LMlurker
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2021
Hard to sift out the actual content about a lolcow from the random comments and discussion. "Highlights" is a step in the right direction but mostly consists of memes and jokes because it functions like an upvote system. Community happenings is a step in the right direction but doesn't scale well because average users feel they lack the authority to use it, and if they did use it they'd probably shit it up.
What about giving everybody a "new content" reaction, but only giving one per day to each account which has been registered for longer than x amount of time? Then making "new content" scrollable like the highlights once a high threshold of votes has been reached? Reserving it (in intent) just for actual developments and new information about a lolcow, rather than jokes you find funny etc.
I guess it might just turn into a super-upvote, which would have the same problem as highlights does now. But the lack of an obvious way to sift through old threads to get the basic story on each person is the biggest barrier I find in trying to use the site. OPs tend to be updated too infrequently; a standard format for OPs might also solve this, like a Wikipedia style tray for all their dox and then chronological custom section headings which have a character limit to enforce topicality.
Other social media platforms all have systemic solutions to the question of how to connect users to interesting content. Reddit uses user moderation, which leads to awful groupthink but is the most "direct" in terms of allowing users as a group to consciously control what they see. 4chan uses thread and bump limits and anonymity to make off topic jokes etc less valuable. Twitter groups users into clusters of accounts that interact with each other and feeds content from these accounts to users algorithmically. Facebook relies on the external filter of "people you know in real life" and assumes you'll be interested proportionally to that irl connection. Tiktok relies on a continuously updating algorithm profile for each user that tracks their tastes based on comments, likes, and time spent watching each video.
I get that kiwi farms is an old-school forum, but that leaves it vulnerable to off topic and political shit because the majority of people using the internet now learned to use it within these systemic bubbles and don't view the quality of their own content as their responsibility.
Human-driven content curation systems are most effective at small sizes but don't scale up well at all, because when the work load gets too big only asocial bedroom dwelling weirdos take on moderation jobs, and they tend to be irrational or power hungry. Purely algorithmic, user based systems culminate in something like Tiktok where you have no control whatsoever over what you see, it's just fed to you like a saline drip; that only works for tiktok because faces and voices are way more engaging than text. Throwing a veneer of real life or pseudo-real life over content like Facebook and Twitter do leads to people having to sort through a lot of low quality content either from people they know, or people they are algorithmically close to.
The only solution I can see for kiwi farms that's sustainable would be something that takes advantage of the very specific nature of the topic here and the more motivated userbase of gangstalkers and voyeurs. Maybe two classes of accounts? Contributors and commenters? Or just two threads per topic, one for discussion and one for new info? Collapsible comment sections?
Idk, I feel the success of MATI and especially the person streams shows that the site isn't reaching its potential audience but I can't think of a clean solution to the problem.
What about giving everybody a "new content" reaction, but only giving one per day to each account which has been registered for longer than x amount of time? Then making "new content" scrollable like the highlights once a high threshold of votes has been reached? Reserving it (in intent) just for actual developments and new information about a lolcow, rather than jokes you find funny etc.
I guess it might just turn into a super-upvote, which would have the same problem as highlights does now. But the lack of an obvious way to sift through old threads to get the basic story on each person is the biggest barrier I find in trying to use the site. OPs tend to be updated too infrequently; a standard format for OPs might also solve this, like a Wikipedia style tray for all their dox and then chronological custom section headings which have a character limit to enforce topicality.
Other social media platforms all have systemic solutions to the question of how to connect users to interesting content. Reddit uses user moderation, which leads to awful groupthink but is the most "direct" in terms of allowing users as a group to consciously control what they see. 4chan uses thread and bump limits and anonymity to make off topic jokes etc less valuable. Twitter groups users into clusters of accounts that interact with each other and feeds content from these accounts to users algorithmically. Facebook relies on the external filter of "people you know in real life" and assumes you'll be interested proportionally to that irl connection. Tiktok relies on a continuously updating algorithm profile for each user that tracks their tastes based on comments, likes, and time spent watching each video.
I get that kiwi farms is an old-school forum, but that leaves it vulnerable to off topic and political shit because the majority of people using the internet now learned to use it within these systemic bubbles and don't view the quality of their own content as their responsibility.
Human-driven content curation systems are most effective at small sizes but don't scale up well at all, because when the work load gets too big only asocial bedroom dwelling weirdos take on moderation jobs, and they tend to be irrational or power hungry. Purely algorithmic, user based systems culminate in something like Tiktok where you have no control whatsoever over what you see, it's just fed to you like a saline drip; that only works for tiktok because faces and voices are way more engaging than text. Throwing a veneer of real life or pseudo-real life over content like Facebook and Twitter do leads to people having to sort through a lot of low quality content either from people they know, or people they are algorithmically close to.
The only solution I can see for kiwi farms that's sustainable would be something that takes advantage of the very specific nature of the topic here and the more motivated userbase of gangstalkers and voyeurs. Maybe two classes of accounts? Contributors and commenters? Or just two threads per topic, one for discussion and one for new info? Collapsible comment sections?
Idk, I feel the success of MATI and especially the person streams shows that the site isn't reaching its potential audience but I can't think of a clean solution to the problem.
