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[ [P] ](https://web.archive.org/web/20091207164103/http://www.kuro5hin.org/print/2009/8/22/141755/406)**[Partisanship and Rhetoric](https://web.archive.org/web/20091207164103/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/8/22/141755/406)**

By anaesthetica in anaesthetica's Diary

Sat Aug 22, 2009 at 02:17:55 PM EST

Tags: dfw, partisanship, tl;dr ( all tags)

Wallace, David Foster. Interview with The Believer. The Believer. November, 2003.

As of 2003, the rhetoric of the enterprise is fucked. 95 percent of political commentary, whether spoken or written, is now polluted by the very politics it's supposed to be about. Meaning it's become totally ideological and reductive: The writer/speaker has certain political convictions or affiliations, and proceeds to filter all reality and spin all assertion according to those convictions and loyalties. Everybody's pissed off and exasperated and impervious to argument from any other side. Opposing viewpoints are not just incorrect but contemptible, corrupt, evil. Conservative thinkers are balder about this kind of attitude: Limbaugh, Hannity, that horrific O'Reilly person. Coulter, Kristol, etc. But the Left's been infected, too. Have you read this new Al Franken book? Parts of it are funny, but it's totally venomous (like, what possible response can rightist pundits have to Franken's broadsides but further rage and return-venom?). Or see also e.g. Lapham's latest Harper's columns, or most of the stuff in the Nation, or even Rolling Stone. It's all become like Zinn and Chomsky but without the immense bodies of hard data these older guys use to back up their screeds.

Full Story (37 comments, 451 words in story)

[ [P] ](https://web.archive.org/web/20091207164103/http://www.kuro5hin.org/print/2009/3/12/33338/3000)**[Attacked from Within](https://web.archive.org/web/20091207164103/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000)**

By anaesthetica in Internet

Fri Mar 13, 2009 at 11:17:19 AM EST

Tags: k5 isn't dying, community, society, scaling, internet, forums, group dynamics, moderation, tl;dr ( all tags)

Traditional methods for protecting community from the effects of scale and poor behavior are now manifestly unfeasible. Raising barriers to entry, relying on the assumption that users will maintain only one registered account, and placing faith in the ability of admins and user moderation to reproduce a forum's organic culture are all easily circumvented, gamed, and/or ineffective when faced with the problems of scale. Moreover, they tend to reinforce self-destructive behaviors, by increasing returns to the most persistent rather than the most constructive, reinforcing groupthink, and providing ample targets for trolling and griefing.

This article attempts to fundamentally rethink what constitutes community and society on the web, and what possibilities exist for their maintenance and reconstruction in the face of scale and malicious users. The recommendations reached, after analyzing the weaknesses of the web forums we all know and love, are:

User anonymity should be forced.

Barriers to participation should be as low as possible.

Moderation should not focus on users or on comments in isolation, but on the relational quality of comments.

Passive moderation filters can mitigate problems of scale.

Preservation of community must shift from being based on exclusion to being based on demonstrated constructive interaction.

Forums should discriminate between content types: original content, links, and personal content.

Story promotion and front page position should be driven by conversation, not voting.

Full Story (76 comments, 9119 words in story)

Tuesday, September 15th

Midnight, San Francisco BART @ 16th and Mission (25 comments)