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posted by NCommander on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the another-overdue-discussion dept.
So as we make strides to upgrade the site, another long-standing issue is working to improve the karma system. Obviously, we've heard a lot of discussions and ideas on how to improve this, but we need a solid plan on how to improve it. Ideally, we need a system that allows a user to gain karma, and show progress (so to speak), but also not render a user immune to moderation. As such, I think I've come up with a rather solid idea, based on the concept of gamification to keep users competitive on earning karma.

Read past the break for more information.
How Karma Works Today:

Before we get into how we're going to rework it, a quick recap is in order to explain how the system currently works. As of right now, karma is a signed integer in the database, with a range of -10 to 50. When a user has negative karma, their default posting score becomes 0 or -1. At +40, the user gains the ability to post at +2. Although the backend logs all up/down votes, karma is capped at 50, and can not be exceeded.

This obviously presents a problem since once a user hits 50, what incentive do they have to really keep posting? A lot of users have stated that earning karma is fun, and have long wished for us to improve the karma cap or something similar. Various suggestions such as karma aging has been proposed, but these all end up penalizing users for doing nothing wrong, something I dislike in concept. Thus we need a better system to handle this, while preventing a user from becoming immune to moderation.

Reworking Karma: Karma Levels + Recent Karma

The easiest solution is thus to break karma into two parts, one which is a total lifetime of karma earned, and a recent karma value. The recent value will be a range, similar to the current karma system, which can go up and down, and is capped; if a user decides to suddenly spam the site to hell, their recent karma scores can be destroyed via moderation. Abilities such as posting at +2 will be tied to this recent karma value. In short, it allows moderation to still impact a user in a meaningful way.

However, most people want to see the total sum of their contributions, hence a new value which is comprised of the total karma a user ever earned. This value only goes up, and is the total sum of positive contributions to the site. In line with the concept of gamification, this total karma is like XP in most role-playing games. Earn enough, and you level up. While I haven't worked out an exact algorithm just yet, take the following example.

User john_doe is newly registered.

His recent karma and lifetime karma are 0. It takes 10 points of karma to reach Lv. 2. john_doe decides to contribute 3 insightful comments, all getting moderated up to +5 Insightful, for a total 12 karma points. His recent karma is at 12, and he's levels up to 2, with 2 KP towards level 3. Lets say then John decides to be a dick, and posts spam, which rightfully gets hit with the spam moderation.

The spam moderation knocks the post down to +0, and inflicts a -10 karma ding. John's recent karma value will drop to 2, enough to still post at +1, but his total karma value will remain unchanged. If John continues misbehaving, his recent karma value will drop negative, locking him to posting at +0 or -1, but he will retain his levels, should he choose to change his behavior.

Due to the recent karma value being capped, any user can still be affected by moderation, but there is still plenty of inventive to keep posting and try and build levels, perhaps tie various rewards to karma levels (though ATM, I don't have any great ideas on this; if the community has any, I'm all ears).

This is my proposal in a nutshell, feedback welcome.

Related Stories

RFC: Reworking Karma Redux 162 comments

Apparently some people mistook Request For Comment to mean the same as it does for Internet RFCs, a settled matter. Not so much in our case; it meant exactly as it said. The proof is in the pudding though. Given the legitimate concerns of gamification of karma scores leading to lower quality comments raised by some users in regards to our RFC: Reworking Karma post, we agree and the idea has been scrapped.

It wasn't a difficult decision and we would have posted this the next day but there were a lot of very interesting ideas in the comments that we decided to work in to another RFC. Keep in mind these won't necessarily all go in at once even if everyone loves them all. Here's the list.

  1. Karma minimum to downmod
  2. Downmods cost the moderator karma, except the Spam mod
  3. Touché gets its missing accent
  4. Spam mods not to cost mod points but limiting it to 5/day
  5. The triumphant return of Overrated
  6. No karma hits for someone moderated Overrated/Underrated
  7. Require comments to be otherwise moderated before you can Overrated/Underrated them
  8. Organize moderation drop-down list
  9. Separate Spam in the drop-down list with a spacer
  10. Automated mod-bombing detection and manual resolution
  11. Add an Incorrect moderation that must be accompanied by a correction

Details below the fold.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:25PM (#149516)

    Is that what you really want? A manipulatable Digg v5, Reddit fiasco?

