I built Agora - a modern reddit alternative with transparent moderation and 0 ads

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OdonataDarner@reddit

What are your NSFW rules? How will those suns be moderated?

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Stoic-Chimp@reddit (OP)

nsfw is fine but no CP or illegal/gore etc.

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Stoic-Chimp@reddit (OP)

The idea is to cover hosting costs with donations. Focusing on a streamlined centralized experience for now so no activitypub at least for now

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Electronic-Phone1732@reddit

What tech stack are you using?

I think AP support is worthwhile.

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Stoic-Chimp@reddit (OP)

- Frontend: React + TypeScript + Vite + Tailwind CSS

- Backend: Node.js + Express + TypeScript

- Database: PostgreSQL

- Deployment: Render (both frontend and backend)

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keener91@reddit

I like the premise of a transparent moderation system. But as a modern Reddit alternative, this isn't enough.

The upvote / downvote system is outdated. Given your platform must serve a huge swath of people with different interest, identity, cultural, ideology or politics views and at the same time moderate them in a transparent and democratic manner, you must give you more tools to the community.

Add more types of upvote and downvote: if it's political post, add a slider for left / right leaning, if post maybe AI-generated, add a flag to indicate it. Perhaps a system to let community creates their own voting systems.

With that in place you then give the user filters to customize their home page: I only want to political neutral news, I don't want to see AI posts, i.e.

All in all I do like your mission statement and will be paying attention to your development.

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Howrus@reddit

add a slider for left / right leaning,

Is it "American left/right" or rest of the world one? Because in Europe and Asia it's the opposite.

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keener91@reddit

I gave this some thought. The political spectrum is hugely dependent on countries and should be designed by community with a clear definition on their moderation page what that is. If you want to red vs blue, cats vs dogs as long the sub makes that clear, it's fine.

The idea is you want to give that tool set and democratize the weighting to the people who visit the sub.

Seeing my post being downvoted shows exactly the kind of problem this is. Echo chamber based on disagreement and that's it.

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Howrus@reddit

Seeing my post being downvoted shows exactly the kind of problem this is. Echo chamber based on disagreement and that's it.

No, your suggestion is just stupid. Even if you ignore that "left" and "right" have completely different meaning in different countries - it put way too much pressure on end-user without giving back anything in return. Do you really think that people would move slider before upvoting\downvoting?

Simple example - there's a post about Trump twitting that he won war with Iran. I upvote it and put my slider to 80% left ... what does it mean??? Is my upvote have less power now? Then why I should mark it as left? I'll just put 100% "right" for it.

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keener91@reddit

You don't understand this new system because all these year Reddit is brainwashing in thinking up = good, down = bad

In my system there isn't a simple Up or Down, there will be different things to vote. For instance if out 100k readers, 90% think this article of Trump won the Iran War js bullshit, and you have Trustworthiness slider filter at 50%+, then this article is never going to appear in your feed. Conversely if you don't care for to, and see the slider to 0%, then you'd be seeing it.

The difference is no one, especially the moderators dictate what you can and cannot see.

Of course the developer should design default filters or flags to catch botting or offensive behaviors based on term of use.

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EveYogaTech@reddit

I think it's a good idea, to the contrary of most popular opinion above, or at least a good problem to be aware of.

The popularity system of Reddit is indeed flawed, if you see a news post with an outcome you don't like do you click the upvote or downvote? And like do we really want massive echo chambers like /r/worldnews thats basically is very firm in its values while ignoring/filtering more neutral or opposite views.

Like it seems in the end it's not just a fight for a better user experience, but for a more honest grounded human information experience, not just repeating the same brain rot mistakes Instagram, Reddit, echo chambers or even now AI low quality/effort postings.

For me personally I belief we can find a way to make whole voting system actually useful, so form decisions, policies in a more democratic + meritocratic way, and actually shape the future together rather than reading headlines + ads.

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keener91@reddit

Thank you for the well thought out response. I am glad I am not the only who is looking for a true democratic way of building a Reddit Alternative.

I am just curious what the OP thinks.

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EveYogaTech@reddit

It seems OP already went deep into the other way, and knowing the technical side of things at this point it may be hard to change.

At /r/BlueseaEU were in a different stage more open to these kind of ideas

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keener91@reddit

Ah thanks. I'll check that out.

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sneakpeekbot@reddit

Here's a sneak peek of /r/BlueseaEU using the top posts of all time!

#1: Early preview and behind the scenes of Bluesea (bseu.eu) - a new web4+wlp3 powered decentralized network of communities | 0 comments
#2: Thoughts about this? (building a better Reddit alternative) | 0 comments
#3: More soon, for wlp3 development see other sub

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Howrus@reddit

You don't understand this new system because all these years Reddit is brainwashing in thinking up = good, down = bad

Dude, it's you who don't understand that more complex system won't work. People on Reddit already incorrectly use upvote\downvote system, while it's extremely easy. You want to add more complexity, thinking that people will put more thought into that?

For instance if out 100k readers, 90% vote this article of Trump won the Iran War is bullshit, and you have Trustworthiness slider filter at 50%+, then this article is never going to appear in your feed.

Oh, yeah - you somehow forgot that there's 200k conservative people that will vote for this article as 100% trustworthy, so boom - it will be in everybody feed. :]

You rely on a statement that most of people see "truth" or "lie" in a same way, but it was disproved million times already.

But you randomly slide or vote - who cares - since majority of readers will not.

It works ... until you find that this "majority" doesn't share your ideas.

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keener91@reddit

Democracy isn't something that only works when it suits you. If 200k votes against you in disagreement, that's ok (so long as they are not botting). What you can do is use other filters in addition to the ones setup by the community. This is part of tool set I was talking about. For instance, you should straight up filter out comments posted by certain users or apply a low weighting to their replies - the idea is you get to customize your own viewing experience while not impede on others.

When Reddit started the simple Up and Down popularity system was a sign of simpler times. We no longer live in a simple world.

You can few things:

be more of a critical thinker and let your brain filter out the bullshit on this site.
hope for a Reddit alternative that can magically solve #1 yet somehow still maintain the illusion of simplicity (they won't)
Or a complex voting system that supplements #1.

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TheFreaky@reddit

Great idea, let's make voting if you liked something a complex maze of possibilities and ambiguity

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Asyncrosaurus@reddit

add a slider for left / right leaning

It's a good thing there's absolutely no ambiguity or nuance in political philosophy for this to work /s

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Stoic-Chimp@reddit (OP)

Whoohoo! We need a skyrim/TES community

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UnflinchingSugartits@reddit

When are you making an Android app ?

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Stoic-Chimp@reddit (OP)

at around 1000 active users :)