Well it turns out, people aren't grownups. So your idea pretty much fails there. Wait, you think I'm wrong, well, prepare for a thousands of posts and flamewars on this discussion! Oh it's also going to spill over into the gardening discussion that generally gets 5 post a day, but now will see 600 because of our firestorm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law demands moderation. Community and society demand moderation. Hell, I'd even go as far and say physics demands it. The internet breaks our ideas of social norms on moderation by taking distance and anonymity and shoving them in the same place all at once. And much like if you take groups of conflicting fundamentalist religious groups and put them together, the enviable violence outbreak affects everyone around.

I'm not sure where exactly you think my idea fails.

I didn't say to expect they'll behave like grownups in that they wont post anything immature, bad, etc. I said "treat people as grownups", that is, as capable on seeing something they don't like or find offensive or whatever. And if they're not capable, that's on them.

So, if a discussion becomes a flamewar with "thousands of posts", so be it. Members can always ignore it.

So, if the thousands of posts are from the same small number people (over-posting) and others find those annoying, then can chose to invidividually to ban them, or snooze them, or not.

But, if the thousands of posts are by thousants of members (and not bots), then why shouldn't they be left to continue to post and discuss this way, even if its a flame war? They're having fun, and others can ignore or ban them.

Now, if they verbally abuse someone though (e.g. threaten their life, dox them, and such), well, that could be moderated and members who do that could be banned. The rest of opinion, whether deemed controversial, unpopular, misinformation, or bullshit, can stay.

I don't care much about "Brandolini's law". Who is the arbiter of what's bullshit and why are they? The moderator? Well, that's tautological (they're arbiter of non-bullshit merely because they have the power to moderate).

The problem you have here is one of physics. You as a human exist only because of a staggeringly massive number of filters that have allowed you to pass (at least from a non-theist view). Brandolini's law applied to evolution is Darwinism. Simply put, if you focused on bullshit rather than survival you were dead.

Coming back to computer physics, simply put we don't have access to unlimited energy and storage space. I can generate trash faster than you can install servers to keep it, and much faster than anyone can afford to pay for the space. Companies that do not control spam simply go out of business, industrial Darwinism.

You can ignore physics as much as you want, but it's not ignoring you.

>Simply put, if you focused on bullshit rather than survival you were dead.

Which is neither here, nor there, as the stakes in a discussion forum or media are not "survival". Nor is the danger from something you don't like (or tons of them) life threatening.

>Coming back to computer physics, simply put we don't have access to unlimited energy and storage space. I can generate trash faster than you can install servers to keep it,

Again, neither here nor there. That is about spam, our subject is moderation. Gmail, for example, also has spam filters, but we don't consider it moderation...

>as the stakes in a discussion forum or media are not "survival".

I mean, as discussion forms commonly dox people, or brigade and convince members to go kill people IRL I really think maybe you're incorrect.

>Gmail, for example, also has spam filters, but we don't consider it moderation...

We whom? This has been debated on HN for as long as HN existed. Most would consider it moderation, but seemingly as a whole we have given up the battle as spammers are a plague of locust that will consume all.

>Again, neither here nor there.

Handwaves away physics, good way to accept technical reality of the situation here.

>I mean, as discussion forms commonly dox people, or brigade and convince members to go kill people IRL I really think maybe you're incorrect.

Yeah, but I covered that: "Now, if they verbally abuse someone though (e.g. threaten their life, dox them, and such), well, that could be moderated and members who do that could be banned. The rest of opinion, whether deemed controversial, unpopular, misinformation, or bullshit, can stay."

>We whom? This has been debated on HN for as long as HN existed. Most would consider it moderation

Has it? I'm here for almost as long as HN existed, and I don't remember this being debated. It might have been debated a couple of times in 15 or more years, but it's not like it's some common HN discussion.

I also doubt "most" would consider spam the same issue as the kind of moderation we're talkin about, or that even enough people think it's the same kind of thing as moderation of ideas and opinions and such. In fact, I'd go on to say that people who care for free speech still want spam filters - and don't view this as contradictory or care about the latter.

There are a few challenges with this approach.

1. Blocking people is reactive. It means that everybody still sees the first time somebody DMs them calling them a slur. If you instead take the approach of "block everybody that the ML system thinks is alt-right" or "block every post that the ML system thinks is spam" then you are right back at the fun problems of false positives and defaults.

2. People aren't just concerned about their personal experiences on these services. Advertisers are concerned about their ads showing right next to posts calling jewish people evil. Citizens are concerned about the radicalization effect such that even if I don't see conspiracy posts about liberals eating babies, those vortexes still lead to social harm.

>1. Blocking people is reactive. It means that everybody still sees the first time somebody DMs them calling them a slur.

