Muti has been suffering the plague of the downvote debate for a while now. I have blogged about it before, I have banged my head on a table and shouted and screamed at/with various people about this debate.For those of you who aren't aware of Muti it is "a social bookmarking site inspired by reddit and Digg but dedicated to content of interest to Africans or those interested in Africa."I have always been a fan of downvoting on Muti. The way I think of it is that it is a democratic "talk with your vote" situation. Unfortunately, just like any great democracy corruption exists and people end up abusing the downvote system on sites like Muti, Digg and Reddit for their own gain.This is where moderation comes in to the picture. And here begin my reasons for thinking that moderation might work moving forward.

Moderation is a better name than Downvoting

The first fantastic thing that Neville (the creator of Muti.co.za) has done is not call the process "downvoting" but "moderation". This immediately takes the steam off a pressure cooker that was waiting to be attacked by the nay-sayers. It is now a process, not an abused system.

Reasons for moderating an article

You can no longer simply vote a post down for no apparent reason (unless you choose "other"). There are specific criteria that a posted article can be moderated on. These are:SpamExcessive Self PostsLameIrrelevantInapropriateDuplicateAgainst Terms of ServiceOther"Other" does present a bit of a problem in terms of the lack of specific reasoning. Some have suggested that the "other" option have a text box where a reason can be entered. I am sure this is under consideration but I don't think is important enough to warrant concern. The next point will illustrate why I don't think this is a problem.

Transparency

The moderation process is completely transparent. Any user can see why a post has been moderated and more importantly can see who has moderated the post. This basically implies that if you are moderating an article and you own content miraculously appears above that moderated article, no matter what reason you gave for your moderation, it will look suspicious.In turn this makes people consider, relatively seriously, how badly they want to actually moderate the post. The name and shame nature of the moderation process therefore makes you think twice about throwing your weight around or your mod points at the problem. If you vote, they will know, if they know, how will you feel? If you think you'll feel a bit naughty then you probably wont vote.

Mod points are not given, they are earned - much like respect

This is one of my favourite things about the new system. You are not simply handed an unlimited number of moderation points. Every time you vote for an article, you lose a moderation point. This definitely makes me think twice about moderating a post or article on Muti. Do I really want to blow one of my two moderation points on this irrelevant article that no one will vote up anyways? No, I probably don't. I'm going to wait it out until something really bad, racist, self-punting or community thrashing is placed on Muti. Then and only then will I use my moderation option.

Mod points promote activity on Muti

Why? Well it's simple (from moderation proposal):

Mod points are earned:

• when other users having a minimum kudu score vote items you submitted up. The minimum kudu score requirement will prevent people from earning extra mod points by simply creating new users, since new users always have a zero kudu score
• when a user with a minumum kudu score votes a comment you have made up
• You need to also have a minum k-index to earn mod points (this will prevent people from posting hundreds of junk articles to get mod_points). Note that the k-index and the kudu score are NOT the same thing.
• when you vote other peoples items up. (This is to encourage people to vote up and not just downmod all the time)
• mod points will be applied in realtime ie you will earn them instantly when the above activities take place
• your current balance of mod points will be viewable in your profile page

So basically you need to participate to gain the ability to moderate the community. This is a sheer stroke of genius. Much of the time you wont even realise that you are actively earning mod points but when you go to moderate an article you will have them. This means that Muti users need to begin commenting on articles, voting posts up, engaging and interacting with Muti, the posts and the community members. This is the kick in the pants that Muti needed. Active users, more voting, commenting and sharing.Strangely enough I think that at the end of the day the concept of "down voting" might just be the firecracker that lights the sky for Muti.