PhoenixForum

JasonCarswell · 2021-05-08T14:55:17+00:00

Among other images I found this thumbnail from the pre-existing very different concept than mine, https://MetaVote.netlify.app. My MetaVote™ concept is different and obviously needs a new name with strong branding. Feel free to suggest ideas.

MetaVote™ - Part 1: A Brief Outline Of A Potentially Revolutionary New GUI Data-Input Form

A tool for more quality information and profoundly deeper, stronger applications - including STABs management.

Without images or animation to illustrate how simple it can be.

**The technocracy is collecting our data to use against us. Humanity NEEDS better information tools, like search, wikis, etc.** Just because most people are simpleminded doesn't mean we should give up and only have 2-option vote systems.

Note: If you are curious but find this technical outline as tedious as I do, then please ask for me to illustrate it in another post. Without interest in it I'm not going to bother.

MetaVote™ v0.0 - Intro

I had an epiphany a regarding a completely revolutionary forum voting and metatag interface. It's so simple and clear and qualitative that if I believed in patents I'd register it in hopes to make some money - but the ugly truth is that intellectual properties are the ruling class' rigged game defended by armies of lawyers and corrupt justice systems.

Since I joined SaidIt I've had various ideas about how to improve the voting. I don't like the 2/1 insightful/fun point system, and I've personally fallen into very inconsistent habitual usages. I thought there should be a downvote to count unpopularity - but NOT have it affect the points (like the YouTube ratio). I thought we needed more qualitative information about the vote ie. 0-10 (like Amazon or IMDb). My new concept is VERY uniquely different and could be as revolutionary and commonplace as the tag clouds of words you see everywhere.

This voting system would help tame vote-pooling, abuses, and inaccuracies rampant with the basic 2 option limitations of too many forums. A 0-10 vote system would be marginally better, but also has huge limitations. There's nothing to stop a few asstrolls from trying to manipulate the qualitative results - as is evident on IMDb for some controversial movies, yet most IMDb scores are a very good measure. Facebook still has their "like" button but now offers many more emojis to choose from.

My proposed system is not better or worse, is similar yet different, and much more qualitative. As for manipulation by numbers of different thinkers (asstrolls, tribalists, etc.) they can be spotted, filtered, and isolated as necessary with their metadata.

Problematically this outline pales by comparison to the clear simplicity that can be illustrated with some graphics. Words are not the way to present this. Neither are images. Short animated examples are the best way. If this concept is well received I can better convey with some images or even make vaporware animations to inspire coders to co-develop it further into modules that can be implemented in countless scenarios on countless platforms.

This can apply fare beyond just metatags and votes. This is a revolutionary new kind of GUI (graphic user interface) data-input form.

MetaVote™ v0.1 - Inspiration

Everyone was (and still are) always going on about wanting a downvote. I don't mind a downvote as long as it doesn't influence the upvotes. A score of 0 is not very accurate if 20 liked and 20 disliked. IMDb's 0-10 scores with the number of votes clearly indicate that 10/10 with 5 biased voters is not nearly as good as a 9.2/10 with 97,542 voters.

For a LONG time I was stuck on the idea of a Y shaped voting thing with up-left to insightful, up-right to fun, and downvote - AND with some in between spots on the Y branches for "levels of intensity" and thus more qualitative information. This Y was always irritating to me. What if something was insightful AND fun? What if it was just meh? How would we avoid abuses? There's no end to the questions.

Mid-January it suddenly occurred to me - and now it just seems SO DAMN OBVIOUS. It came to me when I realized we needed more than just a downvote and more than just the opposite(s) of "insightful" and "fun". It's so fucking simple! And, in part, a version had been staring us all in the face. Yes, by comparison it's a little bit bulky - but the QUALITATIVE INFORMATION TO BE GAINED from it would be a RADICAL GAME CHANGER. Remember how "different" not having a downvote was? Up/Down is mono-dimensional. 0-10 is barely 2D. This extends way beyond just three dimensions. This opens up vast wide arrays of possibility.

Currently on most forums the points-voting is on the left in a squarish graphic block. If we were going to add metatags/hashtags to content it seems obvious it should go to the right and/or below the title and other extant information - but if, rather than text, it were a graphic block interface it would make more sense to simply be on the right, bookending the post title and/or comment info.

[vote] [title, details, content] [tags]

Opinion

Users could only submit a SINGLE vote in the left-vote section. This is qualitative information is their OPINION about how they feel about the content.

Topics

Users could select or deselect as MANY votes right-tag section TOPICS as they think applies to the content.

If users have stronger or different feelings about their left-vote or need more topical right-tag options I have some VERY simple ideas to hugely and dramatically increase their options. This is a whole other conversation with deep and wide GUI ramifications, better served with illustrations than verbose descriptions.

Other

Besides "Opinion" and "Topics" this interface input-form has no end to the different scenarios, applications, and things it can be used for.

