In any shared system, some participants derive value from degrading others' experience rather than from the system's purpose.
The design consequence is that moderation is structural rather than remedial. Any system open enough to be worth joining is open enough to be degraded for sport, and it must be built expecting that.
In practice
- An online game must design for the player who wants to ruin the round, because that player exists in every population.
- A public consultation must be designed for the respondent submitting four hundred identical objections, not only the sincere ones.
- Standing
- A design constraint rather than an anomaly, and the reason moderation is structural.
- Subject
- Networks & Collective Behavior
- Essay
- How connections shape what crowds do