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Ask Slashdot: What Makes a Good Social Media Site? (cbsnews.com) 169

Long-time Slashdot reader shanen has a question: What makes a decent social web site? If you don't like the original form of the subjective question, how about something like "What is the best social site you know of?" or "What criteria would you use to recognize a good social site?" or even "How could a good social media website even survive...?"
Their original submission lists their own criteria for a good social site:
  • Efficient to use (without wasting your time)
  • Has educational value, "perhaps measured by questions like 'How frequently has this website justified changing my mind about something?'"
  • The size and permeability of filter bubbles formed by people using the site

But if you have different priorities for a social site -- what are they? Share your own best thoughts in the comments.

What makes a good social media site?


This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Ask Slashdot: What Makes a Good Social Media Site?

Comments Filter:
  • Pay me $8 (Score:5, Funny)

    by waslap ( 1453217 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:11AM (#63028521)
    Setup a paid market research survey you cheap skate, don't hijack Slashdot for your pipe dream of replacing Twitter now that the new captain made you walk the planck.
    • A true capitalist. Nothing for free. Every interaction with humans should be monetized. So I imagine based it this an ideal social media platform for you would be one where there are lots of micro-transactions and the value of every word, click, or view can be tracked and paid for by someone.
      • If only we could bioengineer humans with metres attached to the lungs by which we measure the quantity of air consumed by each customer, sorry, person.

      • by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:50AM (#63028673)

        waslap is accusing shanen of asking for survey results to facilitate the production of a commercial product. If anyone here is monetizing human interactions, it's (potentially) shanen.

        • by shanen ( 462549 )

          I'm pretty sure he was joking. But when I offered my reply joke about considering investing in a good social media website, I should have added the constraint "But I certainly wouldn't invest if I, myself, were directly involved in any managerial or decision-making sense."

          The $8 reference is obviously to Elon, all heil! My own idea would be donating $10 charity shares for good features and operating costs. But that trick will never work because cost recovery is a weak motivation compared to the golden unico

    • by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:51AM (#63028677)

      Nice thing about plancks: they're a constant length. But they're so small that I don't see how anyone would walk down one. 6.626 x 10^(-34) m2? That's tiny!

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      I didn't get the joke at first. Sounded like simpleminded ad hominem idiocy, but looking at the form of the story as it appeared here, now I feel like saying "Fair play, sir!" Wrong goal, but it was a nice kick.

      So in direct response, I've been on the start up train a couple of times. No thank you. I suppose I might consider investing, but it would depend on the management team. I doubt I'd be willing to put up more than 100 bucks considering the Internet mess we've gotten ourselves into.

      I think one of my ma

  • by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:25AM (#63028539)
    Any social media site has people who do things that they deserve to be banned for.

    So there need to be moderators who can ban people.

    But there has to be a fair appeal, so partisan moderators cannot ban people and are punished themselves for unfair bans.

    Facebook and Reddit, for example, have many partisan moderators and no (working) appeal.
    • I would second this, I feel as though this is the real crux of the "free speech" issue.

      The precedent in America is very strong in favor of the platforms to moderate their sites and I hope all political spectrumcs recognize and respect that, trying to eliminate that ability wont (and shouldnt) fly legally.

      However I think there is space to regulate how they go about enforcing that. If someone is violating TOS and you want to ban them it should be explicity laid out what it was and how it violated. There ar

    • Exactly. The moderators should reflect MY opinions, not someone else's.

    • Facebook and Reddit, for example, have many partisan moderators and no (working) appeal.

      I think the facebook oversight board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] seems very useful and it's certainly ambitious just looking at how it was created, it's constituents and the financing. I'm not a facebook (nor reddit) user so how well the appeals process works in practice I can't say.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @12:21PM (#63029059) Homepage Journal

      Mastodon might be a decent solution here. It's a bunch of different servers that can federate, i.e. any given server can have its own rules and choose which other servers it gets posts from.

      As a user you can follow anyone on any server, and move your account between servers without losing your followers.

