Design for Community has an interesting essay on the perils of moderation systems - you know, things like the "karma" systems used on Slashdot and Kuro5hin to make various postings visible or invisible, either to all readers or in your own personal reading list:
Problem is, all this groovy functionality adds several layers of new interface elements. Every filter, rating, and setting means adding another button, dropdown, and submit button. It's easy to see a future, not very far away, when the site grows so interface-heavy it will scare off all but the most determined new users. While what might not slow down the rabid Slashdotters, it would certainly impede a new site with a fragile audience.Worse, sometimes all the widgets backfire altogether, encouraging the very behavior they're designed to avert. Sometimes all the rules have a dangerous side-effect: they create a game.
And the object of the game, of course, is to defeat the system.
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