    How about in every thread everyone starts from zero. Everyone's contribution is atomic and weighed in on topic-by-topic. As it should be.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NCommander on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:30PM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:30PM (#149517) Homepage Journal

      And this is why I'm asking instead of just doing something. If you have a better idea, please feel free to post it. I'd like to think from previous experience I can be trusted to take feedback seriously. Most discussions don't last that long, so I don't see having it on a per-thread/per-story basis being that useful

      --
      Still always moving
      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:40PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:40PM (#149549) Journal

        Please, for the love of god just leave it alone!
         
        At least figure out if some significant percent of the users have an issue with it first. A few loudmouths does not a problem make.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:33PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:33PM (#149713) Homepage Journal

          Ain't that kind of what he's doing right here?

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:52AM

          by anubi (2828) on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:52AM (#149799) Journal

          Neither do I consider anything needs to be done. The existing paradigms are working pretty damm good if you ask me.

          They are simple, yet allow us once in a while to post a whopper troll if we need some personal insight into a controversial topic.

          I did one a few days ago and took a pretty good hit for it, as it got moderated all over the place. Some people agreed with me, and others apparently saw it as a threat to have anybody mention such things. I just had to run it up the flagpole just to see what would happen. Some folks saluted; some folks shot at it.

          But could I complain? No. I knew before I submitted it some people might disagree and mod it a troll. Well, it was a troll. I was fishing for comments more than moderation.

          Moderating something "troll" to me is a childish way of saying " I do not agree with you. Shut up!", where a reply comment detailing what is wrong with the picture is far, far, far more welcome.

          I do not think I have ever used a *troll* mod on anyone... however I have been known to leave wordy replies. I think "offtopic" is the only negative mod I have issued, and it took a GNAA post or similar to coax one from me. I hate to waste modpoints on trash when I felt it was far more constructively used as a "thank you" for someone else taking their time to post an insightful comment.

          I believe these latest changes they have done to the moderation system - that is giving each of us 5 points a day, is pretty effective. The good posts get moderated up pretty fast. The crowdsourcing nature of it distributes the task of moderation so that hardly any of us are going out of our way to make it work.

          TL;DR -> Don't fix it. It ain't broke.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:00AM

            by anubi (2828) on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:00AM (#149800) Journal

            Oh, incidentally, I do not frequent here, moderate, or anything else based on "karma".

            I frequent here because I often find others of like interests here, and often run across people who have far greater insight into things than I have, as well as the sharing of "how to do things".

            I would not be surprised if 99% of us here who participate in the forums are capped out on karma. There are a helluva lot of very intelligent and insightful folk who frequent this hangout.
             

            --
            "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:19AM

            by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:19AM (#149825) Journal

            Yeah, having the ability to issue a bitchslap every once in a while is needed. Even if you have to take a hit.

            Maybe having low or negative karma should remove the ability to select some negative moderations?
            You have to use them sparingly, like the rocket jump in Quake. ;-)

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
            • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:11AM

              by anubi (2828) on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:11AM (#149863) Journal

              I would imagine you are capped out on karma, Frojack. I have been here long enough to know you are one of the kingpins around here, always coming up with informative and intelligent posts.

              You and quite a few others are why I like hanging out around here.

              My guess is 99% of us have karma >40 ( Accounting for taking the hit occasionally for a good bitchslapping ).

              I thoroughly agree with you... sometimes a good bitchslapping is called for - sometimes you have to call a spade a spade and let the chips fly.

              I would think that even if you had to have karma > 40 to moderate, we would knock very few people out of the pool.

              By the one someone gets to karma 40, by then he/she has learned the ropes enough around here to make the call.

              What I offer is not a suggestion, rather its conjecture on how I see most of us interact on this forum.
               

              --
              "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
              • (Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Thursday February 26 2015, @07:59AM

                by Adamsjas (4507) on Thursday February 26 2015, @07:59AM (#149881)

                Frojack has been called many things, but kingpin was never one of them. Till now.