      If you don't want extreme stuff, join a server that doesn't allow it and doesn't federate with servers that do. If for some reason you like 8chan but don't want to actually be on 8chan, find a server that caters to that or start your own. Servers with few users don't require massive resources, and some people run them from home.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:29AM (#63028549) Homepage

    It used to be slashdot, back in its prime.

    • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:08AM (#63028615) Homepage Journal

      It used to be slashdot, back in its prime.

      If Slashdot was so great, what happened? It went downhill before the current ownership, not that they've done anything to change it. Moderation hasn't changed. Editors still don't deserve to be called editors, they are not even as skilled as a conscientious amateur. But none of this is a difference from the olden days of the site. The only thing that's really changed is... the users.

      Here's Slashdot's secret, the same thing that made it work (the moderation system) is the thing that ultimately doomed it to suck. It is based around fundamentally bad ideas. First bad idea, you cannot comment and moderate in the same discussion. This is bad because the people qualified to post and the people qualified to moderate are the same people. If you fear abuse, then don't let people comment and moderate in the same thread. Second idea, moderation points should be awarded psuedorandomly. This is bad because the system didn't and doesn't work. People metamoderated capriciously, so some people stopped getting modpoints for BS reasons. Third idea, depend on metamoderation to make moderation work, but create a system that promotes moderation and then hide all references to metamoderation. That's bad because not enough people metamoderate for the system to work.

      You need moderation, but this moderation system doesn't work. It led directly to the Slashdot of today, where the people writing serious comments are outnumbered by trolls gaming the system, and are forced to play the game themselves if they want to preserve comment visibility when debate exists.

      • /. is a tech focused website for a very specific type of nerd. The Kind of slightly above average intelligence and settles into a code monkey job or administering a small Data center.

        The problem is the.com crash and a huge increase in cheap Indian labor and outsourcing basically wrecked us. So that made us all really bitter and unpleasant. Also technology of the kind that we can participate in isn't just common anymore. The consolidation of gadgets around phones means you don't have a bunch of cool gadg
        • Me and some of the old timers pushed back and mostly got them under control here

          You don't say

        • by sinij ( 911942 )

          The problem is the.com crash and a huge increase in cheap Indian labor and outsourcing basically wrecked us. And of course because you have a bunch of disaffected and angry men who lost their jobs that brought the alt right trolls here to recruit.

          So you are admitting that outsourcing to cheap immigrant labor negatively affected core /. audience, but somehow it is alt-right fault? Does not compute.

          • So you are admitting that outsourcing to cheap immigrant labor negatively affected core /. audience, but somehow it is alt-right fault? Does not compute.

            Do you think the people who made those decisions (e.g. the outsourcing and the hiring in of H1Bs instead of training domestic candidates) are liberal or conservative?

            • by sinij ( 911942 )

              So you are admitting that outsourcing to cheap immigrant labor negatively affected core /. audience, but somehow it is alt-right fault? Does not compute.

              Do you think the people who made those decisions (e.g. the outsourcing and the hiring in of H1Bs instead of training domestic candidates) are liberal or conservative?

              Considering strong anti-immigration views of alt-right, it is safe to say that they are not alt-right.

              • Considering strong anti-immigration views of alt-right, it is safe to say that they are not alt-right.

                It's OK, you don't have to say alt-right, they took "Nazi" out of the filter.

                However, if you look at all the roadblocks and hurdles the H1B program puts in the way of becoming a citizen, you will see that it is fairly anti-immigration compatible. The only real benefit of a H1B visa over any other kind is that it is renewable, and most of them are not. You have to be here for six years on a H1B before you can even apply for citizenship through the program. In addition, most of the hardcore not-in-my-country

                • by sinij ( 911942 )
                  Is everyone opposed to immigration, even if demonstrably harmed by it, is a Nazi in your book?
                  • What are you talking about? Alt-right is just polite for white supremacist. Kind of like neoliberal is polite for left fascist.

          • Who do you think rigged the H1b system to create a subcaste of workers?

            Many other countries have immigrant labor programs that aren’t designed to tie you to an employer. Here in the US you have to restart your GC package and if you get fored, laid off, or quit you have an incredibly short window to find a new sponsor.

