我和一个朋友谈起论坛水化问题，ta推荐给我的。我觉得非常有意思，文章也不长，所以贴上来。原文是英文，已经逐段翻译为中文。
（我个人的观点和意见在帖子的最后。总的来说我认为其中颇有真知灼见，不过有些地方也值得商榷。此外要注意，作者主要是站在网络社区管理者视角来说的，对censorship的定义也主要是针对网络社区的语境而言。）
原文链接
作者：Eliezer Yudkowsky
Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism (被和平主义毁掉的桃花源)
Good online communities die primarily by refusing to defend themselves.
好的网络社区主要毁于拒绝捍卫他们自己。
Somewhere in the vastness of the Internet, it is happening even now. It was once a well-kept garden of intelligent discussion, where knowledgeable and interested folk came, attracted by the high quality of speech they saw ongoing. But into this garden comes a fool, and the level of discussion drops a little—or more than a little, if the fool is very prolific in their posting. (It is worse if the fool is just articulate enough that the former inhabitants of the garden feel obliged to respond, and correct misapprehensions—for then the fool dominates conversations.)
在广袤的互联网中的某处，时至今日都在发生着这样的事：一个曾经的世外桃源，里面充满了机智的讨论；知识渊博、兴趣浓厚的人们被正在进行的高质量谈话所吸引，于此驻足。然后花园里走来了一个傻瓜，于是讨论的水平下降了一点——甚至不止一点，如果这个傻瓜非常健谈的话。（比这更糟糕的是，如果这位傻瓜的表达能力，刚好高到让花园中的居民感到有义务回应、纠正其误解，那么这个傻瓜接下来就会主导所有对话。）
So the garden is tainted now, and it is less fun to play in; the old inhabitants, already invested there, will stay, but they are that much less likely to attract new blood. Or if there are new members, their quality also has gone down.
于是花园就被污染了，变得不那么有趣了。已在此地耕耘许久的老居民会留下来，但是吸收新人的可能性变小了。或者即便有新成员加入，他们的水平也比原来低了。
Then another fool joins, and the two fools begin talking to each other, and at that point some of the old members, those with the highest standards and the best opportunities elsewhere, leave...
然后很快又来了一个傻瓜，两个傻瓜开始互相交流，从这一刻开始，那些老居民，那些拥有最高标准和在其他地方有最好机会的老居民，决定离开……
I am old enough to remember the USENET that is forgotten, though I was very young. Unlike the first Internet that died so long ago in the Eternal September, in these days there is always some way to delete unwanted content. We can thank spam for that—so egregious that no one defends it, so prolific that no one can just ignore it, there must be a banhammer somewhere.
尽管当时我还非常年轻，但我依然记得已经被大多数人遗忘的USENET【注1】。与这个早就死于“永恒的九月”【注2】的第一版互联网（指USENET）不同，如今见到不喜欢的内容，总有一些办法可以删掉的（指删帖封号，这些功能在USENET上没有，直到进入论坛时代才普及）。这主要还是归功于spam（广告、诈骗类信息）——恶心到没有任何人反对删除、多到没有任何人能直接忽略，不搞一个封禁功能都不行了。
But when the fools begin their invasion, some communities think themselves too good to use their banhammer for—gasp!—censorship.
但当傻瓜开始他们的入侵时，一些社区认为自己的道德水平还没有低到要用封禁的方式来搞——（惊恐）天哪——言论审查。
After all—anyone acculturated by academia knows that censorship is a very grave sin... in their walled gardens where it costs thousands and thousands of dollars to enter, and students fear their professors' grading, and heaven forbid the janitors should speak up in the middle of a colloquium.
