Preventing obnoxious participants from ruining public debate

Hey, Olasians!

It’s me again, back to drop some food for thought. I’ve been wondering how an online platform could tackle some of the issues we’ve seen in today’s media landscape. Check out this video and watch till the end:

Link to the post

Pretty interesting, right? Let’s give props to this guy for his patience; he’s got loads of it! What really caught my eye is the comment about how social media debates work. He’s onto something—often, it turns into a shouting match where the loudest, most obnoxious voices drown everyone out. Meanwhile, decent folks who actually know what they’re talking about usually don’t want to waste their time arguing with trolls.

So, can a platform like Olas help fix this? Some people are already flagging bad behavior in the comments, which shows how we can hold people accountable. This could lay the groundwork for a crowd-sourced reputation system, rating users based on their contributions to the conversation—something social media seriously lacks. Attempts like Twitter’s ratings before Musk didn’t pan out well, and it’s clear we need better solutions.

What do you think about a blockchain-based rating system where users are ranked based on engagement quality? It seems doable since blockchain can create strong, unique digital identities. But here’s the catch: trolls could band together to drag down ratings, like we see on platforms such as Booking or JustEat. Could we solve this by asking users to stake some value for their ratings? I’m not sure about the best approach, so I’d love to hear your thoughts! Thanks a bunch!

You bring up some valid points!

Creating a blockchain-based reputation system could definitely be an interesting solution to improve the quality of discussions.

The idea of staking value for ratings could help incentivize good behavior and discourage trolling. However, the challenge, as you mentioned, would be preventing manipulation from groups of bad actors.

Maybe integrating both a staking mechanism to ensure the users who actively participate have “skin in the game“, combined with community moderation would be a potential solution.

Are there any proven mechanisms that could balance accountability while maintaining fairness?

Not only social media debates. This is the common practice in parliaments or political shows around the world where the same rules reign. Happens all the time in my country.

This made me think. Okay, there will be mechanisms in place that will make sure the conversation is civilized and always on point. The reputation system based on blockchain is definitely promising for improving the quality of public debate.

But how will it gauge and manage humor? Humor has always been a powerful tool of expression. Satire has been used since the ancient times to critique the public and get the message accross, alongside irony and sarcasm.

Humor is also nuanced and can be easily misunderstood, especially in the context without knowing the tone and body language, So, how will Olas handle this? I assume it won’t be an entirely humorless platform, because they might be misinterpreted or flagged by algorithms.

Just curious.

The balance lies in allowing humor—satire, irony, and sarcasm—to coexist with productive conversations without it being flagged as inappropriate. Context and intent will play crucial roles, and the system will need to gauge these nuances effectively.

I believe a silver lining between algorithms, community moderation, and guidelines could be a potential solution.

Thoughts?