            This puts downward pressure on the cost of all labor.
            Was this an accident?

            • by sinij ( 911942 )

              Was this an accident?

              Almost certainly not. The point I was making in response to rsilvergun is that decrying anti-immigration views of US IT workers when they were demonstrably negatively impacted by "a huge increase in cheap Indian labor and outsourcing" is foolish.

        • Honestly /. is the only tolerable site for me. The politics are a big part of it, but it is also a broader intelligence issue. There are still some stories that turn to shit, and the way it happens is fascinating; some topics just can't be discussed here effectively.

          I use Reddit for some stuff, but my god it is painful. I used to like the comment section of my local paper... but it has become stupidly political even on non-political topics. I generally don't care to be the loudest voice in the room, so I li

      • Back when I wasn’t commenting I had mod points every other day. Now with frequent posting it’s been years since mod points were awarded.

        • by sinij ( 911942 )

          Now with frequent posting it's been years since mod points were awarded.

          I am certain that your lack of moderation points has nothing to do with your posting and everything to do with -1 disagree abuse.

      • Slashdot went to shit when they changed the theme and the user base shrank. With the current small user pool metamoderation and moderation are pathetically easy to game. Also anonymous posting was allowed way too long in the days of paid post farmers. I mean if ypu were paid per post + per response and there was a popular website that didn’t even make you log in of course you’d make sure to keep a few tabs open, it’s easy money.

        • Slashdot went to shit when they changed the theme

          I'm still using the old theme, plus a couple of ultra-simple user scripts I wrote to redirect away from the section-specific hostnames. That plus a whole bunch of ad blocking has kept Slashdot light and usable for me. I still post in "Plain Old Text" mode by default and dress it up with exactly as much HTML as I want.

          On my phone, I do use the crappy new interface that is missing all kinds of features, because it is still better for a phone. But I don't try to get serious on my phone, either, unless I can al

      • Slashdot was great for many years, I used to get a lot of mod points and I tried to take it seriously. When I hadn't been logged in for a while (weeks or more), I never got mod points. (Not saying it was due to me), but during that time I did notice that quality of moderation had declined and I ended up abandoning /. altogether.

        So I would add that to your list of moderation issues. Don't make it hard for good mods to do what you need them to do. Give them notices or schedules, and don't evaporate their
        • What I like about moderation here is being forced to decide if you want to post or moderate: it forces you to decide how you want to interact with a topic. There are some times I wish I had mod points, but I feel like I have them about half the time.

          I assume the algorithm rewards the level of daily interaction with the site with points. Honestly though, there should be good data that can be mined here from the logs on topics with failed moderation. It would make for an interesting analysis.

      • by dargaud ( 518470 )
        One drawback of /. is the fact that it's 10 or so stories per day, period. If you applied the same (or very similar) moderation principles to a free-posting site, I'm pretty sure it would work better than the existing methods AND involve the users a lot more. I think this hierarchy of posting / moderating / meta-moderating works well in practice (although metamod has been broken on ./ for what, 10 years ?)
      • by shanen ( 462549 )

        Mod parent even more insightful. Maybe the first child, too?

  • by Fons_de_spons ( 1311177 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:29AM (#63028551)
    Your messages can only be seen, liked, shared, ... by people who live in a radius of 25km around you. This way the village idiots stay local and do not unite. Want to go broader? First get enough credibility in your local community. Yeah, I know, too simple.
    • by Junta ( 36770 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:44AM (#63028655)

      Happenstance of geography unfortunately is hardly a guarantee. For an example, look at the US house of representatives, where everyone can agree there are some 'village idiots' (just different people believe different people are the idiots). In the meantime, if you are in some 'niche' you'll not find your way to participate in your niche even if your niche is innocuous. For example, growing up my local area was dominated by a sense that D&D was evil, computers were for loser weirdos, city folk were insufferable snobs, but as I got to be connected with a wider geography, I got to get a more comprehensive view and developed interests that were impossible with my local geography.

      There is the problem of social networks exacerbating echo chambers, you get to find 'your people' and the more of your engagement spent exclusively with 'your people', the more offf the deep end you get in ways that can be significantly harmful. However I don't think happenstance of geography would serve to counteract that.

