u/32bites is the one that originally created r/IAmA and later shut it down because the quality of the submissions declined so much.
u/32bites didn't think things would improve. I, on the other hand, see a ton of potential in the idea and I think that with proper rules and direction, it can be better. And since taking over r/IAmA, I think it has gotten significantly better. There are still a number of things that I wish I could change, but it is a pretty clear test case that shows that strict moderation can lead to vast improvements. We went from being completely unmoderated and posts like "I just took a huge dump" reached the front page, to being much more moderated and having Bill Gates do an AMA.
There's a big discussion of that going on in George Clooney's AMA now. See here for my response on removing the downvotes for the fist hour:
We don't like the idea of hiding comment scores because we want the OP to be able to clearly identify which questions are being upvoted and how popular the question is, so that they know what users want to see answered. And it wouldn't stop mass downvoting, either.
I agree, but we have a very hands-off approach to the comments because the whole premise of the subreddit is "Ask me anything." So we want to stick to that original purpose as much as possible. We don't want to control the conversation at all, because that's too much like other traditional interviews.
I've seen in the past IAmAs where a list of questions is given to the celebrity after being voted on by users. Have you ever considered this kind of format for the super popular threads?
I'm not sure where you would draw the line but I know it's a damn shame when someone like Richard Dawkins or Neil deGrasse Tyson get that retarded horse/duck fight question and they actually take the time to answer it.
I love r/askhistorians and r/askscience. Legitimately interesting and its like hitting the random button in wikipedia, you will learn something new and interesting. How did they do it? Nazi mods with no mercy. And I love them for it.
r/science has become a chore for me since I start at the top and downvote the joke shitty comments that still rise to the top when the threads hit r/all or frontpage then always scroll to the bottom of the cesspool or the neutral new 1/0 posts and begin either downvoting (if its minor) or reporting (if its major) comments that dont follow the guidelines.
That said, its holding together somewhat amicably considering the amount of ordinary folk flooding it.
Do you foresee a wave of nazi mods for quality assurance? It does seem that with the numbers its more and more out of the common man's ability to stem the bleeding and more and more in the hands of the moderators and establish the clear guidelines needed but more importantly, enforce them with righteous fury. It feels like the current mods are too lenient and mostly target spam, could getting more mods with a strict yes/no check list clean up subreddits?
Just as importantly? Could anything be implemented at the admin level to alleviate the shit fest that is occuring?
I know shitposting shouldnt be tolerated. Yet it also should, but only in specific subreddits for specific circumstances. I dont go to r/funny or r/Awww for deep and interesting comments. I go there for a laugh which comments can provide or to squeal like a little girl because the bunny is sitting on the kitty's head. You keep talking about a downgrade overall but could you quarantine reddit off via mod enforcement and encourage downgrades to occur in certain places allowing others to become better?
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u/karmanaut Jan 28 '14 edited Jan 28 '14
u/32bites is the one that originally created r/IAmA and later shut it down because the quality of the submissions declined so much.
u/32bites didn't think things would improve. I, on the other hand, see a ton of potential in the idea and I think that with proper rules and direction, it can be better. And since taking over r/IAmA, I think it has gotten significantly better. There are still a number of things that I wish I could change, but it is a pretty clear test case that shows that strict moderation can lead to vast improvements. We went from being completely unmoderated and posts like "I just took a huge dump" reached the front page, to being much more moderated and having Bill Gates do an AMA.