NP On Moderation

[Doug Millison]

from Netsurfer Digest:

On Moderation

What is the perfect way to moderate online forums? One of the great 
drawbacks of the modern Net is the high noise ratio in open 
discussion forums. A lot of idiots out there just want to be heard 
whether they provide useful debate or not, and often the posts of the 
demonstrable minority of non-idiots gets drowned out. How then to 
structure a fair moderation system that gives voice to high-quality 
posts without being either elitist or arbitrarily repressive? 
Slashdot worked over that discussion last week in the wake of a post 
about a new moderation system to be used by another popular 
discussion forum called Kuro5hin. A meta-discussion about a 
meta-discussion of a discussion forum is neat, as are some of the 
meta-moderation systems mentioned along the way (who will moderate 
the moderators?). In any event, you can read many good posts here on 
the possibilities of, and problems associated with, forum moderation 
systems.
Slashdot: <http://slashdot.org/articles/00/10/02/0054203.shtml> 
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/10/02/0054203.shtml
Kuro5hin: 
<http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2000/9/30/214129/356> 
http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2000/9/30/214129/356