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I'm not saying you're not trying, but honestly it's not just a minor problem. If the goal was really to engage with people you don't agree with, this website is a failure. I only come here when I want to know what a specific part of the right thinks.
A good starting point would be to drastically improve the quality of the so-called quality contributions. They should be held to the highest standard, so people can go there and see what's expected of them. What I got from doing that is that your message should be long, written in good english and be right wing. That will garantee you a place there with a 50% probability. Following the rules in their letter and spirit is obviously optionnal.
It's not just a minor problem, no, but I don't think it's solvable.
You're not completely wrong here (I personally don't like that AAQCs are mostly determined by who gets a lot of AAQC "applause" from other members, and a long-winded but superficially polite polemic about how My Enemies Are Scum or Those People Are An Existential Threat will always get tons), but the alternative requires the mods being much more personally and directly involved in deciding what we consider to be a quality post. Is that what you are asking for? And are you sure our selections would be more satisfactory?
A first step is to just do a posteriori control, you eliminate the post that don't follow the rules strictly. However my feeling is that not much quality contributions would remain.
And the user driven evaluation could be more rules-based, instead of voting on a scale bad/good you could ask whether it's charitable, whether you agree or oppose the content, whether it is nice.
I have other ideas if you are interested, like categories for quality contribution: best left/right wing contribution...
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Yes, I am interested in what you consider to be quality posts.
Maybe you could have two different sections of quality contributions; ones that got a lot of AAQCs (and didn't break any rules and weren't too egregious, like how you choose them now), and a separate "Mod's Choice" section. In particular, there's a lot of awesome life advice I see in Wellness Wednesdays, and I remember being disappointed one didn't make it. But I've never been one to nominate them myself much, anyway.
I seriously think "Mod's Choice" AAQC is a really great idea. It shows what the moderators of the site are looking for while giving out that sweet internet recognition that encourages people to make more posts like the AAQC. Or people can just ignore it and go for the mass-approval AAQCs and still feel satisfied their contributions are being recognized.
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YES. You guys are the mods! You set the tone of the entire site! You guys should have a personal standard of what is quality post and measure it against the popular post.
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That is also why I come to this website, mostly to find out what the far-but-smart part of the right thinks. I have to say I would quite like it if smart parts of the left would come here and participate more often though – I feel that the essence of the moderation approach could potentially make for more interesting and productively adversarial debate if more ideologically diverse voices joined in. It's not always enjoyable to be a lone outspoken voice in this environment however, so I think something special may be required to get past that participation hurdle and get larger numbers of left contributors involved.
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