      • Social media tends to create cliques. Twitter for example, is a crowd of politicians and journalists talking to other politicians and journalists. There is hardly anyone sane there.
        • Social media tends to create cliques. Twitter for example, is a crowd of politicians and journalists talking to other politicians and journalists. There is hardly anyone sane there.

          I'd say it's the moderation system that's so broken the comment section is less than useless. The recent Elon, AOC twitter exchanges has tens of thousands of comments, I couldn't be paid enough to read them. I find it amazing that Elon actually seems to read and reply to posts but perhaps what the $8 can do for you is provide some sane ranking which makes it readable?

  • by Canberra1 ( 3475749 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:49AM (#63028579)
    Privacy and User Settings. Let the user decide ALL settings, and rather than censorship, let the user decide on woke or small L settings, or if he/she wants a full uncensored view of the world if he/she meet age restrictions. And full account deletion or factory reset as it were. Elon could also charge people for the privilege of being able to wipe comments and start again.
    • Problem is this is weaponized against users. Just check out the possible privacy options on Google. It's complicated. You have to study the whole structure then they often overwhelm you with more controls than you can understand. It's a deceptive design pattern, to give 1000 options. Here. You want full control? Take it. Take the next 6 months of your life to figure out these 1000 controls. That is more than each programming team is responsible for, how is a regular chump going to understand?

      I would sugge
  • No such thing (Score:5, Informative)

    by lurk101 ( 10182445 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:49AM (#63028581)
    The only good social media platform is a dead social media platform.
  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:50AM (#63028583)

    ... but a protocol with proper cross-plafform end-user-friendly reference implementations of a client.

    Facebook, Twitter, Discord and Slack only have a "business case" because E-Mail and Usenet are regular protocols and services from the steam age of computing and IRC lacks encryption and anonymity. Replace those with up-to-date services, protocols and clients that fix everything that is broken with the old stuff and Facebook, Twitter and Co. will vanish pretty quickly.

    • by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
      Irc has encryption ( at least transport layer if the server admin sets it up and users choose to connect over ssl/tls, but you are partly right whithout client side plugins and additional setup IRC does not have E2E encryption
    • Isn't Mastodon pretty much exactly as you are describing though? Even IRC has been heavily displaced by Discord for casual use and everyones flavor of chat app for business.

      Thing as, as everyone is finding out with Mastodon, decentralized protocols are great in theory for something like social media but in reality it adds too much complexity for the normies and celebrity class who are really the core drivers of a social media site hitting critical mass.

      There is a need for a centralized location for everyon

      • Thing as, as everyone is finding out with Mastodon, decentralized protocols are great in theory for something like social media but in reality it adds too much complexity

        As we found out with irc! Remember netsplits?

        The biggest problem with Mastodon isn't that it's decentralized, though. It's that it ignored the interface refinements of other platforms.

    • by dargaud ( 518470 )
      What you describe can still be flooded with spam and disinformation. There's a *need* for moderation, but apart from ./ nobody got it right yet.
  • "Social media" is a marketing term. "What makes a good social media site" is like asking what makes a good ad. Can I block it? That's good. But the ad itself still isn't. It's just less bad than others.

  • Efficient to use (without wasting your time)

    Er ... you were asking about social media, right?

    • by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
      I think ( without puting words into anyones mouth) " without wasting your time" actually means " without making me feel I waste time I don't want to waste" ir not showing " content" that does not interest me such as ads or the 50th re pist if the meeme I saw 2 weeks ago. People don't mind wasting time as long as it's on things they want to waste time on.
  • by Dirk Becher ( 1061828 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:15AM (#63028627)

    is the one where my opinions are promoted while opinions I don't care about are banned.

    • by sinij ( 911942 )

      is the one where my opinions are promoted while opinions I don't care about are banned.

      If you don't have any principles or core values other than attention whoring, then any social media site could work for you.

    • is the one where my opinions are promoted while opinions I don't care about are banned.

      I find your opinion offensively hypocritical and it should be banned!