MetaVote™ v0.2 - The Universal 5x5 Interface

Opinion Left-Vote

With text instead of icons here are two examples:

wisdom	clever	witty	punny	fun
insightful	smart	good	like	amused
informed	obvious	neutral	okay	appreciated
skeptical	dislike	weak	meh	disappointed
outrage	distressed	annoyed	tedious	bored

The example above has the emotions of "fun" and "outrage" at a diagonal, mixing it up more.
The example below has the extreme emotions on the right side.

wisdom	clever	witty	punny	fun
smart	insightful	good	amused	like
informed	obvious	neutral	okay	appreciated
meh	disappointed	weak	skeptical	dislike
bored	tedious	annoyed	distressed	outrage

The same example with only the main points:

wisdom	...	...	...	fun
...	...	...	...	...
...	...	neutral	...	...
...	...	...	...	...
bored	...	...	...	outrage

A first pass at the words, but you get the idea. Admins and/or the community can help determine the best descriptors and/or emojis/icons. Of course users would soon grow accustomed to what the variables are, but most important are the corners in this grid (other grids may differ). Because there is so much information in this 5x5 grid I would insist on having cursor hover descriptions come up, among several other animations and options. The mobile interface would face different hurdles too. I've got MANY variations and solutions to propose. There is no single version that stands out - yet.

To help understand how you and others vote each corner would have it's own colour (green, blue, purple, red) and the mid-boxes would naturally fall between on that colour spectrum. The colours would be muted to start and with more and more votes the saturation and brightness would increase showing the general "tag cloud" of people's opinions. The strongest should "glow" brightest. Your own selected squares would be outlined in orange and other indicators could be in yellow. I'd also like to indicate how the original poster chooses to tag their own content. I also have GUI ideas for endorsing/challenging others' opinions.

Most important is the quality of the information to come from this.

A stupid /s/meme can get a like just as many points as a well produced /s/A+++ post - but with 5x5 options to chose from people need not be stingy with votes nor too liberal. The quantity of votes would matter less with this new quality of votes.

I know coming from only 2 votes into 25 options may seem like too much, but folks would soon get used to it. When voting here, it's not about collecting points or the big number of 25 options, it's about the corner fields and how you rate between them for qualitative results.

Any more than 5x5 and it's too much. Any less and you loose the balance, the power of 1-25, and the efficacy. Also, you could choose to have only 3 corners filled and they'll each still be equally separated by 3 between them. You could have MANY variation patterns to vote with in the 5x5 grid if needs arise, all conveniently in batches of 25, a quarter of the round number 100. (50 US states would fit on 2 grids.) Illustrations could easily show many of the possible variations for other uses beyond just opinion votes and topical tags.

Original Poster Info

The only person who might want better ratings on their post/comment would be the person who made it and thus may be tempted to exaggerate its value, consciously or unconsciously. Their self-assessment votes could either be not counted or just blend into the counts, but I think critically, distinctly marking their votes helps indicate their intentions and where they're coming from - and I see no reason why not to show this.

Topic Right-Tags... And Beyond

One click for the left-vote 5x5 opinion grids.

Select as many as apply for the right-tag 5x5 topical grids.

Tagging is generally not about feelings within the corners and fields. I wouldn't expect everyone to participate in properly categorizing every post, but those who do will provide a great service to researchers. Obviously the admins and/or community could help determine the best tags for each 5x5 grid.

Grids, plural.

For example below are topic-tag tables for an alphabetical general topics (which could branch off to other tables), a political compass, and a truthiness scale-ish table.

Ads & Class	Arts & Ent	Corruption	Culture	DIY
Economics	Health	History	Ideologies	Images
Info	Internet	Home	Music	Nature
NSFW	Politics	Science	Social Media	Technology
Transportation	Tyranny	Veracity	Video	Work

...	Communism (SJWs)	Totalitarianism	Fascism (Nazis)	...
Faux-Progressives	Democrat	Establishement	Republican	NeoCons
Far Left	Left	Status Quo	Right	Far Right
Progressive	Liberal	Centrist	Libertarian	Alt-Right
...	Anarcho-Socialism	Voluntaryism	Anarcho-Captialism	...

True	More True	Mixed Facts	More False	False
Reliable	Based	Debatable	Biased	Unreliable
Well Sourced	Needs Citations	Neutral	Propaganda	Fake News
Red Pill	Truth-Seeking	Skepticism	Gaslight	Psy-Op
Exceptional	Rational	Complex	Disinfo	Misinfo

As I said there are many variant options. With ergonomic designs, other functions, and illustrations these numbers could be affected. These examples are obvious and simple to explain (especially with images).

5x5=25 + 25x4=100 + 25x4x3=300 (total = 425) is a first way beyond.

5x5=25 + 25x8=200 + 25x8x7=1400 (total = 1625) is a second way beyond.

5x5=25 + 25x16=400 + 25x16x15=6000 (total = 6425) is a third way beyond.

By "beyond" I mean what's at your finger tips but not all visible. The default 25 in a grid is good, but more options are better. Just as you can scroll up/down left/right in other apps I would want the ability to flip/swipe to another grid for more options.

The first simplest example, above, has 25 in a 5x5 is the default grid. Outside this grid on each side would be 4 short wide clickable arrows in 4 directions to other grids, then those grids would have more directions - minus the one direction it came from. This could go on forever but IMO beyond 2 degrees of separation goes even too far for me and this for general purpose usage.

The second example is for sides and corners.

The first two examples are simplistic and good for what they are. My fave for tagging is the third...

The third example would have 12 short wide arrows around the 5x5 grid of 25, 3 on each side, plus 4 more corner arrows. These 16 arrows would lead to more detailed topical grids related to the topics in the default grid around the edges. The 9 squares in the middle of these grids would not have "children" grids. Colour coding could distinguish those with children and those without. This concept would be made clear in an illustration.

