There are some philosophical challenges that the current approach presents when faced with the reality of the system design and economic game the forum is assumed to represent.
The role of ‘moderation’ in discourse has matured for ‘established interest communities’ - maybe a sports team, fans of a particular tv series or a niche tech product. In these communities, many of the rules are set… you’re not gonna change the plot of Game of Thrones or the medium of television.
As noted elsewhere, the designers of the substrate/polkadot/kusama systems have created a nomic game, with singular economic assets the shelling point for the players.
Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed.
The aim of the game is to experiment into coherence, with KSM/DOT keeping score… and you know what, irrespective of any individual’s behaviour, reality is gonna hit soon enough, its just better to plan, than panic.
When you understand this more clearly, going ‘off-topic’ is a feature, not a bug.
It’s the point of everything - its is experimentation, personified.
Moderation is fighting that chaotic move to coherence, not aiding it.
endless repetition
soapboxing
thread hijacking
hostility
spam
As @sourabhniyogi notes, each one of these categories is entirely subjective.
-
Endless repetition is the essence of brand marketing. “polkadot… boundless innovation… lalala”.
-
Soapboxing - you know, that’s literally what you guys do all the time at conferences, its just you’re rich, and powerful, and we’re just the serfs attempting to subvert the overlords, because, you know, wasn’t the plan to bring down Zuckerberg?
-
One man’s Thread hijacking - is another man’s lateral thinking.
-
Hostility - to delusional ideas, broken incentives and nannying culture should be welcomed with open arms - we have zero problem with hate speech / bullying or the like, so this is a lame excuse.
-
Spam - until the forum is overloaded with prince’s bearing gifts of DOT I think we’re good. And you know what, when you really understand the art of creativity, the magic is you can take inspiration from anywhere.
Summary
The act and indeed existing culture of moderation slows the game, demoralises players and stifles anything remotely like creativity - unless it is in some more familar (say technical) territory, where a large number of the players would more clearly recognise playfulness.
This is why there needs to be a new Kusama focused forum where the brakes are off.
We’ve proved once and for all, that the Polkadot forum and indeed the larger Polkadot brand (SDK etc etc) cannot possibly serve the needs of the ecosystem but is inadvertently crushing the spirit of the community, in large ways and small.
This is a scrappy startup - not a large multi-national, people need to wakeup to that fact and stop deluding themselves into some elevated sense of importance that these insane market caps create.