Repeating from your link:

---

Is there a reddit alternative that doesn't suck?

By reddit alternative, I mean a social platform for forums (subs).

By "doesn't suck" I mean:

1. Free speech. Forums/subs and users only banned for violating the law, spam, or doxxing.

2. Unlimited moderation. Mods own forums/subs and can do whatever they want.

3. No site-wide moderation like reddit making users wait between posts if they have low karma.

4. Easy to create forums/subs. No endless waiting (like on ruqqus).

5. Functional search.

6. No down-voting or option to remove down-voting from forums/subs. Down-voting is just a way for the moronic masses to harass free thinkers.

I have looked at a number of alternatives and haven't found any meeting these requirements.

---

I already see a couple issues. 1) Free speech and 2) unlimited moderation are already at odds. Either the mod will censor the speech or they won't.

I also see pros and cons to all those points except 5) functional search, which would only be wonderful.

I have ideas on your points, but they require coding.

Before we consider overhauling the SaidIt code or others similar, I wonder if it might be easier to adopt an existing very popular, stable, secure, high-feature, federate-able, opensource forum code and re-skinning it to appear like Reddit/SaidIt with most of the same functionality?

If we could build something akin to the Mastodon federated model then there could be countless forums with their own rules that range from limited to free speech. IMO who ever is hosting it gets ultimate say, above and beyond the mods and users, and sadly this power could and would be abused. Fortunately, in a federated system, content could be distributed, backed up, forked, etc. (I think).

IMO, there needs to be 3 kinds of subs: topics, communities, and feeds. Preferably with metatags. Ideally topics would be well categorized and controlled with democratic feedback. Communities could be random and chaotic. Feeds would be automated to follow content creators. Empty, stagnant, or rudderless subs can be reclaimed via a process to be determined democratically.

IMO, there needs to be 4 voting options, ideally all on a scale of 0-10: like, dislike, insightful, fun. Obviously you can't like and dislike simultaneously. No fancy weighting and dislikes don't subtract from likes nor vice versa. We should be able to sort our content by metatags, topics, and voting options, as well as the typical date, hot, etc.

Instead of cross-posting it would be better to have the option to be posted in a single sub or have the post s-linked in multiple other relevant subs but with a single conversation.

All of these democratic terms of service processes would be wise to organize into some kind of general consensus to cover the types, include variants, and be updated. For example, copyleft has the Creative Commons with their many versions with variants and room for more.

All of these ideas should be flexible enough so that if another type of sub or vote or whatever comes up it should be easy to add or remove in the next update (this includes database management).

Ideally anyone with a PC should be able to host a federated instance. Not only should it be simple to install and administrate, it should be easy to backup and share and sync the database, via torrent in bulk and/or sharding in blocks or whatever, perhaps in a blockchain. A crypto/rewards system would be nice but that's a whole other layer ripe for corruption and exploitation. IMO, better to let the users do that among themselves.

I suppose folks might prefer phone apps to web pages. Prepare for that I guess - and prepare to be censored/blocked/banned from corporate app stores and git vaults.

That's enough dreaming for now. I could go on and on and on but I'm getting tired.