billswift comments on Support That Sounds Like Dissent
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Comments (32)
There are too many different blogging/commenting systems as it is. For someone interested in finding useful or interesting content rather than in "communing", it is seriously annoying to keep track of how they work.
It strikes me that such an attitude will stifle innovation.
someone had to be the first one to implement voted commenting... for that matter, someone had to be the first one to implement commenting!
Also, what's the point of discussing new methods of group rationality if we're not going to put them into practice, because we want to keep doing things the way everyone else does?
I don't have anything against innovation - provided it's more useful than the inconsistency it introduces. Tools, including software, are used for other ends, they are not ends in themselves except for a few people who specialize in them, or are otherwise particularly interested in them. As I put it earlier, I am interested in finding interesting or useful content, not in learning to manage a dozen different software systems.
Agreed. So I guess we differ on a complicated question: my pet idea for a new commenting system will (hopefully!) improve the quality of debate, but it will also introduce more complexity.
Can you think of a way of rationally deciding which way the tradeoff ought to be calculated, e.g. "3 extra minutes of learning time is worth X improvement in community quality"?
Standardize somewhat on the blogging/commenting systems. Reducing the number of different systems will lessen the complexity a lot more than adding features to one or another would increase it. Reduce the number of systems by making it easier for current sites to transfer to another system. Reduce forking of projects by making it easy to patch systems to a consistent standard.