EXTRA: brainstorming session and notes
Introduction:
I'm truly thrice blessed to share some ideas for new textboard features that I think would be simple to implement and worthwhile to see enacted, even if experimentally. I've divided them into five main topics, with a few subtopics under each one. Please feel free to add your own suggestions or comments in the replies! Existing text and image board software is often difficult to moderate and can be a breeding ground for boring workaday abuses. I am proposing a new software solution that addresses these problems by using a variety of innovative features, including user registration, a reputation system, and a community moderation queue.
User registration: This would allow moderators to track users and ban those who engage in abusive behavior.
Reputation system: This would allow moderators to identify and reward users who contribute positively to the community, as well as enable certain benefits.
Community moderation queue: This would allow users to participate in the moderation process and help to ensure that the forum is a welcoming and inclusive environment.
User Management and Registration
A problem I see with .onion domains is that there is no ip address to ban in the instance of abuse. A simple registration with captcha allows access to the board. Registration would be handled one of four ways- open, closed, invitation with referral code, or moderator approval only. The referral code could create a "who invited who" database or visual graphic so that poisonous branches may be pruned, and fruit bearing branches nurtured, all without exposing which registered user it was, just their identifier. This information could be public or private. The captcha should have a small time delayed task to discourage mass sign ups through bots or otherwise, such as a quick game of tetris or God knows. Registration gives access to the entire board, a containment board, or all the boards except the moderator's forum. For instance a primary text based forum is available to public use for growing gourmet or medicinal mushrooms for passive users, but a nested image board is available for growing gourmet or medicinal mushrooms with images turned on for users that actually grow or donate, since this area is less likely to be abused per the vetting process.
What accounts for abuse is up to the moderator, but could range from culturally disrespectful behavior to bot spam, flooding, or worse. The registration allows a user to access to the board, and presents to an administrator or moderator a sort of tripcode identifier token of a post's author, but does not show which user it is- allowing for anonymity in use and in moderation. For instance user "user123" password "password123" logs in and makes a series of disruptive posts. Regular forum viewers would be able to see this disruptive post, but anonymously, without knowledge of their identity. The forum moderator, however, would be able to view this post with a scrambled number next to the posts that acts an identifier of the user account that is making the disruptive post. This identifier also allows for use as a tool of enforcement, as it allows the moderator to ban users per registered account, while allowing torified anonymity, or i2p, or what have you.
The question is, won't registration slow things down to the point to where they are useless? This caveat has occurred to me. I think as long as the registration of accounts required a cool down time and the solving of a captcha puzzle, you would be able to discourage passive vandals, allow the curious passer-by a quick peek, and also allow for people who are actually interested in discussion an ability to be a part of a truly anonymous discussion forum, while giving power for enforcement towards disruptive infiltrators, harmful spies, and spooky saboteurs. You could also make it to where blocks of registered user could be separated by ip address, time registered, etc., and rejected/banned by those metrics.
The registered user would be able to post with a username if desired, as an option able to be turned on or off by an administrator, and a reputation system which allows a user to click once per user a useful/not useful thumbs up thumbs down plus or minus red/green whatever/whatever system that allows users to be recognized according to their reputation when using their handle if so desired to add merit to their posts if need be, or even perhaps showing their user merit on anonymous posts, revealing only that this anon is of high reputation according to the community etc. This would be useful, but not necessary to my own vision of this system.
It is valuable perhaps to consider that a user with a certain reputation threshold or post count which would be able to post without approval via the moderation queue.
I also think another potentially useful concept is that each user the registers is presented with an opengpg or similar encryption scheme, or perhaps an easier to implement encryption system (could you do quantum resistant encryption? I bet.), with key pair for encrypting to the forum and decrypting to the forum, and then also so on down with hidden sub forums, such as a vetted imageboard forum, a moderator's forum, or other cool forum for donating members or what have you. This would make it to where each registered user would have access to their according areas, but outsiders could not decrypt the common area, or registered areas passively or otherwise. This would allow a degree of privacy, which along with anonymity could spur incredible collaborations, sophisticated interchanges superseding social or economic boundaries, or just people quietly minding their own business without it being everyone's stinking business. It would be up to the moderators and administrators to decide how their tribal cultures are policed.
I also think that, although it may be problematic, that an option for moderating publicly available forums is a moderation queue for permitting posts. I think having an option for a moderator to approve/disapprove all posts is one option, but one thing I haven't seen so far in this light is a community thread moderation queue which allows user to voluntarily mark posts for admission/rejection or have the moderators set a voting thresh hold that would allow posts the be approved/denied based upon a critical percentage of users posting community approval/disapproval of posts. This seems, to me at least, an inelegant system, and one that could be improved upon. A community moderation queue for approved members, or members of above a certain reputation are allowed- with a certain number of votes per user to allow posts in, or a three strikes and you're out, etc. This allows for decentralization of moderation, and reduces the potential for celebritizing moderators or potentially targeting them for harassment. It also allows useful members a way to quietly distinguish themselves by voluntarily handling post approval queue.