This forum should NOT be highly moderated except for the immediate ban cases.
People should be themselves, and speak their mind, including being able to bring up “controversial topics”. Its the people who are filled with piss and vinegar, and try to improve things by bringing up controversial topics, that actually cause the improvement to happen. Banning/flagging/moderating is a bad idea for this reason, and the line from complaining about improving xyz to trolling and being offensive is very very blurry, mostly because anyone can be offended at approximately anything. I’m all for protecting kids from cyberbullying and disadvantaged people from hate speech that can lead to violence, but protecting smart adults from having their feelings hurt by other smart adults through rational conversations that are about Polkadot … is just ridiculous.
Here is a very decent example of this from today:
I believe this deserves to be a topic on this forum, but any number of “moderators” could find it offensive or trolling or controversial and maybe insulting.
Censorship-resistance is at the heart of blockchain tech, and is a core value system of “Web3”. Its sort of bullshit that this web site can’t be run on Polkadot “web3” technology and can’t embody this core value system. Here is TimBL from Web 1.0 and the owner of X, who run crypto’s absolute favorite Web2 system for “social proof”, where censorship is non-existent:
but has a better moderation system
Rather than ban and moderate people, I wish this forum should be deleted in favor of a real “Web3” forum that embodies the thing “Web3” was supposed to be about. If you immediately say “oh, that can’t be stored on chain”, you should say that TimBL and Elon Musk are right. If you say its on insert Polkadot parachains for decentralized social network, then rally behind how these demonstrate interoperability. Don’t be a hypocrite and perpetuate bullshit.
Meta: At which word did I cross the trolling/offensive line and get “off-topic”? No one will be able to provide exact guidelines to answer this question. Consensus systems might help you, but if you think you have the answer, I think you’re probably full of shit. Did I cross it yet? Ban me, I will wear it as a badge of honor!
When you ban or censor someone, 100 other people who notice this will stop speaking and not even complain … they just move their conversations elsewhere, to somewhere else whispering whatever it is the piss and vinegar inside them wants to say, because, like, duh, we can talk in lots of places. If every conversation has to be moderated everywhere, out of fear or insecurity, it says a lot more about the people who see the need to moderate than anything about the thing being “moderated”.
When people stop speaking their mind everywhere, you’ve taken away freedom. We’re not here for that.