毕竟，任何一个在学术界浸淫过的人都知道，言论审查是万恶之首……说这话的人，待在这个门槛上万美元、围墙高筑的桃花源里——学生们担心着教授会打多少分，而看门大爷绝对不会在学术会议上要求发言。
It is easy to be naive about the evils of censorship when you already live in a carefully kept garden. Just like it is easy to be naive about the universal virtue of unconditional nonviolent pacifism, when your country already has armed soldiers on the borders, and your city already has police. It costs you nothing to be righteous, so long as the police stay on their jobs.
当你已经住在这样一个精心维护的花园中时，很容易对审查制度的弊端产生天真的想法。就像当一个国家已经在边界驻有武装士兵、在城市里配备警察时，人们很容易天真地将无条件的非暴力和平主义作为普世美德一样。毕竟，只要警察还在巡逻，你就不用为义正言辞的和平主义付出任何代价。
The thing about online communities, though, is that you can't rely on the police ignoring you and staying on the job; the community actually pays the price of its virtuousness.
而网络社区的问题是，这里没有坚持巡逻的警察，因此社区会直接为它们的和平主义“美德”付出惨痛的代价。
In the beginning, while the community is still thriving, censorship seems like a terrible and unnecessary imposition. Things are still going fine. It's just one fool, and if we can't tolerate just one fool, well, we must not be very tolerant. Perhaps the fool will give up and go away, without any need of censorship. And if the whole community has become just that much less fun to be a part of... mere fun doesn't seem like a good justification for (gasp!) censorship, any more than disliking someone's looks seems like a good reason to punch them in the nose.
刚开始，当社区仍在蓬勃发展时，审查制度似乎是一种可怕而不必要的强制措施。一切都在顺利地进行中，论坛里最多就一个傻瓜；如果我们连一个傻瓜都不能容忍，额，那说明我们的道德水平还不够。可能那个傻瓜过两天就自己走了，完全不至于搞什么言论审查。如果这个傻瓜降低了社区的有趣程度，那么……纯粹用“不好笑”作为——（惊恐）天哪——言论审查的理由也不太合适吧，就好比不能因为讨厌一个人的样貌就冲上去打他一拳，不是吗？
(But joining a community is a strictly voluntary process, and if prospective new members don't like your looks, they won't join in the first place.)
（但是任何人加入一个社区都是完全自愿的过程，如果潜在的新成员不喜欢你的“样貌”，他们根本就不会加入。）
And after all—who will be the censor? Who can possibly be trusted with such power?
而且再说了，谁来做这个审查者？如此大的权力要托付给谁？
Quite a lot of people, probably, in any well-kept garden. But if the garden is even a little divided within itself —if there are factions—if there are people who hang out in the community despite not much trusting the moderator or whoever could potentially wield the banhammer—
其实挺多人都可以——在任何桃花源里都有合适的。但是，如果在花园内部哪怕有一点点分歧——所谓的派系——如果花园中有居民，对管理员或那些有权挥舞“封禁之锤”的人不太信任——
(for such internal politics often seem like a matter of far greater import than mere invading barbarians)
（一般像这种情况，内部政治造成的影响，往往比外来人口的入侵要大得多。）
—then trying to defend the community is typically depicted as a coup attempt. Who is this one who dares appoint themselves as judge and executioner? Do they think their ownership of the server means they own the people? Own our community? Do they think that control over the source code makes them a god?
——那么对社区规则的捍卫，就往往被视为政变。谁那么不要脸，自命为法官和刽子手？难道他们认为占有了服务器就等于占有了别人的言论自由？占有了整个社区？难道他们以为控制了网站的源代码，自己就可以当上帝吗？
I confess, for a while I didn't even understand why communities had such trouble defending themselves—I thought it was pure naivete. It didn't occur to me that it was an egalitarian instinct to prevent chieftains from getting too much power. "None of us are bigger than one another, all of us are men and can fight; I am going to get my arrows", was the saying in one hunter-gatherer tribe whose name I forget. (Because among humans, unlike chimpanzees, weapons are an equalizer—the tribal chieftain seems to be an invention of agriculture, when people can't just walk away any more.)