                I don't have a lot of time to post or submit. But I still got capped out on karma somehow. It must not be too hard.

              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:56PM

                by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:56PM (#150019) Homepage Journal

                My guess is 99% of us have karma >40

                Not even close. Roughly 50% of those who aren't on zero karma are 40+. About 70% are still on zero karma. We looked the other day for curiosity's sake.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday February 27 2015, @01:26AM

                  by anubi (2828) on Friday February 27 2015, @01:26AM (#150242) Journal

                  That is one helluva surprise to me.

                  I guess I am used to running with the crowd of frequent posters here, which are to me the real people who make this site what it is, thanks to the people who provide this forum to host these discussions.

                  I guess there are a lot of lurkers that do not say much. Nothing wrong with that. There are many topics here I read but do not contribute to. Its on a subject I have nothing to contribute.

                  I consistently see the same names come up - and after a while they earn my respect through things I learn from them. And I am grateful they took the time to post or share some tidbit they found on the web.

                  The logs provide some interesting statistics. If 70% of us are zero, and half of those not zero are 40+, then it looks like the array of names I see come up over and over are about 15% of the iceberg. I read their posts, consistently injecting tidbits of wisdom into the thread, and know statistics will drive them to the karma rail.

                  --
                  "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
                  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 27 2015, @03:13AM

                    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday February 27 2015, @03:13AM (#150271) Homepage Journal

                    Surprised me too. I would have figured thousands capped but it looks like about 15-20% of our registered users do most of the registered posting. Haven't checked to see the ratio of registered posters to AC posters though. We do have a lot of people who only post AC.

                    --
                    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 1) by Istaera on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:52AM

                    by Istaera (113) on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:52AM (#152411)

                    I am a lurker. The only reason I have non-zero karma is I broke my lurking to comment at the beginning, when this site was in much greater need of comments then it is today. Now we have enough activity I am content to sit back, read and moderate. I would hate to have my moderating privileges removed simply because I am quiet.

                    --
                    I believe there's somebody out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government.
            • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday February 26 2015, @07:36AM

              by q.kontinuum (532) on Thursday February 26 2015, @07:36AM (#149879) Journal

              Yeah, having the ability to issue a bitchslap every once in a while is needed. Even if you have to take a hit.

              I fully agree! Removing "-1 Overrated" basically means, anything with 4 or more fanboys gets +4, and no means to rate it down to a reasonable value again. (People could use "Troll", but usually that wouldn't be appropriate. "Disagree" doesn't fit either, because that is only matter of opinion, while "Insightful" once was supposed to be a matter of quality.

              --
              Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:09AM

                by anubi (2828) on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:09AM (#149884) Journal

                Yeh, but I won't knock a post down over fanboys. Somebody has taken the time to post something - and discussion is what makes this site more interesting than say, Google News.

                I had just as soon spit on someone as to negatively moderate his post.

                It wasn't all that long ago I accidentally moderated another soylenter "redundant" for an insightful post. I felt quite bad about it. I know how I would have felt if I had taken time to participate and someone moderated me as such. I do not need to be poisoning someone else's participation like that. I ended up replying to his post to acknowledge and apologize for what I did - even though I knew I would likely take a hit for it.

                The last thing I need to be doing here is using modpoints to destroy other people's desire to participate in the discussions.

                I know how I feel about it if I try to participate and get spat at.

                I flat won't do it to anyone else.

                I believe the logs here would show I never used the overrated mod. Ever.

                I considered it a very destructive moderation.

                --
                "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
                • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:47AM

                  by q.kontinuum (532) on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:47AM (#149890) Journal

                  Ok, I think I understand your point. My point of view is a bit different in that I don't bother too much about my karma and anyone modding me up or down or sideways. I mainly want to be able to get a good rating system to easily see what I consider worth reading, and would want to see appropriate ratings for each post. If something is rated insightful but actually just reflects a likable attitude with no real insight, I think it should be rated differently, but not insightful. Maybe we can get a "+1 Like" button, or a "-1 Dislike" - I could compensate for it in my user-preferences by configuring an additional modifier "-1 Like" or "+1 Dislike".

