/meta/ - Ruthless criticism of all that exists (in leftypol.org)

This is a discussion thread about the concepts of community self-moderation and self-curation, how they can apply to this site, and its interaction with the extent of staff-enforced 'quality control' (deleting reactionaries, idpol, derails, etc.)
There's pages of other threads for other topics so don't derail it with 'jannies should/nt ban [x]'.
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I believe a discussion community should ideally be capable of self-moderating. There are some obstacles to this, and I want to ask what they are, which can be solved, and how it can be achieved.

1) Why curate?
In a sentence, so that the catalogs aren't filled with or endorsing 'the same thread every week', reactionary shitposts, idpol bait topics and other generally-unwanted or quality-degrading topics.
Most of the community consider this a detraction from insightful threads getting attention, a welcome sign to unwelcome users, or simply a bad experience. Too much of this, and the users leave and the site essentially dies.

1) b. Why self-curate?
In a list:
>so that the site isn't reliant on random volunteer jannies to stop the above from happening
>so that jannies can be told with confidence to not curate topics that currently would just sit at the top of the site all day if they didn't
>so that a raid when jannies aren't online isn't paralyzing for hours

2) Tools of self-moderation
Online forums have different methods of self-moderation. Some sites like reddit are famous for a straight-forward, direct curation method of user-voting: a thread must be pushed up less than it is pushed down to continue being promoted. This is moderation based on approval.
Imageboards and forums use a 'bump' system: unless explicitly instructed otherwise, a post will rise all the way to the top whenever a reply is made. This is moderation based on attention.
Both styles have their pros and cons. With the bump system, for example, any approval raises threads to the top equally, which promotes attention to unpopular/slow yet positive threads. On the other hand, disapproval tends to promote threads. This is evident when a 'bait' thread stays at the top despite most posters considering it a bad thread, leading people to request moderator intervention as a drizzle of users disputing to the thread or two autists arguing keep it stuck to the top of the site.

On an imageboard, the bump system is the core method of user-controlled curation. There are also some malicious tactics such as Papiezposting (essentially flooding a thread with spam to prevent discussion) which is an easy way to get banned on any forum with a semblance of quality control. Others are social (such as memetic) rather than mechanical, which generally has little potency in an anonymous forum until there's a higher participation rate.
There are also personal moderation tools like filters and hiding, although this doesn't have a direct effect on what the site overall gives attention to.

3) Obstacles to self-moderation
>lack of awareness and participation
Due to the asymmetry of the bump system, if you don't bump but five other mad people do every minute, it's invalidated.
>>>new users
See above.
>self-control
Impulsive users see something they disagree with and think they have to respond. In you're not helping and your not having fun, why reply?
>believing sage helps
Saging is a false god when used in disagreement: it still prompts a response that almost certainly will be a bump. Saging is useful when you think your post doesn't warrant the thread being raised, when your post doesn't prompt a reply, or when the site is fast enough to handle counter-bumping.
>malicious self-bumping
This is largely invalidated by this site's rule against samefagging.

4) Methods of self-moderating a bump system
The most effective thing you can do to promote a better board is to bump existing threads with good posts the prompt positive discussion. Make good threads worth posting in. Create original content or effortposts if you can. Just saying 'bump' is a shitpost that doesn't really help beyond a few seconds. There's 36 pages of threads, surely there are ten good ones you can contribute to.
Secondly, raise awareness. Drive-by thread-shitters and impulsive bait-bitters caught in a thread don't realize they're keeping what they hate at the top of the site so that it will stay there longer. You don't need to get caught up in a conversation and contribute to the bumping, just notify and leave.
Thirdly, don't be part of the problem. Don't reply to obvious shitposts that anyone with a brain-stem can see the issues with. Simple enough.
If you must express disapproval, then don't even give them something to reply to and start a fight. Post your favorite laughing reaction image and ignore.

But we can't do that! We need jannies to delete bait because 10 people will take it!
I've seen sites self-moderate. I've seen places where a /pol/ flame won't get more than one reply and sink off the bottom. It's usually in slow places distant from 4chan IHM culture who have dealt with enough shit-and-run baiters to have to have learnt how to deal with them if they don't want to go to shit
There are reasons why we don't have that culture right now: people used to other sites who never considered this, a mutual pessimism that resistance is futile due to other bait-takers, a lack of awareness and any community culture, narrow-sightedness, all kinds of things.

But the great thing about a community is that culture can and will change if the people in it want it to.

this post dedicated to the lazloposter, i hope they're still here