I would have to say that you method for moderating via 3 “dislikes” and the post is removed is a lazy way to moderate a forum that is suppose to encourage respectful challenge and discussion. if you are going to take this approach then simply become a site that post articles without the ability for the viewers to make comments. What you are doing is no different then company’s that remove bad reviews about their products from their website.
Allowing the system to moderate via a pre-set of dislikes is basically giving up complete control and handing it over individuals who are not looking at the post from a unbiased point of view. I.E I have the honor of writing a post for Core77 someone challenges it, i have three friend “unlike” the post and it is removed. Now if Core wants to ensure that everyone who writes a article for them is “protected” from anyone contradicting them or challenging their opinion then that is even worst - true or not that will be a perception that is created. It is no different then a designer who puts their work on the wall for a critique and gets upset when someone respectfully challenges their design or the logic behind it. (something i am seeing more and more of). To be completely honest i have almost stopped reading all of the articles that Core has posted as i have found many of them to be shallow, lacking depth, one sided, and riddled with information that cosmetic and without foundation.
I know that IAB can be unrefined at times in his articulation and a little more aggressively direct then even i can be, but the post that was deleted was respectfully written and simply challenged the mind set of the article and some statements that if you had 50 designers in a room you would have support for both IABs comments and the author of the article.
I am not sure what has been happening behind the scenes at Core but obviously something has -
- new conform with everyone else site design look and feel
- poor technical execution of the site and the architecture behind it (it has taken me 4 weeks to get my login fixed and it still wont work i finally just created a new account)
- a steady decline in truly deep and meaning full content
A few other points but to be honest it feels as if core either got bough or people decided that they wanted it to grow so lets wash it down to please the masses and increase traffic that way… you are quick becoming vanilla…
Chevis Watkinson