I’m splitting this into two parts. First identifying the issue. And second my personal idea for a solution. I’m hoping for a lot of discussion so please be clear which part you are responding to.
Part 1: The problem
Reddit as a platform has many flaws. Obviously being a corporation means they’re terrible no matter what. But their platform is also flawed. Even if Reddit was 100% community owned the platform would still be flawed. The number one thing that is ruining Reddit are the tyrannical mods.
Each community on Reddit is a dictatorship. Whoever is arbitrarily in charge of a community has full unrestricted power to do whatever they want. The people who are actually creating the content and sharing it are totally at their whim. I understand that modding is a difficult and thankless job, but toxic mods ruined Reddit and Lemmy will do the same if it’s not addressed.
Lemmy’s answer is to allow people to create their own instances. Don’t like the mods at World? Go make your own Lemmy, with blackjack and hookers. But that’s not sufficient. It takes years to build up a community to have enough people for meaningful discussion to happen, and nearly all communities or instances fail. We absolutely need a way for mods to answer to the users.
Part 2: My solution
My solution is simple. Lemmy is built on the community. Everyone helps run it. Therefore mods are elected by the users who generate the highest upvoted content in a community.
Elections should happen on a schedule and, if a community is particularly upset with a mod, a vote of no confidence can be taken.
I understand that this will be a huge undertaking. But I truly believe that we need to fix this issue for Lemmy to thrive long term. Or else we’ll just end up with another Reddit.
IMHO, most Lemmy mods are fine. And it doesn’t take years to advertise your community. The end.
Most Reddit mods were fine at one point as well. In your estimation, if I wanted to start a Lemmy community for something niche say bonsai tree triming, how long would it take to get enough people for real discussions?
1 week. Advertise and I’m pretty sure bonsai people will come. If they don’t exist or are not there, you will have no discussion anyway.
I’d love to see it if you’re willing to demonstrate
I’m not because I don’t have time for this. Feel free to do it. Back in the late 90s we had small communities and it was fun. No one wondered how we could attract hundreds of people from other forums.
Sadly it is no longer the 90s
No need to taunt: !communitypromo@lemmy.ca
I mean your the one with all these ideas. If you think they’re great, create a community or instance and prove it.
Your first phrase, added to your other points about removing and replacing moderation, makes it sound people are going to become bad just for being in positions of power.
As someone who’s seen the final days of kbin.social, let me tell you, they were rampant with spammers and scammers, and no amount of community effort would solve it.
Authority is needed.
And on a voting system, there is one already in the fediverse, defederation. It’s usually good to shake administration into noticing there’s a problem, or at least isolating the problem if left unattended so it doesn’t spread. Sure it can be used ideologically, but it’s also in their right not to deal with those they’re not aligned with.