我承认，有一段时间我真的搞不明白为什么一个社区要捍卫自己是那么的困难——我以为这些人只是幼稚罢了。我当时并没有意识到，阻止酋长获得过多权力，是人类追求平等的一种本能。“我们每个人都不比其他人更强大，大家都是人，都可以战斗；我要去拿我的箭了。”，这是一个已经被我忘记名字的原始部落的俗语。（因为与黑猩猩不同的是，在人类之间，武器起到了一种均衡的效果——部落酋长应该是农业文明的产物，而农业文明的特点是人不能说来就来说走就走。）
Maybe it's because I grew up on the Internet in places where there was always a sysop, and so I take for granted that whoever runs the server has certain responsibilities. Maybe I understand on a gut level that the opposite of censorship is not academia but 4chan (which probably still has mechanisms to prevent spam). Maybe because I grew up in that wide open space where the freedom that mattered was the freedom to choose a well-kept garden that you liked and that liked you, as if you actually could find a country with good laws. Maybe because I take it for granted that if you don't like the archwizard, the thing to do is walk away (this did happen to me once, and I did indeed just walk away).
也许因为我是在互联网上那些【总能找到一个系统管理员】的地方长大的，所以我理所当然地认为，运行服务器的人具有某些特定的责任。也许我从直觉层面能够理解，言论审查的反面并不是学术界，而是4chan（而且人家其实也有反垃圾广告的机制）。也许因为我是在一个广袤的开放空间中长大的，在这里，最关键的自由是【选择一个自己喜欢、也喜欢自己的桃花源】的自由，就好比世界上那么多国家，总能找到一个让你满意的法律系统。也许因为我理所当然地认为，如果您不喜欢网站的“大法师”，只要用脚投票就行了（还真在我身上发生过一次，而我也确实用脚投票了）。
And maybe because I, myself, have often been the one running the server. But I am consistent, usually being first in line to support moderators—even when they're on the other side from me of the internal politics. I know what happens when an online community starts questioning its moderators. Any political enemy I have on a mailing list who's popular enough to be dangerous is probably not someone who would abuse that particular power of censorship, and when they put on their moderator's hat, I vocally support them—they need urging on, not restraining. People who've grown up in academia simply don't realize how strong are the walls of exclusion that keep the trolls out of their lovely garden of "free speech".
当然也可能是因为我，我自己，常常是运营服务器的人。但是，即便管理员有时在内部政治问题上跟我持有不同的立场，我也会坚持一贯地——通常是身先士卒地——力挺管理员的封禁操作。
我知道当一个网络社区开始质疑管理员时会发生什么。那些在我邮件列表里的“政敌”，尤其是那些受欢迎程度达到到危险级别的人，大概率都是不会滥用审查权限的人。
而当他们在履行管理员职责时，我会明确地支持他们——他们需要的是敦促，而非克制。在象牙塔里长大的人们完全意识不到，为了将喷子阻挡在可爱的“言论自由”花园之外，这道排外的围墙需要修得多么坚固。
Any community that really needs to question its moderators, that really seriously has abusive moderators, is probably not worth saving. But this is more accused than realized, so far as I can see.
如果一个社区已经到了必须要质疑它的管理员，而管理员也确实存在严重的滥用职权现象，那这个社区恐怕已经不值得拯救了。但以我经验来看，这种通常都是指责，真正去到这一步的很少。
In any case the light didn't go on in my head about egalitarian instincts (instincts to prevent leaders from exercising power) killing online communities until just recently. While reading a comment at Less Wrong, in fact, though I don't recall which one.
总之，我也是到最近才意识到，人类这种平权主义的本能（也即阻止领导者行使权力的本能）是如何毁掉在线社区的。应该是我在Less Wrong上读一个评论的时候意识到的——虽然我不记得是哪个评论了。
But I have seen it happen—over and over, with myself urging the moderators on and supporting them whether they were people I liked or not, and the moderators still not doing enough to prevent the slow decay. Being too humble, doubting themselves an order of magnitude more than I would have doubted them. It was a rationalist hangout, and the third besetting sin of rationalists is underconfidence.
