Upvotes! Votes to filter and sort content is asking for problems whatever the formal admins and mods are.

Actually the problem is a bit more subtle – what is the selection mechanism for gathering ratings selecting for? Ultimately dead weight outweighs actual contributors and the selection mechanism becomes about appealing to the dead weight (sound like a familiar problem?).

This is actually the central insight of xNR, imo – the function of any institution depends entirely on how it selects the people to whom it grants authority.

StackOverflow is far better structured for this, but even they are suffering recently: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/252506/question-quality-is-dropping-on-stack-overflow

Internet communities have a rise-peak-fall lifecycle that is difficult to stop. They need to be enticing enough to gather contributors, but repellent enough to deter deadweight. The problem in this is that enticingness is a function of popularity: the bigger the community, the more that deadweight desires to join, and the less that contributors want to join.

Slippery slopes can sometimes be avoided by establishing a “Schelling fence” – a Schelling point that the various interest groups involved – or yourself across different values and times – make a credible precommitment to defend. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ase/schelling_fences_on_slippery_slopes/

What kind of Schelling fence on popularity can you set on a subreddit? Expert-driven subreddits like /r/AskScience and /r/AskHistorians fight a constant uphill battle.

You may be thinking of this post which I wrote a few weeks ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkEnlightenment/comments/24ojk8/some_concerns_about_using_reddit_and/

I’ve lurked on /r/new_right for a few years, and trust me when I say there is no original thought worth doing on Reddit that can’t be done better on a blog or even Twitter. It’s good for link sharing, that’s about it. Any participation on reddit on my part should be seen as a flaw rather than a precedent.

That’s Racist is a mantra with these people of truly fanatical faith. If they were Muslims they wouldn’t have prayer bruises they’d have indentations.

Hey, just like the idea behind the Republican party!