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Deserves some "Insightful", too. But to be clear, I'm against banning. I just don't want the mindless garbage to be visible where it wastes my time.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:26AM (#63028643)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • pub life (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymouse Cowtard ( 6211666 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:40AM (#63028653) Homepage

    A good social media site is like a pub. Different areas with different conversation. Occasionally, someone likes the cut of your jibe and shouts you a beer.

    There's sports to watch and wager on, titty shows, women with foreign accents, people from school, people from work, people from down the street.

    The drunks and brawlers are ejected. The spew is mopped up. There's bowls of finger food or tapas available at the bar. There's a smoking section with hookahs and spliffs. Darts, snooker, pool, billiards, jukeboxes, table tennis, board games. There's live music. And a souvenirs shop.

    Admission is free but tipping is expected.

    • Re:pub life (Score:5, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:46AM (#63028659) Homepage Journal

      Sounds like you're describing reddit. I keep hearing about the dumpster fires there, but I have yet to fall into one, so clearly the separation into communities is working at least some of the time.

      • The moderation there can be abusive:

        https://www.reddit.com/r/Reddi... [reddit.com]

        Not a great archive of past abuses, but it's an okay place to start.

        • So I went to your link and started reading from the top, and even at a glance over 50% of those people are toxic AF. Of the remainder, about 50% were too dumb to even make their complaint clearly. I'm going to say... good

    • by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
      We are in agreement on everything in your post exept for the exoected tipping, Places should pay theit employees a fair wage ( I don't object to paying fir fir the drinks/snacs to enable this) but I don't like the expectation that you should pay more then the prices listed for oeople to just domthe jobs that thay have been hiered to do, ie serve drinks/snacs, that is an expense that falls on the business owner and should be reflected in the prices they charge.
    • That is extremely insightful.

      I might disagree with a few things-- specifically what is on TV, but reality is that it is true. Background creates mood. Some pubs I specifically identify with the content on TV: the trendy spot in Hong Kong above LQF that had the kneeboard videos in the late 90's, the bar at bubba gump, and a few neighborhood spots over the years.

      I guess it all comes down to what booth you are in and who you decide to talk to.

  • by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:51AM (#63028675) Journal

    Social Media directly contradicts the term "good". At least from the point of view of an individual or society.

    The only thing social media is good at is selling adds and fanning the flames of outrage.

    See, the whole concept that makes social media profitable makes its use to society impossible:

    - Too large a monkey sphere
    With so many people, your reputation means nothing. Hence people act like assholes. Or you get denounced, because that's easy to do when the consensus around isn't "Kokuyo is on average a thoughtful guy. If what he says is controversial, it might be interesting to hear why that is."

    - Drive buy posting
    Social media, on purpose, makes it hard to follow individual conversations, finding where it's your turn to add to a convo and finding out what exactly has been said so far.

    - Balance
    You have to shorten your statements as to not lose peoples' interest but then you get accused of being a proponent of the worst strawman one could come up based on deliberate misinterpretation of your statement. Or you get long-whinded, people stop reading after sentence two or you run into the site's character limit.

    Add these points to current society's unwillingness to give the benefit of doubt, I find online discussions have become absolutely useless at best and detrimental by default.

    Now if only I could stop opening my mouth and wasting my time because "somebody's wrong on the internet!"...

    • With so many people, your reputation means nothing.

      Reputation is everything. That's why some people float to the top of the turd soup.

      finding where it's your turn to add to a convo

      If you can't tell, you probably have nothing to add.

      You have to shorten your statements as to not lose peoples' interest

      That's what I like about Twitter. It forces a certain composition style that lends itself to short, declarative, informative statements. Each tweet should stand alone, like sentences or paragraphs should.

    • Almost as bad, spulling skillz go out the windoh!

  • by bjoast ( 1310293 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @09:57AM (#63028691)
    That's what makes a social media site interesting at least. Never been fond of any mechanism that creates an atmosphere of conformity. Let the ideas speak for themselves, and if you want to find the pearls, expect to do some digging.
    • That's what makes a social media site interesting at least. Never been fond of any mechanism that creates an atmosphere of conformity. Let the ideas speak for themselves, and if you want to find the pearls, expect to do some digging.