但这种情况（平等主义本能毁掉社区的情况），我是亲身经历过无数次了，我一遍又一遍地敦促管理员们采取行动，并表态支持，不管我个人是否欣赏他们，然后管理员们仍然没有采取足够的措施来防止社区缓慢的衰退。他们过于谦虚，他们对自己的怀疑比我对他们的怀疑要高一个数量级。那批管理员主要是理性主义者，而理性主义者的第三大原罪，就是自信不足【注3】。
This about the Internet: Anyone can walk in. And anyone can walk out. And so an online community must stay fun to stay alive. Waiting until the last resort of absolute, blatent, undeniable egregiousness—waiting as long as a police officer would wait to open fire—indulging your conscience and the virtues you learned in walled fortresses, waiting until you can be certain you are in the right, and fear no questioning looks—is waiting far too late.
总之，互联网呢，任何人都可以进去，任何人也都可以出来。所以一个网络社区要活下来，它就必须有趣、吸引人。如果非要等到某些绝对的、赤裸裸的、无可否认的罪行发生才采取措施——像警官等待最终开枪时机那样——放纵自己的良心，施展自己在围墙中学到的美德，等到确定自己100%正确、毫无被质疑可能性时才动手——那就已经等得太久了。
I have seen rationalist communities die because they trusted their moderators too little.
我目睹过理性主义者组成的社区被毁，因为他们不够信任管理员。
But that was not a karma system, actually.
但那里毕竟不是一个踩赞积分系统。
Here—you must trust yourselves.
现在来到这里——你必须相信你们自己。
A certain quote seems appropriate here: "Don't believe in yourself! Believe that I believe in you!"
我觉得有句话在此很应景：“无需相信自己！相信我是相信你的就行了！”
Because I really do honestly think that if you want to downvote a comment that seems low-quality... and yet you hesitate, wondering if maybe you're downvoting just because you disagree with the conclusion or dislike the author... feeling nervous that someone watching you might accuse you of groupthink or echo-chamber-ism or (gasp!) censorship... then nine times of ten, I bet, nine times out of ten at least, it is a comment that really is low-quality.
因为我确实认为，如果你觉得某个评论质量低想踩，但又犹豫不决，不确定自己是不是只是因为不同意其结论或不喜欢作者才踩……觉得会有人指责你是因为随波逐流或者出于回音室效应——或者出于——（惊吓）天哪——言论审查才踩……那么我敢打赌，十有八九，应该说至少九，这个评论的质量确实很低。
You have the downvote. Use it or USENET.
你知道踩是怎么用的。要么use，要么就等着社区变成USENET吧。
翻译由thphd润色。
【注1】：Usenet是一种分布式的互联网交流系统，于1980年发布。它与BBS/论坛的主要区别在于其没有中央服务器和管理员，而是分布在一个不断变化的大型服务器集群中，这些服务器在”新闻源“中相互存储和转发消息，且不能审查内容。Usenet在网络世界中具有重要意义，引起或推广了许多广为人知的概念，如“常见问题(FAQ)”，“网络论战(flame)”，“马甲(sockpuppet)”和“垃圾消息(spam)”。详见https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/永恒九月
【注2】：“永恒的九月”，指1993年9月，这一表述代表了一种观点，认为自那时起大量新用户的涌入持续地降低了Usenet、甚至整个互联网的行为、言论的水准。详见https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/永恒九月
【注3】：“理性主义者的第三大罪是信心不足”与作者的另一篇文章 The Sin of Underconfidence 有关（感谢 @libgen）。
我个人的评论（中文评论与英文有些不同）：
我同意作者的很多观点，但是我认为其中有两个大问题：（1）没有很好地区分公共领域、半公共领域与私人领域。论坛和国家是两回事，管理论坛和治理国家也是两回事——虽然两者之间肯定有些相通之处。（比如说我可以批评军队和警察滥权，因为理论上他们拿的是纳税人税款，我每年交税不是为了养军队警察来监视我的；此外我如果对所在国不满，不可能像换论坛那样轻松地换国家）。在谈论所谓“审查制度”时，或者本质上是言论自由的界限时，混淆公共和私人领域并不妥当。（2）作者让大家“尽管踩吧”“尽管行使权力吧”，前提是这些行使权力的人本身对权力有所提防和忌惮，即所谓“理性主义者”（而且根据作者描述来看，大多是深受学术思维影响、在民主社会长大、受过良好教育的理性主义者）；这些人需要推一推很正常。但是在很多社区里，这个结论并不成立。