For example, the 16 edge squares could include politics, science, and music, and you could just select those or you could select the arrow outside the grid to scroll over to a dedicated politics, science, or music grid - and deeper still if necessary. Having a political compass now seems obvious (staring us in the face), but I hadn't even thought of it for at least a week or two after I came up with MetaVote™.

Political compasses are not the only things that can fit in grids. Just as I mentioned above that many voting variations could be employed, Venn diagrams and others could be employed too, within the 5x5 limitations. Importantly, I think it would be great to also offer customizable grids for users to add their own opinions and topics/tags. Of course both users and admin could benefit from a simple GUI to input all of the 5x5 fields.

Conclusion & Feedback

I hope this was clear and makes sense. Illustrations would help but I'm convinced it needs some vaporware animating to showcase how simple, powerful, and awesome it could be.

Please provide feedback, good, bad, or ugly - or even if it's just something banal like my typos. Without interest in it I'm not going to bother making illustrations or explaining my deeper ideas about database arrays and practical applications including MASSIVE ramifications to OUR data/information in this cyber/info-war.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-24T16:13:32+00:00

Thumbnail

New Idea: Filtering STABs On SaidIt

Restating the obvious, currently SaidIt is anonymous, without verification, free, and is thus wide open to all STABs (shills, trolls, and bots). /u/magnora7 could change any or all of these and thus potentially change the character and nature of SaidIt, but because many of the forces of evil have high-level resources and deep pockets to skirt around these mild limitations, only low-level STABs might be affected.

We need to brainstorm for new ideas and ways to filter out the STABs. For better or worse, with pros and cons, this post is my effort to start discussing new ideas to better manage or filter the STABs on SaidIt and/or other forums. I hope we can build on these seed ideas or even come up with better solutions. It seems unlikely and impossible to catch all STABs, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make an effort.

So for your consideration, I present 3 ideas to help filter out STABs. The first two require coding and M7's cooperation, however, the third may be implemented by anyone with the abilities to make it happen.

1 SaidIt User Details

I don't know for certain as I don't code, but this seems like the simplest and least radical idea to improve SaidIt and/or other forums.

Currently, over every comment SaidIt presents this short line:

JasonCarswell[S] 5 insightful - 3 fun - 2 hours ago

SaidIt could add more details to that line to look something like this:

JasonCarswell[S 2y 40k pk 30k ck] 5 insightful - 3 fun - 2 hours ago

I shortened the additions from "saiditter for 2 years", "40,600 post karma", and "30,626 comment karma" as is found on /u/JasonCarswell.

Perhaps this could be applied as a special or parallel automatically generated site-wide flair.

I'd especially like to see colour coding that is peripherally visible and easier to glean quickly rather than reading and processing stats. Similar to traffic lights and like my 5 tier chart the users could be colour coded in steps or on a spectrum from red or orange for new/rare users to the active users in yellow with either more established or preferably M7's trusted-team in green with M7 in blue. I prefer seeing the stats, but an alternative would be a symbol/badge/crest thing from red through to the blue (ie. blue check).

2 SaidIt User Filters

I don't know for certain as I don't code, but this seems like some serious coding effort may be required to make these radical changes to improve SaidIt and/or other forums.

This SaidIt User Filters idea could also extend to the block userfeature that is very incomplete. I stand by my statement that block user is currently a shitty function. Before debating this further be sure to read my linked comments with rebuttals to all arguments, some valid but very limited, that I've heard thus far.

Moving on, this idea includes and improves the block user function in conjunction with this larger SaidIt User Filters idea. Again, I'd especially like to see traffic-light-ish colour coding with my simple 5 tier chart.

Currently comment "flat-list buttons" include:

permalink (un)save block user parent edit disable inbox replies delete reply

In addition to this line or preferably on a separate new "filter-list buttons" line (perhaps with more filters to add) I would like to see these 6 buttons in a line like this example:

[+] admins 3 [+] rangers 5 [+] citizens 12 [+] users 10 [+] unruly 69 [+] blocked 5

The [+] / [-] symbol would indicate the option to expand/turn on [+] or collapse/turn off [-] the display of those user tier levels. The trailing number indicates how many comments are collapsed.

I copied my 5 tier chart, added a 6th "blocked" tier, and added colours:

Level	Privilege	Title	Description	Colour
Tier 1	extra	Site Admins	benevolent power to execute the will of the people	blue
Tier 2	user	Peace Rangers	non-partisan neutral trusted-team advisors who decide together	green
Tier 3	user	The Citizenry	active contributors, limited and/or tribalists	yellow
Tier 4	user	The Fray	new and rare contributors, unproven, unknown, anons, and/or asstrolls	orange
Tier 5	none	The Unruly	banished as they do not play well with others	red
Tier 6	n/a	The Blocked	a function customized by individual users	purple

Maybe instead of under each comment these filters are only under the original post - or in the sidebox or header. Under the post these "filter-list buttons" would apply to all comments however under the comments it should only apply to the response tree under that comment.

Maybe in user preferences the trailing number indicator might be turned off, or if unnecessary the coders could omit it and just grey out the text if none exist.

Maybe the trusted-team of "rangers" would not be necessary to include as M7 clearly has no desire to select a trusted-team for a fair, open, and accountable social management system.

Maybe there would be other filters to add too (ie. spam, downward, etc for admins).