      I believe the opposite, twitters lack of downvoting is it's greatest flaw. Disgruntled people commenting in the thousands makes comments unbearable to read. I'd put the bar at about a hundred comments and it's just a mess, even with the low ranked comments (whatever metric they use I don't know) grouped at the bottom with an additional disclaimer. I think a downvote button would save me from a lot of negative comments that doesn't add to the discussion.

      The slashdot comments are imho still readable with hund

  • ...social media services that aren't set up to maximise revenues, reduce costs, & minimise risks & liabilities, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, et al.. That's where the problems stem from:

    Confusing, misleading UX design because they want to keep you & your attention on their advertisers as long as possible.
    They want you to hunt around & click through to different pages to find the stuff you want in order to generate metrics for their sponsors & marketing.
    They promote users who provoke extrem
    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Should be moderated insightful? I only found it as the only other mention of motive in the already lengthy discussion. I wish I had arrived at the party earlier...

  • by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @10:22AM (#63028745)
    What ruins social media? Haha, easy one: people.

    but assuming that both social media and people will be around...

    It seems pretty clear that the switch from "popularity contest model" to "algorithms" triggered a race to the bottom. The discovery that anger is monetizeable at 5x the value of anything, including sex, was a turning point in the social media playbook.

    Who knows the exact genesis time and place but Twitter and Facebook seemed to figure it out at the same time. So that lead to things like Cambridge Analytica, micro targeting, the ongoing destruction of orthodoxy. I.e. rise of wokism on the left and the corresponding counterweight on the right, QAnon, and all the shades thereof.

    So now everyone is hopping mad, and they know they are right, because they found a group of like minded fools to agree with. Also, we all have a YouTube video that "proves" we are right. McLuhan describes how electronic media "re-tribalizes" people and society [Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964]

    For anyone who's bothered read this far, its the *algorithmic monetization of anger* that basically blew a fatal hole in society.

    Think about it. The target market for anger is arguably much larger than the target market for sex. Anecdotally, its fairly obvious that monetizing anger has been extremely profitable!

    I could be wrong, but my experience with Instagram before the Facebook takeover, was fairly non toxic place for the use case of photographers and visual artists. YMMV.
    • In short, they chose to rank up stuff you engage with, not stuff you engage with positively. It's not what you want to see, it's literally anything that will get you to interact. If you make an angry face react and block the content, the only thing the algorithm reacts to is the fact that you reacted. This has predictable effects...

  • by GodWasAnAlien ( 206300 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @10:27AM (#63028755)

    Current social media profits from viral/mob thoughts/beliefs. The bigger the mob, the bigger the segment is for advertisers.

    A "good" social media site would be closer to a non-electronic human social circle.

    You have social circles based on the people you interact with. Your family, your schoolmates, your co-workers, your running group, your knitting group, your poker group ... Those would be your primary groups, and you shape your view of the world slowly and locally.
    Secondary group would be organizations that you associate with but you do not know personally: Your entire school, your entire company, your church...
    As the groups get bigger they become more disconnected from you personally, and carry less weight.
    If something happens in the news, it would get filtered through your groups. perhaps you are "six degrees" away from the event.

    With current social media, it is all flipped. Some political leader or famous person gives a view point, and the follower mob reacts to that directly.

    Current social media has shown itself to be a net-negative for humanity.

  • ... what makes a good pile of shit? well, a big enough load of shit!

    you have examples galore to get inspiration from!

  • by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @10:35AM (#63028775) Homepage Journal

    What makes a good social media site

    1: Engages moderators by allowing them to participate in the conversation with their own IDs

    2: Allows everyone to moderate, all the time

    3: Supports the Unicode character set inasmuch as it isn't 1997 any longer

    4: Allows editing of posts for correcting mistakes for at least a few minutes. Just mark post as "edited."

    5: Enables reasonable authoring HTML such as strikethough, spoiler, <abbr> tags, etc.

    6: Offers markdown authoring as well as HTML

    7: Ensures its "editors" are capable of, you know, editing.