在论坛管理方面，我原则上同意每个社区（花园）都应该捍卫自己的价值。因此，一个社区首先得对自己珍视“价值”达成基本共识（譬如，言论自由？专业性？娱乐性？等等），或者说，得搞清楚我们想建造的花园是什么风格的。不过在实践中，这些价值即使清晰地写在纸上，也未必就那么清楚，尤其是（关键）成员可以对它们有截然不同的解读。如何实施这些原则与这些原则本身一样重要，甚至可能更重要。这包括但不限于：规则是什么，执行规则的程序，谁来执行规则，如果没人执行怎么办，等等。
然后我想谈谈关于“傻瓜”的问题。我认为，社区至少有两种不良成员：捣乱的人（trolls）和傻瓜（fools）；有时两者之间的界线含糊不清。（此外，在一个以政治为导向的匿名社区中，或许还有所谓的“舆论引导员”和“渗透者”）。但是，区分哪个人属于哪一类其实并不那么重要，因为我们并不知道人们在想什么（或者说，如果想知道不是完全不可能，只是成本太高了），而只知道人们实际做了什么。因此，所有规则都不应以身份、动机而因以行为为基础，并最好辅以具体示例。
另一方面，一个花园的“傻瓜”可能是另一个花园的宝贵成员，因为人们的兴趣和长处不尽相同。如果出现“傻瓜”现象，我认为不一定是所谓“此用户素质低”的问题，而是那个人的行为模式与花园的价值观/规则不兼容。
在2047，其实每个开楼的人都是某种意义上的管理员。所以，提醒自己，如果看到违规的帖子（见/t/7851的讨论），不要手软；如果自己的回复被楼主删了，这也只是规则，Don't take it personally.
My comments:
I agree with a lot of what the author said, except that I don't think he made a good distinction between public, semi-public vs. private domains. A forum is NOT the same as a nation, and rules of managing a forum is NOT the same as those for ruling a nation (for god's sake I pay my taxes!) -- although they can share certain similarities. In today's economy I think forums are more like a product rather than anything else.
In terms of forum management I agree in principle that we need to defend the values of our garden. Therefore as a community it is important to figure out what we value, and what type of garden we want to build. However in practice those values can be vague, and can be interpreted quite differently by the (key) members. How to operationalize these principles are as important as (if not more so than) the principles themselves. This includes but is not limited to: rules (what), procedures of carrying out the rules (how), and who carries out the rules (who).
Now regarding the "fools." There are two types of undesirable members for a community: trolls and fools; and sometimes the lines between the two are vague (people could arguably add that in a politically-oriented anonymous community, there are also state infiltrators). However these differences may not be that important, as we never know what people really THINK or INTEND to do (or it's too expensive to find out), but only what people actually DID. All rules should be based on that, preferably with concrete examples.
On the other hand, one garden's fool might be another garden's treasure, as people have strengths in different areas. I don't think it is ever a good idea to attack a PERSON (or at least this should be done scarcely); instead it is about the incompatibility of that person's BEHAVIOR and the garden's values/rules -- it's a professional matter.