With these filter stats under posts people could look through a feed (/s/all or subs or multisubs) and may glean aspects of the discussions within.

The first 2 tiers of admins and rangers would be hand selected by M7 - as would those who are banned (and thus unable post/comment further). The more active "citizens" and less active "fray" users would be automatically determined by a simple algorithm assessing the user account's age and post/comment karma. This equation could be shared openly to ideally be discussed and fine tuned.

With this filtration system in place, there would no longer be need for any censorship (besides removing illegal content). The banned folks content would still be openly available for double checking, fairness, openness, transparency, and accountability, but obviously being banned they'd no longer be able to participate further. The admins and STAB-hunters could focus on the unknowns of the "fray" of less active users and trust that the more established active citizens would report their issues.

3 SaidIt As A Filter For Other Sites

Having either or both of the filter ideas above implemented on SaidIt could enhance the potential and abilities of this third idea.

Most folks missed my questions about migrating to Lemmy. I could tighten up that survey and repost it if anyone cares to find out more - or you are free to do so. IMO most SaidIt users are apathetic.

Whether SaidIt migrates to Lemmy or not, whether M7 participates or not, this idea might be one of the simplest and easiest ways to filter STABs out from good users. Since I've neither set up my own forum nor coded I can't know.

This idea starts simply:

All anonymous users on SaidIt prove they're worthy to be accepted on other sites.

/u/magnora7 has expressed on several occasions that he'd like to create more sites with focused interests. These could be for Left or Right tribalists, conspirophiles, technophiles, entertainment, DIY, classy discussions only, anything goes, news, regions, sports, etc. AND/OR anyone else could start their own forum(s) too, with or without mirroring part or all of the content on SaidIt (except for private subs, private messages, and with a max of 10k posts per sub and person).

If other sites were started, they would be wise to use SaidIt as a sort of filter. Obviously this puts the majority of the burden on SaidIt's administrators to whack-a-troll the most problematic users before "migrating" to other more secured forum(s).

A person could cultivate their anonymous user profile in the proving ground of SaidIt's general population before reaching acceptable measures determined by the other forums.

External forum sites would have their own site registration application subs on SaidIt. For example: /s/JoinDilemmy The sub could be manually managed by external sites' admins or somehow automatically by bots via the Reddit/SaidIt API that simply allows votes, comments, and posts. Private messages can be employed for confidential passwords and such, but that may be beyond API-bot abilities.

This verification method provides filtration, security, and retains anonymity.

External forum sites could select what qualities they seek in their users. This might include account age, post and comment points, insights, fun, ideological viewpoints, character (not crass or borderline troll), etc.

External forum sites could select what content (ie. subs) they wanted to mirror from SaidIt and/or participate in.

If I'm not mistaken, users via the API may continue to externally interact with users on SaidIt via votes, comments, and posts (but not private messages nor private subs (unless they login to SaidIt under the alias the API uses?)).

M7 or anyone else could do this today:

Start a new forum - SaidIt or Lemmy or other.
API mirror all the SaidIt content.
Invite people to be verified on the new forum.
- Start with the biggest and oldest users, then work down.
- Problem users would be easier to weed out than rando anon STABs.
Build a decent anon userbase, without the STABs problem.
Be free to create a "utopian" cooperative with a fair, open, and accountable social management system.
Create another site as a proving ground to filter new anonymous users, but under the purview of a fair and open trusted-team, lessening the burdens of SaidIt admins as well as lessening M7's (ego driven?) monopoly of private judgments and secretive banishing.

Bonus:
With custom development effort, it would be possible for all existing SaidIt user names to be in a "hold" list on a new site so impostors couldn't pose as you, if/when the registrations were open.

In Conclusion

As usual, I feel like I'm forgetting something or wasn't clear or compelling enough. Please give me feedback.

Mock-ups:
If there's a huge demand I can modify some screenshots to illustrate some of these things I've struggled to get into words.

Fun:
(SaidIt) S.I. + Lemmy = SiLemmy = Salami

Unrelated critical thought:
Why don't they cut up nuclear waste into small pieces to sprinkle it into volcanoes like the Ring Of Sauron or The Terminator? There's no shortage of old aircraft that could be rigged up for one last remote controlled flight and dive.

Sorry this post took much longer to put together than I would have liked (over a week), like many of them lately. I've been distracted by my building being resold. I have very mixed feelings about the new landlord and need to learn about what rights I have, he has, and how this will dramatically affect my plans and future (long story). Plus I've been distracted by my typical stuff while learning and compiling info for this post.

Also, please take a look at the new information in this /s/PhoenixForum sidebox and let me know if there are any ideas that are still unclear and/or ways to improve it.

Your feedback matters.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-08T17:09:05+00:00

Thumbnail, temporary stand-in "branding" (see the 1st post for more about this).

This comment by /u/JasonCarswell is mirrored here for a more focused discourse.

you dont want the masses.

We need to liberate the masses from their brainwashing.

I can't go to the hardware store without them insisting I wear a mask. I haven't been back yet to see what happens when I refuse.

We need the masses to not support the establishment that is crushing them - and us.

the problem with the saidit community, as small as it is, is that it is not being managed effectively.

I will NEVER deny that until M7 starts evolving in a serious way.

if this community were managed better, it would have already grown to many thousands of active users.

