The Heavy Element Forum

Are big portals too big?

MrSatan

At first I wanted this to be just a post in Technology sucks, but then I realized this is going to be more lengthy than my usual post there and with more potential for discussion.

So yeah, big portals are convenient.
It's nice to not have to think too much which platform to choose when you want to post a wideo or a picture, or a song or share piece of news, or start a discussion, or buy/sell something, or find some art, or ...
Looking for different alternatives for each of these tasks and making sure they are reliable isn't exactly fun. What's also important, for people who aim to reach audience, service being good isn't enough, it also needs make their work discoverable. What it your game is easily found on a portal with great interface and functionality if no one knows abut this portal so people won't look for it there?

Unfortunately, with growth of the platform problems arise.

Moderation on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, ... is just broken. Perfectly legit content being taken down or creators being robbed, loads of abusive comments. And too be fair it's not all their fault. Moderating something that big cannot be done without serious manpower (and even then it's difficult to train that many different people judge content fairly and similarly). And with data-mining based economy where profit comes from huge amounts of users need for paid moderators might exceed profit from those users. (At the same time they need data-mining based economy, because most people won't pay for those services and they need users to stay relevant.)

But that's not the only problem with moderation. When your service is meant to be used by pretty much everyone, what kind of rules should there be in the first place?
People are very different. Even those who grow up in same communities have different values and believes. And even if that wasn't a factor, there's also matter of age and certain conditions making some sorts of content and interactions unwanted. You need rules to apply to kids who visit your site to watch cartoon and black metal band leaders doing Q&A with fans. Both should be protected and at the same time none should feel too limited. I'd say It's impossible to do without some sacrifices on some fronts.

Next problem - monopoly. Because everybody is dependent on everybody using the platform, even when there is better one ,it has small chances on gaining audience. While big one gets away with being bad.

And finally, social media are killing communities. This one is bit different, because it only applies to platforms that are meant for some kind of discussion. And here the problem is, you can't have meaningful conversation with over a 100 people and huge platforms give you much, much more than that. That's pretty much it - when you make a tweet its not only gonna make to much more people than you can handle, it's gonna reach people who normally wouldn't follow you at all. At the top of that, even if you have community made only of people interested with the topic, you miss on getting to know other users, which could be a whole another topic.
Also going back to the moderation - trolls have it much easier.

What do you think? And thank you for reading this long post.

B101

MrSatan this boils down to a philosophical issues imho.

We are animals. As such we act according to our own nature. We are social and private. We seek out groups of familiars, while wanting/believing in individual strengths. These are all well and good things in nature and we are not alone in the animal kingdom in said traits. However, coupling our animal nature with our rapid evolution, which goes hand in hand with our technological growth, we have created this weird conundrum for ourselves. We can progress for the good of the group or the good of the individual. When we attempt both, as animals we want to butt heads. We can skirt around it with laws, religious tenets, or what-have-you, but ultimately both are going to conflict at some point.

And to your point, you're right.... concessions need to be made on all sides that every party agrees with. How ever, achieving that with 7.4 billion individuals, most of whom have never learned about logic, debate, nor compromise...then ask them to reach an agreement with one another while they have the ability to connect instantly with someone in their social group to tell them they're right.

Mob mentality is a proven psychological thing. We are seeing it the world over. This only emphasizes your point of "technology sucks". The more I read and about state of the world, the more I think we are a doomed species. We want our cake and the ability to "eat it too" with zero consequences. We want to be in groups, but we also want individuality. We want change, but also want it to be easy and simple?

People will either realize it and adopt decentralized mentalities....or they will fall victim to nature. It's depressing AF but my money's on nature. "She's" existed for billions of years...just on this planet alone. Let alone the rest of the universe.

MrSatan

B101 We can progress for the good of the group or the good of the individual. When we attempt both, as animals we want to butt heads. We can skirt around it with laws, religious tenets, or what-have-you, but ultimately both are going to conflict at some point.

I'd say I don't exactly agree – at least from theoretical point – progressing the group ultimately helps individual as well and progressing self can be done without hurting the group. The fact that many will act egoistically to the point where they are willing to hurt group for small personal benefits is different matter.

MrSatan

As for solution I have two suggestions:

Firstly, just focus on doing our own thing. This forum is the great example – I don't like most forms of Internet communication – so what. As long as I do have good places to post – it's much more important than convincing everyone else to do the same. We have great Free projects which are doing great and that's the most important thing.

Secondly, when you are shearing some kind of content, just made it available on multiple platforms. Use Youtube to get views, but also have option for people who'd prefer to use something else. It is extra work for relatively few people, but they will appreciate it.

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