    8: When users vote up a subject in something like, lets call it a... "firehose"... lets the article post

    9: Doesn't bombard its users with advertising that takes up major portions of the browser window (restricting ads to small, curated text advertisements would be something that would really improve the world... I'd even buy advertising for my products on a site like that)

    10: Displays downvotes and upvotes as well as a summary rating: +20, -15, 5

    11: Offers user-defined upvote/downvote rationales. Storage is cheap now. Surely a few bytes per vote could be spared. I'd love to tag an upvote with "Well Informed", or a downvote with "Faux Newz", etc. Some sites (not naming any names, but) show a grievous lack of imagination when it comes to flavors of up/down votes. ...that'd be a good start.

    • As uncomfortable I am with the idea, I'd add to that list the social scoring which is unregistered/anonymous users post at 0, registered at +1 and accounts with karma bonus at +2. I'd be agnostic to if that's a user selectable preference or default.

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      I think I agree with most of your ideas, but they are mostly bandages for Slashdot in particular and I am inclined to think this baby has already dissolved in the bathwater.

  • There's no such thing as a good social media site. The for-profit ones quickly become evil and the not-for-profit ones don't attract users and usually have a sub-par interface.

  • One that returns 404 on its frontpage.

    In other words, one that doesn't exist.

    • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      One that returns 404 on its frontpage.

      In other words, one that doesn't exist.

      In order to return a 404, there needs to be infrastructure that responds to the initial request.
      So by your definition the site has to exist in order for it not to exist. /s

  • Good decent people who behave themselves. Problem is, nobody would go there, it would be boring.

  • Wait what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @11:36AM (#63028941)

    The original submission suggestions make it sound like someone is doing work. About the only social media site I can think of where I would apply the criteria of efficiency and education is shit like Yammer.

    Social media is about two things:
    1. content you want to see.
    2. from people you want to see it from.

    Nothing more, nothing less. The biggest social media sites didn't get that way because they are efficient or educational. The two criteria apply universally, be they to Facebook / Twitter, to echo chambers such as Truth Social, or to whatever dark net site some paedophile goes to talk to his fellow paedophiles.

  • I use FB to show my work and see what other glassworkers are making. FB works for me because there are lots of glassworkers there, although many are leaving because of the increasing quantity of crap

    I don't use IG because it's optimized for smartphones and I use a desktop computer
    TikTok simply sucks, and it's mobile focused
    Twitter is useless
    The glassworking subreddits are ghost towns

    For me, the perfect social media site would have ALL glassworkers on it and be free of crap

  • by sentiblue ( 3535839 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @11:41AM (#63028953)
    First and foremost thing: The leadership of a social media can't take side in politics. Nobody forbids them, but if they wanna exercise politics, just don't start social media site. Jack Dorsey is a plucking idiot when he decided to ban Trump. Now I'm not defending Jan 6 assholes at all, but Jack Dorsey didn't ban him cuz of that, he did that because it gave him an excuse. Twitter banned dozens of politicians and all of them are in the same party. None of his party politicians got banned. He was stupid and he paid for his mistake. The board fired him and took away his chairmanship too. For sure they weren't gonna allow one man cost the company billions of dollars in stock price dip. They weren't as hell gonna allow his political agenda harm the company further, so they took away everything. And now when Twitter gets acquired, he's not allowed to sit in the negotiation table of the company that he created.

    Second thing to consider: Have some respect for your users. I know social media makes profit with ads, but just don't be so blatant like Zuckerberg. He outright takes data from people by breaking every damn law there is about privacy protection. FB was once fined $5 BILLION for this and they still continued stealing while disrespect every user, every law, every rule book. On top of that, Zuckerberg doesn't give a crap about his own employees. At FB money is everything. Fuck employees and ethics!! That's now coming back to haunt him. His company is bleeding hard and he doesn't know how to stop it.
    • Jack Dorsey is a plucking idiot when he decided to ban Trump. Now I'm not defending Jan 6 assholes at all, but Jack Dorsey didn't ban him cuz of that, he did that because it gave him an excuse.