LOL. You just said it wasn't about the masses. M7 also wants this place to grow. I asked him to promise he'd never sell out, but he wouldn't. Yet, he's managed to avoid ads and such. Could be a loooong con psyop for all I know.

IMO, quality is much more important than quantity.

This comment by /u/SubliminalCriminal is mirrored here.

when i suggest that you dont want the masses, i am trying to suggest that you not focus on the masses, ie, dont try to acquire all of the marketplace, but instead focus on the few users that you do have... draw up a profile on each of them.. as though you are a personality profiler for the fbi that is hunting a serial killer.. draw up a profile on each of your current users.. focus on what do they want? focus on are they the kind of person that you want in your forum..

maybe my suggestions about quarantining people was only a very basic and rough draft...

i play a lot, but i am a very high level thinker.. it is too bad that i dont have the grammar and writing skills to go along with my ability to think tank..

i am interested to design and build something that is new... it is NOT my interest to design and build a community that is simply a redesign of twitter or reddit or facebook..

you must define the problem first, then invert the problem to make a solution, then put the solution into action..

i read once that anger is sometimes the result of trying to solve a problem before you have come up with a good solution.

you will become frustrated, your users will become frustrated, if you present them with a website that is not actually a complete and well rounded solution to their needs and their problems.

this is not a small task.

This comment by /u/JasonCarswell is mirrored here.

I agree, not to focus on the masses, but they need to be considered. Certainly not for vast acquisitions, especially in a decentralized world of many diverse options and alternatives at the feet of the giant monopolies, but for many other factors - including defense against them, big and small.

I missed your quarantine thing. I'll say what I've said countless times before: Quarantine the sick and weak, anything else is tyranny.

I didn't really expect people to appreciate the /s/PhoenixForum idea so much so soon, especially without MetaVote™. I didn't even prepare the sub's sidebox. I mention this because in addition to MetaVote™ there are 6 more areas I believe are critical to making a decent next-gen forum. One is coding. One is branding, public relations, inviting, and amassing people - least of our worries now. One is Libre-Festos (for lack of a better name).

A forum-wide survey about what people want in their imaginary dream forum of the future may be in order. In turn we can also start drafting up some manifestos to lay the groundwork for the goals and objectives of many things, not just forums or software design. Just at the Creative Commons has several versions to choose from I would hope we can lay down some fundamental manifestos (for lack of a better word I'll keep using it) like the Consitution to always refer back to.

Yes in part. Identify the problem, conceive a solution, pessimistically poke holes in it, optimistically build around the holes, pessimism, optimism, pessimism, optimism, on repeat until all that remains is the logical framework to build in reality.

i read once that anger is sometimes the result of trying to solve a problem before you have come up with a good solution.

Good quote/concept.

I'm never going to present a website. I'll present ideas and they can help develop them further, and together we can improve the animated demo presentation until we feel its worth promoting far and wide to invite the world to actually build the open code for it. Most people won't care about a demo video - but coders might. Especially if the 6 related foundations for a free and fair forum are in place.

We really should move this conversation to the /s/PhoenixForum, whether you wish to code or support it or not. I'm actually not expecting to have my dream forum built, but I honestly believe that anyone may benefit from expressing ideas there, big or small, that may one day make it into reality somehow.

This comment by /u/SubliminalCriminal is mirrored here.

I missed your quarantine thing.

a new user quarantine system needs to be implemented that perhaps auto shadow bans or auto hides all posts so that only the new user and certain admins can see it... those admins would have the ability to leave that account shadow banned or hidden forever or to approve it for release from quarantine..

this would stop 99% of spam and other bullshit.

maybe you could leave new accounts in the quarantine status for maybe two weeks, spammers and other trolls would find that to be too tedious to fk with and they would move on to easier forums to fk with.

This is my (/u/JasonCarswell) original response:

Pros/cons as to whether segregation would actually improve things. It's a lot of work too.

I have 2 ideas that are simple and low maintenance that could improve things, simply, I think.

1 User Info

I'm replying to a comment that start with:

SubliminalCriminal 2 insightful - 1 fun - 5 hours ago

There's more than enough room for more information there:

saiditter for 7 days | 161 post karma | 274 comment karma

You are insightful so I've added you to my /s/Friends (easily removed) so obviously not all new users are trolls - or you may be playing the long confidence game. Only you know. Actions speak more truth and trust is earned. We must all remain skeptical and call out bullshit, including from me - or even M7. (Even if it is his site and he's the ultimate ruler of this universe, it's still our community, and he clearly wants growth so he also needs to behave, not that that's much of an issue.)

2 User Distinction

IMO instead of quarantines and segregation of users with different privileges, I think everyone should have the same access and privileges - with earned indicators of status, a simple distinguishing mark, nothing else. It could be a badge, comments outlined in colour, and/or colour the user names themselves. Perhaps the #1 User Info mentioned above could be colour coded.

Status	User	Note	Colour
Level 0	Banned Users	STABs^*	Grey
Level 1	New & Rare Users	skeptical caution	Red
Level 2	Active Users	with a certain level of points	Yellow
Level 3	Distinguished Users	trusted selections by M7 only	Green
Level 4	Admins	blue checks	Blue
Level 5	magnora7	site owner	White

* STABs is a new term I came up with the other day for Shills, Trolls And Bots, and I hope to popularize it.

None of these levels make you immune from skepticism or criticism or change of status, they just help guide first impressions. Even those "trusted" may fall from grace.