Well, that's the "treat people as grown ups part". In that: treat them as if they can read something they disagree with the "first time" and they wont melt.

Calling people slurs or violent threats etc could always still be banned - first time you do it, you're out, or three strikes, or similar.

That's unrelated to content (whether the content is controversial or some disagrees with the view, etc), and easy to implement and check.

>Advertisers are concerned about their ads

Sucks to be them then! Advertisers shouldn't stiffle speech.

Disney also didn't like to be associated with gay content, not that long ago. And all kind of partisan political views could be pushed for or against by advertisers. They should not have such a say.

In fact I think they should not be allowed by law to be picky on placement on any forum of speech (magazines, social media, etc) where they like to have their ads in.

Either they shun the medium altogether, or they buy slots that can appear whenever, alongside whatever. This way also people know it's not the advertisers choice or responsibility of being alongside X post, as they can only buy slots on the whole medium wholesale.

> Well, that's the "treat people as grown ups part". In that: treat them as if they can read something they disagree with the "first time" and they wont melt.

It isn't one time. You get a "first time" with each new harasser. It becomes a regular occurrence that when you open your inbox somebody is there shitting on you.

> Calling people slurs or violent threats etc could always still be banned - first time you do it, you're out, or three strikes, or similar.

Why? The whole point of the idea is that people don't get banned. Returning to "well, sufficiently bad users will be banned" is just returning to the state today with people completely disagreeing about what "sufficiently bad users" means.

> Sucks to be them then! Advertisers shouldn't stiffle speech.

The "public forums" (twitter, youtube, facebook) are all ad supported. Without advertisers those products simply die.

>Why? The whole point of the idea is that people don't get banned.

The whole point of whose idea? I'm discussing the subject of moderation, as in, not being moderated or banned for content.

Not the subject of not being banned for anything, ever. That is, spam, bots, personal threats, cp, could always be banned, and I'd be fine with it.

>is just returning to the state today with people completely disagreeing about what "sufficiently bad users" means.

The disagreement occurs because this is based on beliefs and ideas. But this idea or that idea, based on ideology, partisanship, etc....

If instead the banning was solely based on the type of content (e.g. no spam, threats, cp, automated mass posting) then there's infinitely less room for disagreement. Something either is spam or is not. Either is a threat or not. CP or not, and most people can agree on that.

Even if not everybody agrees on whether X is spam ("I think it's good, because it informs us about a product we didn't know about"), it's much much less than people disagreeing on what's a bad take on politics, or "disinformation", or such, and much freer speech.

>The "public forums" (twitter, youtube, facebook) are all ad supported. Without advertisers those products simply die.

That's a bonus!

> Not the subject of not being banned for anything, ever. That is, spam, bots, personal threats, cp, could always be banned, and I'd be fine with it.

When the things you think are banworthy get banned then you are fine with it, yes. Upthread you listed slurs as one of these reasons. A large number of people complaining about "censorship" do not think that using slurs or even calling people slurs is banworthy. So you'll run into that problem.

We already see people complaining about bans "based on the type of content." The idea that somehow other kinds of moderation are the problem and that if we only stop that kind then everybody will be happy is simply not based in fact.

>When the things you think are banworthy get banned then you are fine with it, yes

You make it sound like I'd just said something is "fine" because it's to my taste - no matter how bad it might be otherwise. I think the snark is a little misplaced, though, as one could say exactly the same if they proposed an (objectively) good or perfect or best-compromise solution.

So what matters is whether it's actually that: a good solution. Not whether it's to the taste of the person proposing it (which, any solution would always be). So at best the snark above is based on a truism/tautology.

>A large number of people complaining about "censorship" do not think that using slurs or even calling people slurs is banworthy. So you'll run into that problem.

Here's the thing: I'm not sure it's that big of a number of people. I'm also pretty sure "a number of people" also think spam, cp, violent threats are not banworthy, but I don't think it's "a large number" either.

Which is why I think banning slurs, spam, and other such things is OK, and doesn't have to do with freedom of speech - you can still express the same ideas, even the most unpopular and controversial ones, without slurs, spam, cp, and so on.

>We already see people complaining about bans "based on the type of content."

Some people will complain about anything and everything - I'm sure that some are even against the invention of fire or in favor of farting in elevators. Satisfying everyone can't ever be the measure of a good proposal.

The best solution is about a good compromise that doesn't hurt the core issue of free speech, and not only doesn't stiffle, but even helps discussion (e.g. you can't have free speech if you get death threats for it, as people will be afraid to speak - so banning "violent threats" content makes sense. Similarly, you can't have free speech if the forum is filled with advertising spam and penis enlargement and "get rich quick ads". So banning spam will help the discussion, not stiffle it).