

Online comments need moderation, not "real names" - yanw
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/04/13/newspaper_online_comments_moderation_open2010

======
holeykermoley
Make downvoting also cost the downvoter one point.

~~~
lsc
might be good for hn, I guess? I think the problem with voting on HN (and in
general) is that people downvote things they disagree with rather than just
spam and trolls, and they use upvoting to mean "I agree" rather than to mean
"well written" or "you are contributing to the conversation".

of course, this gets into a deeper discussion... many people /want/ to only
talk with people who agree with them. For most people, the 'groupthink' that
results from voting moderation systems /improves their experience/

The original article is suggesting paid moderators. Personally, I think PG
coming on here and setting social expectations (he dressed me down, once.)
probably has more to do with hn being a tolerable place than anything else.
Paid or not, having a 'community owner' who can designate things as
unacceptable, either by having a large amount of social capital (as pg does)
or by having access to the banhammer as a paid moderator would, I think, is
more important than anything else when it comes to maintaining an online
community.