This seems like an obvious nobrainer and in this way only the spam and obvious asstrolls need be censored and removed. Everyone will immediately see and know to have skepticism and/or biases towards any trolls with outrageous accusations.

Only /u/magnora7 and/or /u/d3rr could say how easy or difficult it would be to code and implement either of these systems.

This conversation may continue in the comments.

icebong · 2021-03-07T21:36:10+00:00

I think what is missing is some kind of reputation system. Reddit and Saidit have a form of reputation system but this is very basic and needs reform.

Historically we have been part of tribes, so people it is easy for people who misbehave to be held accountable for their actions. There is a risk associated with misbehaving and your reputation gets ruined. Online there is no such intensive to not misbehave.

fschmidt · 2021-03-06T03:05:39+00:00

First, if this subject interests you, please subscribe to this sub. This sub is a logical place to post ideas for social forums.

I will start by clarifying terminology. What Reddit and similar sites call a "sub" is just a forum. So I will use the term "forum". "Social" means lots of user generated content that is interconnected, and typically you can subscribe to parts of it. So Reddit is a social forum platform. Of course Reddit includes other things like a new horrible UI, support for fascist censorship at the platform level, and various other evil features. But none of this is intrinsic to a social forum platform.

I want the social forums to be fully decentralized with the social aspect implemented through an open protocol used to communicate between forums. So each forum is fully owned by the moderators, and the moderators can do whatever they want in their forum. They can have free speech or fascist censorship within their forum, it is up to them. Forums would be hosted on servers where each server can host many forums. This would be much like web hosting. The owner of the server only has the power to remove forums, that's it.

The open protocol would be specifically designed for social forums. There would be a call to get recent threads from forums, used to show "subscribed". There would be a call to do search across all forums on a server which would be used for both user searches and to get posts of a user. And there would be a call to get all data from a forum. This call allows forums to be cloned/forked and makes forums like open source projects. So for example, if the moderators of a forum piss off their users, then users can just fork the forum. Or if a server owner bans a forum, that forum can just move to another server.

The software that I would like to see written to implement this should be open source and flexible. The architecture should have 3 parts: core, modules, and views. The core implements only the most basic forum functionality and defines the most basic concept. Modules add extra functionality like voting, ignoring users, etc. Modules can depend on other modules, but they are modular in sense that anyone can contribute to the project and add whatever extra functionality that they want. Views are user interfaces. Initially there would be just one but there is no reason why there shouldn't be multiple views. For example there may be a reddit-like view and a phpBB-like view. The moderators of a forum could pick the view. Each view would be independent and would call whatever modules it needs.

This completes my high level description of what I have in mind. Note the things that I did not include. No blockchain. And no general policy. A truly decentralized open source platform can't implement one policy by definition. Any imaginable policy can be implemented in code through modules, and then each forum can decide if it wants to follow that policy.

I am a programmer, so if you have any technical questions about how all this could work, I can answer. I would like to see what I described here implemented, but I don't have the time to do it alone. I would be willing to work with another programmer on this and I would cover all expenses.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-05T00:10:52+00:00

Thumbnail, temporary stand-in "branding" (see the 1st post for more about this).

This comment by /u/JasonCarswell is mirrored here for a more focused discourse.

/u/d3rr and /u/fschmidt, I should get responses to you tomorrow morning when I tackle my messages, meanwhile, I have an idea here that I'd love to hear your thoughts on, semi-related to the OP.

Whether you're for a forum of permanent immutable records (ie. blockchain, IPFS, Twitter, mediawiki, etc) or one you can edit and scrub, I think this could work for both.

If I'm not mistaken SaidIt is like a mediawiki in that every time you edit it keeps the old record and points to a new record. Nothing is destroyed (except by admins). From what little I know IPFS was having issues with mutable records like this years ago and I can only guess they've resolved them.

Some people object to having an open blockchain, because they don't want it all out there forever. Personally I have no problem with that, but it's not about me, and I can understand some concerns as they have families and more at stake.

To my point:

Just as there's a private key and public key for crypto, what if there was also a 3rd forum key? The blockchain could be open and public decentralized across the world - yet always encrypted and unreadable.

Each user contributes via their private key.

Each decentralized forum chooses what they decrypt and share and can turn it off for problematic content like advocating violence or child porn.

Each forum can either get forum keys from other forums OR maybe the forums never give up their forum keys but all other forums must come to them to decrypt it for them - thus they'll always get the latest updated edits and such, while also controlling what they share or shutting problems down. These both have pros and cons - so maybe both might be employed. Perhaps even a 4th crypto key might be in order so that forums would have always public AND always controlled content. And maybe the forums could put the choice in the hands of the users to flip a switch on each post to make it permanently available and never reversible.

Admittedly there are still problems with abuse. Besides loading up a blockchain/database with copious amounts of crap and/or child porn - if the keys became public and/or shared somehow then... Then I don't know what. The forum could claim they did what they could but at that point they still might be "publishing" that content on their blockchain. I don't know if they'd be responsible. So I might guess the user would need their private key to only work in combination with the forum key, OR, if the blockchain were distributed in sections via shards or torrents I suppose they could just stop sharing them and/or recompile update substitutes without the problematic content.

Thinking out loud.

Feel free to let me know if this sounds reasonable or like nonsense and/or if there are any questions, insights, or feedback.

