There are subreddits within Reddit such as https://www.reddit.com/r/neutralnews/ that have strict rules around sourcing, etc. However, I think that’s not what most users want, and may not be quite what you’re looking for either, apologies.
In the same way people want to be fit.
There are 3 horsemen of Internet forums, one of them is topics with a low barrier to entry.
At that point anyone can speak up, and their opinion takes up as much screen real estate and reading time (often less reading time) than a truly informed take.
By putting effort barriers in place, it forces a fitness test that most users (and bots) fail.
Another subreddit which has strong rules is r/badeconomics. I didn’t know about neutralnews, so thank you for giving me another example to add to the list.
I think communities like Reddit and Digg grow to a certain point and don’t grow anymore because everybody else absolutely hates what those communities have become. See the fight years ago where Digg thought it had to outgrow MrBabyMan. Problem is platforms don’t usually win those fights.
Sure, today’s redditors love sharing stupid image memes. For each of them there are 20 people who wouldn’t touch Reddit with a 10-foot pole.
The point being made is that communities maintain high signal to noise ratios by adding effort filters.
Topical forums tend to have a much higher SNR. My favorite forum of all time, johnbridge, had none of those issues. Sadly it died this year all the same, but many others still exist. When you have a forum dedicated to something that requires a minimum barrier to entry, the more useless folks get shunned away pretty early and easily.
- Users don't have to pay to post links/stories - Users have to pay to comment on links/stories - Users have to pay to "upvote" comments. Downvotes don't exist - Each link "lives" a certain amount of time before it is locked. - After lock time, users who posted the link get "paid" a % of the collected $ comments/upvotes. Comments that are upvoted also earn $ proportionally to the upvotes.
Hashcash was conceived to solve automated spam/email. Participating in a discussion must cost something, that's the only way bots and spam will get partially stopped. Or, if they start to optimize to get "the most votes", then so be it, their content will increase in quality.
If this were to exist today, I know I would be incredibly critical of it.
https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/server/api/core/bitstreams/4176474...
Every election I see internet-connected gym machines have the leaderboards spammed with right wing messages because some people don’t have to work and just spin all day.