Are the open-entry social news sites, digg, reddit and their ilk, doomed? That's the view put forward in this blog post 'Why Digg and Reddit are Doomed (and Metafilter Isn't)' that laments the decline in the quality of content that follows a large expansion in user base. Must it be that any expanding community will change, in the author's brutal phrase, "from a relatively small group of smarties to an ocean of raving dumb-asses"?

I was more interested in the general problem of keeping the quality of community content high as a community grows, than in  his proposed solution of charging a small (e.g. $1-5) membership fee to join, as with his favoured site, metafilter.com

I've heard many of those people that spend considerable time contributing to technical forums bemoaning the increasing amount of time and energy they expend trying to help people who seem unwilling or unable to help themselves. At the same time, they say, the courtesy is deteriorating and the number of people willing to "stir things up" for the sake of it increases.

Is there a solution to this? Firstly, I don't think a "barrier to entry" in the form of a fee is appropriate for a technical forum. However, another of the important ideas behind metafilter might be that of 'privileges based on trust'. Metafilter allows anyone to read the content. After you've joined, you are trusted to post comments. However, only when you've been a member for a given period, and have posted some useful comments, are you trusted enough to be allowed to post content or questions.

A similar philosophy seems to underpin a very interesting new programmer's Q&A site from the Spolsky stable: stackoverflow.com. This site is free to read, ask and answer questions, but your site privileges grow as the system learns to "trust you", based on feedback on your contributions from fellow members.

This is certainly an interesting idea, but is there a danger that the scoring system might unfairly mark down contributions that are hampered more by language difficulties than quality of content?

The quality question is one that I feel is going to arise more and more frequently. I bumped into it in a different guise on Business of Software, with Neil Davidson's desire to introduce a shibboleth for the site: a statement of cause that would unite members and at least deter the entry of those with a different agenda.

I would love to hear what you think about this, especially if you are an avid contributor to, or "silent user" of, the SQLServerCentral or any other community technical forums. Could these "trust and privilege" principles be usefully introduced to the SSC forums, or some other aspect of the site? Or do they need to remain a completely open, and level, playing field?

Cheers,
Tony Davis