I think 4chan's "solution" to the moderation problem is more or less the way it will end up being at most places which have a long-term (approaching two decades) survival rate.
Absolutely nobody can agree on what should and should not be moderated to some perfect degree, and here the perfect is not only the enemy of the good, it's the enemy of sanity. It always starts off with some easy low-hanging fruit, and then it ends up with people rage-quitting because some moderator has taken the "wrong" stance on discussions about Israel and Palestine, something small like that. The more control, the more that needs to be controlled. It just invites people to filter ever-finer, based on the narcissism of small differences.
Ideally, offer some kind of client-side filtration. Let the user maintain it, let them run into the Scunthorpe Problem for themselves. Rate-limit the spam, and be robust about that, but everything else is up to the individual. And frankly, the people who have selected fragility as a kind of lifestyle rarely have much to offer a community anyway.
I say this as an Old who has watched communities arise, develop, and fold over decades, on platform after platform, protocol after protocol. Most deaths are the kind of slow-motion suicide that in humans would be reflected in lousy lifestyle choices. And one I see so, so very often is becoming intensely rulebound so that everyone will behave. It never works.
Absolutely nobody can agree on what should and should not be moderated to some perfect degree, and here the perfect is not only the enemy of the good, it's the enemy of sanity. It always starts off with some easy low-hanging fruit, and then it ends up with people rage-quitting because some moderator has taken the "wrong" stance on discussions about Israel and Palestine, something small like that. The more control, the more that needs to be controlled. It just invites people to filter ever-finer, based on the narcissism of small differences.
Ideally, offer some kind of client-side filtration. Let the user maintain it, let them run into the Scunthorpe Problem for themselves. Rate-limit the spam, and be robust about that, but everything else is up to the individual. And frankly, the people who have selected fragility as a kind of lifestyle rarely have much to offer a community anyway.
I say this as an Old who has watched communities arise, develop, and fold over decades, on platform after platform, protocol after protocol. Most deaths are the kind of slow-motion suicide that in humans would be reflected in lousy lifestyle choices. And one I see so, so very often is becoming intensely rulebound so that everyone will behave. It never works.