I don’t think they work too well in a diverse community, either: I used to moderate such a community, on a codebase that introduced killfile features during my tenure, and its only substantial effect on moderation seemed to be cutting down on complaints from long-term users that had well-developed killfiles. (I’ve gone into more detail elsewhere in this thread on its cultural effects.) Since all communities are mostly newer/transient people during the active phase of their lifecycle, this wasn’t much consolation.
That is a much harder administrative problem, though, and I’ve never found a solution that works other than “have a good seed culture, create strong norms against empty rhetoric and generally being a dick, and choose your mods very carefully”. With the LW experience in mind I’m actually kind of a fan of karma as a self-moderation tool, but it introduces some problems of its own (see: Recent Unpleasantness), isn’t anywhere close to a panacea (see: half of Reddit), and doesn’t completely eliminate the need for good people with higher perm levels.
Killfiles are not efficient for communities of people who think alike. They are pretty good for collections of radically diverse people.
I understand your point about scaling. But I am also highly suspicious of one-size-fits-all solutions.
I don’t think they work too well in a diverse community, either: I used to moderate such a community, on a codebase that introduced killfile features during my tenure, and its only substantial effect on moderation seemed to be cutting down on complaints from long-term users that had well-developed killfiles. (I’ve gone into more detail elsewhere in this thread on its cultural effects.) Since all communities are mostly newer/transient people during the active phase of their lifecycle, this wasn’t much consolation.
That is a much harder administrative problem, though, and I’ve never found a solution that works other than “have a good seed culture, create strong norms against empty rhetoric and generally being a dick, and choose your mods very carefully”. With the LW experience in mind I’m actually kind of a fan of karma as a self-moderation tool, but it introduces some problems of its own (see: Recent Unpleasantness), isn’t anywhere close to a panacea (see: half of Reddit), and doesn’t completely eliminate the need for good people with higher perm levels.