The following comment by /u/fschmidt is mirrored here.

I suggest starting a new thread about the ideal social forum design. I had said that I don't want to discuss this until a programmer comes forward to work on this, but maybe such a thread would inspire a programmer to come forward.

I am a reactionary programmer and I just try to make things as simple as possible. This is the basis of my views.

I see no need for a blockchain for forums. I would like to see an open source social forum that makes all data of all (non-private) forums publicly available. There is no need to encrypt anything. And nothing that needs to be hidden should be stored in the database at all. Things like email addresses and passwords can be stored as a crypto hash and then just matched when the user enters them.

For a longer discussion, start a new thread.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-05T14:40:19+00:00

Thumbnail, temporary stand-in "branding" (see the 1st post for more about this).

PhoenixForum: Fair Forum: [Post Redirect] Fairness Ideas On Temp Bans

/s/SaidIt/comments/7hzf/i_have_an_idea_thats_simple_and_might_fix/

What is this post about?

In addition to obviously being a link to another post with theoretical discussions on "Fairness Ideas On Temp Bans" to help improve SaidIt (though not titled that), this is my attempt to also refile all good ideas for a Next-Gen Forum here in this /s/PhoenixForum sub.

This post is a first example to help guide how we appropriately label and categorize post titles for maximum clarity primary classified under these topics, as listed in the very first Phoenix Forum post:

PhoenixForum: Branding

PhoenixForum: Fair Forum

PhoenixForum: GUI + PreVis

PhoenixForum: Soft Dev

PhoenixForum: Libre-Festos

PhoenixForum: Proj Mgmt

PhoenixForum: MetaVote™

This post doesn't need votes, as the purpose is just to have these ideas handy for the Phoenix Forum.

What this Phoenix Forum does need is more good ideas and discussions, like the one linked above.

JasonCarswell · 2021-02-21T23:32:28+00:00

4th thumbnail, a temporary image. I can and will do better when necessary, though in fairness, IMO we should have a contest and/or open development of the design, depending on what name we pick.

Phoenix Forum

Today I'm starting this Phoenix Forum.

For all you conspirophiles, this day after finding out my Dad died is as much a coincidence as today's 2021-02-21 date.

Recently, off hand, in a post or comment, I came up with "Phoenix Forum". It got hot cemented to my brainpan. Moments ago I realized that this sub's title allows it the flexibility to go in a few directions, starting as a working-title for my original purpose...

Next-Gen Forums

Among my many long-developing forthcoming interactive "grand ideas" and SaidIt projects is the idea that we need to have goals, plans, and a resilient future for our SaidIt and truth-seeking communities. While we still have this active SaidIt forum I propose we utilize it as a launching pad from which to propel our collective dreams.

Branding

I propose that we should consider coming up with a clear, concise, catchy name for our Next-Generation Forum. Branding matters. There's no rush for a new name and maybe "Phoenix Forum" is good enough but I'm certainly open to better ideas and I hope to hear your forum name ideas. Against my tendencies, this must not be all about what I think, otherwise it's just public mental masturbation. The main point of this post below is more important than my distracting lists of potential names I've yet to share (much better than "Web-Free-Point-D'oh!", "ReSaidIt", etc).

Forum Liberation Fronts

I firmly believe our Next-Gen Forums need to be interactively co-developing on at least 5 fronts (lemme know if I missed any):

1) Fair Forum

My TRANSPARENT DEMOCRATIC MANAGEMENT outline was recently missed by most of you. It needs a better simpler initial summary presentation, as well as some kinks, grammar, and details ironed out. This "Fair Forum Via Democracy" is only the tip of the self-regulating-community iceberg. I would also propose the site be 100% transparent, 100% open, and as accountable as possible, with open records and statistics of all the good, bad, and ugly, with zero private messages, zero private subs, zero subs, and zero votes (replaced with the "Bonus" section below).

2) GUI + PreVis

A GUI OVERHAUL is a critical aspect of evolving beyond the limits of all current forums. In addition to superficial modes (dark/light, normal/impaired, PC/mobile, themes, etc) and fundamental functionality, flow, and purpose, this is where we have a chance to make giant conceptual leaps forward while reflecting backward. This is where the ideas are cultivated.

A PRE-VISUALIZATION TEAM could not only create images to communicate the concepts cultivated by GUI Overhaul, but I would love to see animations with voice over illustrating how everything would hypothetically operate. All work should be shared openly so that anyone could fork, update, and improve the ideas. Eventually, if our imaginary forum were motivating enough, the Soft Dev guys could be compelled to build it for real. Importantly, I would hope that faking it first would save an immense amount of effort in the coding realm where the functionality architecture is trickier than 2D pixels.

3) Soft Dev

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT is obviously necessary. I know nothing of coding so this is out of my realm, yet I know it will need to be addressed eventually. How I can help is with the PreVis Team.

4) Libre-Festos

FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTY MANIFESTOS would certainly not limited to this Next-Gen Forum project and should be at the core of all-things-resistance (against SCCMEE suffering, corporatocracy, corruption, manipulation, exploitation, and extermination). IMO, we need several manifestos to clarify critical fundamental linguistics, concepts, and strategies for our resistance efforts and for the world at large, to be understood by normies and newbies to people of influence and those who call them out. Much of this overlaps with many of our Next-Gen Forums ideals (decentralized indie-hosting, aggregated organized information, transparency, democracy, community, interactivity, opensource, crowdsource, cooperatives, nonaggression, crypto, rewards, security, anonymity, awareness, contextual understanding, flexibility, resilience, self-reliance, resistance, paradigm shifts, alternatives, solutions, etc.). This Fundamental Liberty Manifestos project (needs a better name too) is actually a much bigger project, that happens to overlap with many aspects of freedom of communication, independent technology, etc. so this will come up again and again.

