Clay Shirky – Pattern Language for Moderation Strategies
Pattern language – problem/solution combination that describes how to build but is abstract enough to applied in many different places
Reason: problem growing in developer communities
Freedom’s just another word…
Measure: communal freedom – how much does the software catalyze group communication? – vs annoyingness (susceptibility to bad social behaviors)
Want moderate freedom for moderate problems…but problems cascade quickly with more freedom
How does Slashdot do it?
Members defend readers from writers
Slashdot is not easily replicated – you can’t work from the code
Slashdot – tragedy of the commons
Not having features is also a strategy
Patterns derived from Slashdot
A pattern language for moderation: social.itp.nyu.edu/shirky/wiki
Moderation_strategies@yahoo.groups
Longer term reason: Hobbes and Rousseau argue about Dave Winer
The story of Dave Winer – what duty did he have to his users when he turned his mailing list into a moderated one
Hobbes: humans need monarchs
Rousseau: social contract
Moderation design as experimental philosophy because we are encoding explicit goals into the tools
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