Let me explain. So I wrote a Steam review recently, and someone came by and wrote something toxic. Calling me an idiot and other worse things, because I didn’t like their favourite game.
But here’s the great part: I didn’t even have to fully read their vitriol. I just clicked the trash icon and it’s gone forever. It felt empowering and amazing ~ just the ability to remove toxicity at-will. No waiting 7 business days for a mod to maybe think about removing it; no additional trolls seeing the toxicity and taking it as an invitation.
It was a stark contrast to most other social media, where you’re practically powerless. Sure, you can block the aggressor; but their comment is still there for everyone else, like a giant turd you kicked under the living room carpet. It attracts other pests, and it still affects anyone else who comes by.
Of course, it would probably be immediately abused for all the wrong reasons if implemented here ~ but it would be cool if it wasn’t. What do you guys think? Maybe there’s a middle ground that gives users more control over their posts?
Let’s perform a thought experiment.
I disagree with YOUR post. This one, right here, and I really try to politely articulate my point as to why.
You don’t like it, so you delete it. You delete any post with similar sentiment.
…Is that fair?
If you response is “well, I wouldnt do that,” think about it. That’s the power you’re asking every user on Lemmy user to be responsible with. Do you trust every user to that extent?
Absolutely not, which is why I was wondering if anyone had a way to make it work without enabling abuse. I can’t think of any, but it would be cool if it was possible. Even something like getting 1 delete per day limit might be helpful
One I’ve had, that’s adjacent, is allowing communities to form “hierarchies.”
So niches could be under /c/technology, individual video games or genres could be under /c/gaming, sports, you name it. It would all require consent from the lower and upper parts of the chain.
One benefit would be “pooling” housekeeping moderation. e.g. if a troll harassed you on a niche community, one from a higher one could moderate it quicker. Or if /c/technology was overwhelmed at a point in time, smaller communities mods could step in to housekeep comments in /c/technology, with the granularity of all this being configurable.
I bring this up because I think it helps the issue of moderators not being responsive enough to your comments. And those passionate enough to run some niche community well enough to fit in a hierarchy would earn the power to moderate comments under topics they’d frequently post to anyway. But it has a lot of other benefits, like helping with discoverability of smaller communities without an algo.