5) Proj Mgmt

PROJECT MANAGEMENT would initially include spreading awareness of these projects, public relations, social media representation, funding, crypto, web-store, resources, and all forum project management. IMO, the project management team should be recruited and employed via the concepts in 1), my rough ideas about transparent democratic management. IMO, as a policy, all external social media should ONLY simply redirect to SaidIt where the conversation can be monitored, tempered, and dealt with as necessary. Anything more than that and we could consider it illegitimate, out of our control, and unauthorized behaviour and/or by unauthorized impostors. Limited exceptions may be discussed and established here on SaidIt, such as utilizing WikiSpooks and/or instances of select PeerTube.

Bonus: MetaVote™

METAVOTE™ is what I call my radical new concept that I have yet to explain in detail with illustrations. Not really a "Forum Liberation Front", this radical and fundamental concept deserves an honourable mention, so I'm providing a tiny glimpse here. Besides replacing the voting and sub/category/metatag concept I believe it could be a revolutionary simple new interface that is vastly superior to the low-information up/down vote or even the slightly better qualitative 0-10 vote of IMDb rankings. Furthermore, it takes meta-tags into entirely new dimensions. The BIG surprise is how effectively simple while informative it could be. It's so simple I bet it'll seem obvious and we'll wonder why no one has done it before. I would love to patent this cluster of concepts but without an army of lawyers I think it better to opensource it and hope for donations to support the coders who would build it. If I get interest from you on these Next-Gen Forum fronts, illustrating this MetaVote™ concept in images and animated videos would be among my first steps lay the foundations of our forum revolution. I'd like to tackle this first not only because it's freaking awesome, but I suspect there might be excellent ways to employ it or something akin to it for some kind of crypto/reward system (I only just thought of this so I need to ponder on it). I have several other radical forum ideas too, though none quite so superficially and structurally groundbreaking.

Why Phoenix?

I like the powerful mythological concept. I like Burning Man and playing with fire. I like speaking truth to power, another form of playing with fire. I like the symbolic associations to our modern age. After 2020 burned down the old normal, after the Left and Right riots and "riots", after cancel culture comes what? After Reddit sold out, and after SaidIt, then what?

Let's prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

For our Next-Gen Forum and the Forum Liberation Fronts, and whether we arrive at a better name than "Phoenix Forum" or not, I recommend we start our discussion here in a single sub rather than 5 (or more) as I'll soon start other partly related projects and I don't want to spread out until necessary.

Alternative Uses Of /s/PhoenixForum

There's no shortage of potential for such an abstract name as "Phoenix Forum", whether it's about rising from the ashes, mythology, Marvel comics, the city, sports teams, Burning Man and playing with fire, recovering from loss, building back better, burning bad ideas into good, etc etc etc. I could go on and on, but I'm tired, I bet you're tired, and I would rather this simply be a forum for discussing how to build a better future. At least for now.

Since the 5 +1 concepts above are simply brief summary outlines, I intend to post more extended outlines on each soon enough.

I first used this thumbnail then went for some something clearer. Phoenix is a classic Marvel character, with pros and cons over the ages. My first introduction was by my top 5 favourite illustrator/inker teams, Alan Davis/Paul Neary on Excalibur. The character writing is excellent too, but back then I was more keen on visual style, and theirs is ideal. I bought these comics at the convenience stores along the way bicycling to the pools where I lifeguarded summers. My originals were stolen but years later I re-bought an all-in-one graphic novel.

2nd thumbnail logo from here. It's surprising how many images there are and so few that are suitable.

3rd thumbnail was again too small to be readable in the thumbnail.

PhoenixForum

MetaVote™ - Part 1: A Brief Outline Of A Potentially Revolutionary New GUI Data-Input Form

A tool for more quality information and profoundly deeper, stronger applications - including STABs management.

The technocracy is collecting our data to use against us. Humanity NEEDS better information tools, like search, wikis, etc. Just because most people are simpleminded doesn't mean we should give up and only have 2-option vote systems.

MetaVote™ v0.0 - Intro

MetaVote™ v0.1 - Inspiration

[vote] [title, details, content] [tags]

Opinion

Topics

Other

MetaVote™ v0.2 - The Universal 5x5 Interface

Opinion Left-Vote

Most important is the quality of the information to come from this.

Original Poster Info

Topic Right-Tags... And Beyond

Conclusion & Feedback

New Idea: Filtering STABs On SaidIt

1 SaidIt User Details

2 SaidIt User Filters

3 SaidIt As A Filter For Other Sites

All anonymous users on SaidIt prove they're worthy to be accepted on other sites.

This verification method provides filtration, security, and retains anonymity.

M7 or anyone else could do this today:

In Conclusion

Your feedback matters.

**The technocracy is collecting our data to use against us. Humanity NEEDS better information tools, like search, wikis, etc.** Just because most people are simpleminded doesn't mean we should give up and only have 2-option vote systems.