grew around subreddits. And then rules about invading subreddits were needed, and so on.

[–] Krusty@quokk.au -3 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

What's wrong with vandalism?

(My instance supports anarchists.)

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 14 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

My hypothetical bot army just down voted all your comments below the threshold, all your comments are deleted now.

You don't have a problem with that?

[–] ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 4 points 3 weeks ago

This is a good example. Most spaces, (virtually all spaces) will consider that a form of vandalism. A similar but even more extreme example is a spam bot posting thousands of links to scam websites.

Some might be fine with that, and that's up to each community. Some security honeypot-style communities probably benefit from allowing spam, for example.

[–] Krusty@quokk.au 0 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Not really. I don't need validation.

And I think that should be part of it. No numbers available for end users(admins would be able to, but ultimately the points wouldn't matter beyond the threshold you set). Comments without numbers. Let the algo sort it out. Organic conversations without measure.

Sounds healthy almost.

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

What part of getting silenced by a bot army is organic?

My hypothetical bot army down voted your comments again, If you don't need validation, you'll have no issue deleting your comments?

And the "admins would be able to" is just moderation by a different name. Moderators exist because admins can't do everything and the work needs to be spread out.

[–] Krusty@quokk.au 0 points 3 weeks ago

It's your bot army. And you're organic.

Waves arms around gesticulating wildly.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I was onboard with the idea as an experiment, until you mentioned admins. Mods are just unpaid admins. If you introduce a hierarchical class of users that can do more than others, it's no longer the 'organic' internet interaction you're selling it as.

I think that's also an important distinction:

  • Organic social interaction and
  • Organic internet interaction

are not the same thing. The Internet includes a lot of non-individual, non-human, and non-social actors, in a way that real life doesn't: companies don't send people to insert themselves into your meetups at the library, but they do send 'representatives' into Internet spaces. If you try to replicate the social anarchism of small group meetups on the internet, you will not get an authentic experience.

[–] bufalo1973@piefed.social 7 points 3 weeks ago

Vandalism != anarchism

[–] PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

From an anarchist perspective: there's a difference between vandalizing a Walmart and vandalizing an online forum. Anarchists clearly recognize that vandalism is destructive. And destruction absolutely can be a liberatory act, e.g. vandalizing a Walmart. But if we're trying to construct a liberatory community connected by social media ... clearly, vandalism of said community is counterproductive.

Moderation allows trusted members of the community to take action against people trying to wreck our communities. It is an act which asserts our freedom of association in any case, a corollary of which is our freedom to disassociate, and an act of community defense in extreme cases (e.g. yeeting Nazis to Hell). That is not to say that forum moderation, including Lemmy's and PieFed's implementations, is beyond critique or is incapable of reproducing existing hierarchies. But IMO, moderation can be a perfectly valid tool in an anarchist toolkit.

[–] ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 4 points 3 weeks ago

Vandalism in the common definition is something considered destructive to the space by owners of that space. If the community who owns it wants it, it's not vandalism in that community.

[–] TemporalSoup@beehaw.org 4 points 3 weeks ago

Not to be really boring, but it doesn't take too much "vandalism" (specifically talking about forum vandalism) to make an internet space more hostile than friendly

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

yeah that was how slashdot worked. although I think it was just upvotes. sorta can't recall. I thought setting to -1 showed everything.

[–] Krusty@quokk.au 1 points 3 weeks ago

I still visit /.

It's like the only site I have good karma on.

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 weeks ago

It's hard enough to coördinate a team of five moderators.