      Jack Dorsey decided not to ban Trump through literally dozens of violations that would have gotten anyone else banned. He provably was finding excuses not to ban him, and you think the opposite. You say you're not defending Jan 6 assholes, but you believe the same stupid Faux News shit they do.

      Twitter banned dozens of politicians and all of them are in the same party.

      Which ones do you believe didn't repeatedly violate Twitter's policies?

      On top of that, Zuckerberg doesn't give a crap about his own employees. At FB money is everything. Fuck employees and ethics!! That's now coming back to haunt him. His company is bleeding hard and he doesn't know how to stop it.

      All true, but in these regards, Musk makes Zuckerberg look like a fucking heros, it's weird you chose to pick on the android.

      • Which ones do you believe didn't repeatedly violate Twitter's policies?

        Oh I totally think some of them are very deserving to be banned due to the repeated violations of the TOS. But that's not the point though. The point is that all the banned politicians are from the same party that he opposes. There is a similar number of politicians from his own party who violated the TOS too, NONE of them got banned. That's why Jack Dorsey is a phucking idiot. That's why he got fired and can't negotiate the sale of his own company.

        • The only one who got permanently banned was Trump. Twitter also "permanently" banned MTG, but then unbanned her, and Barry Moore might also still be on indefinite temporary suspension AFAIK. Nobody else got more than a week, and most only for 12 hours. Some Democrats have been required to delete some tweets; all of them complied, so none of them got suspended. I disagree with your characterization of the situation.

    • First and foremost thing: The leadership of a social media can't take side in politics.

      Agreed.

      Jack Dorsey is a plucking idiot when he decided to ban Trump. Now I'm not defending Jan 6 assholes at all, but Jack Dorsey didn't ban him cuz of that, he did that because it gave him an excuse.

      Mostly disagree.

      The only reason Trump hadn't been banned a long time before is he was President. Jan 6th wasn't so much a reason in itself as it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

      Looking back, it was a good business decision. Twitter's brand was being tarnished by Trump constantly using it to troll people. If they kicked him off earlier they would have been better off.

      Twitter banned dozens of politicians and all of them are in the same party. None of his party politicians got banned.

      Which is what happens when one party normalizes violent rhetoric.

      He was stupid and he paid for his mistake. The board fired him and took away his chairmanship too. For sure they weren't gonna allow one man cost the company billions of dollars in stock price dip. They weren't as hell gonna allow his political agenda harm the company further, so they took away everything.

      Yet after he left the ban on Trump remained along with their

  • I'd say the most important thing is a solid well thought out business model that does not irritate users (otherwise known as the holy grail). A good example of this is Twitter which, much to my amusement, became an even better example of a success looking for a solid business model (after sixteen years of searching) a mere hours after it was taken over by business genius Elon Musk. Most of these sites that succeed seem to score huge user counts with free services and then struggle to make any money without
  • by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @01:13PM (#63029163) Homepage Journal

    Any place that serves free coffee is a good place to chat.

  • Not commercial
    Decentralised
    Ease-of-use of centralised system
    Not implementing censorship (hypocritically called "moderation" these days), neither by the operator of the system nor by the government
    Only the user can delete their own messages, or whole existence
    One-click "block" option
    Up-and-down votes, as well as mood emoticons
    One click "report to authorities" option (as the authorities, properly informed about actually possibly outlawed speech, must be the only one acting and deciding on legal issues)

  • by Stomper_Stoddard ( 930896 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @02:34PM (#63029405) Journal
    The answer is simple, the people. I use Facebook because that is where the majority of my friends and family are at. I use Twitter because that is where my favorite authors, artists and designers are at. If things change, so will I, this is why MySpace is not a thing anymore.
    • Hello, you seem to be the only person that understood the assignment. I wish I had mod points.

      Everyone else is talking about moderation, limits, privacy, the BUSINESS MODEL, etc.

      The best social media site is one that allows you to engage in being social through a different medium than in person. That's it. That's the whole thing. To interact with friends and keep up with them. To have discussions with other people that are like minded (and by that, I don't just mean people that agree with you, but with peop

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