                  --
                  Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
                  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:07AM

                    by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:07AM (#149894) Journal

                    I too found -1 overrated being used for disagree far too often.

                    Overrated is really an opinion of prior moderators, and not of the original post itself. It was meta moderation in a sense. (Same applies to underrated I guess).

                    But we are left with a de-facto ratchet in the upward direction, because, as you say, unless you are willing to scream troll or flamebait, there is no suitable to rein in fanboys.

                    --
                    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
                    • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:22AM

                      by q.kontinuum (532) on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:22AM (#149896) Journal

                      Overrated is really an opinion of prior moderators, and not of the original post itself.

                      That is a valid point. How about giving Overrated only an effect on the rating of the post, but not on the karma of the submitter? So, if a post is modded +4 insightful, the poster gets the benefit, but if others consider this overrated, the post is rated down without any karma-penalty for the poster?

                      --
                      Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
                      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:55AM

                        by anubi (2828) on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:55AM (#149910) Journal

                        I think discussions such as this is precisely why NCommander started this topic. Moderation is critical part of these forums. Most of us, ( its obvious you are very concerned as well ) are conscientiously trying to make this place as good as we can. If we weren't, we would not be having this discussion.

                        Its a fine line to pass judgement on a post.

                        My feeling is its kinda like someone else likes a waitress and they tip her. Its not my place to take her tip because I didn't think she was all that good.

                        This looks like one of those judgment calls someone like NCommander will have to resolve.

                        I just don't like to give or get bad moderation, as it tells me what I did was so bad someone actually went out of their way to inflict it. Too much of that and one loses interest in participation. I'll ignore uninteresting stuff. If there is disagreement, I feel quite free to argue my point - not to say I am right; as I am very apt to change my mind after integrating more information - but I will not negatively moderate over it. I won't even use the disagree mod. If it means that much to me, I will comment.

                        For me, the modpoints are just a way of saying "thanks for the post! I enjoyed reading it". It gives the poster acknowledgement that someone appreciated his work.

                        --
                        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
                        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:34AM

                          by q.kontinuum (532) on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:34AM (#149913) Journal

                          For me, mod-points are a tool to help each other whatever everyone likes to find. In rural German there is a proverb: "Wat den Eenen sin Uhl, is den Annern sin Nachtigall". It means roughly translated, "One mans owl is another mans nightingale".
                          That means, some people like tongue-in-cheek posts, others consider them trollish. Some like sarcasm, others find it insulting. Some like cleanly formulated posts in more or less technical language, some prefer more common language. Some prefer exchange of opinion, others prefer exchange of facts.

                          I admit that I feel slightly flattered when someone moderates me "insightful" or "funny", and when I moderate someone else insightful it is also meant as a compliment.

                          But these are only side-aspects for me. I could well appreciate if most dimensions were not directly connected to a positive/negative rating. Like, a post can have Troll 5, Insightful 3, Funny 2 and in my browser the post is rated +5 (because I value insight and funny, but ignore the Troll-aspect) while for another reader it is rated "-2" because he doesn't care for "Funny" and dislikes "Troll", but values "Insightful".

                          --
                          Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
                          • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:59AM

                            by anubi (2828) on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:59AM (#149916) Journal

                            Sounds like we both think down the same lines.

                            I, too, am flattered when someone goes out of their way to mod me up, and I also feel I wasted my time and just made a mess if someone went out of their way to downmod me.

                            If I am ignored, then its obvious to me I wasn't all that good, but at least it wasn't so bad I was deliberately singled out for a reprimand.

                            If all I am doing is making a mess, then it makes no sense to me to do it at all - it would behoove me to find something else to do.

                            There are many things out there I have already discovered I am a dismal failure at - those are just not my thing. Like playing a horn. All I do is annoy the neighbors and terrify all the neighborhood animals.

                            So, I am extremely reticent to downmod.

                            --
                            "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
                      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:14PM

                        by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:14PM (#149944) Journal
                        That is totally possible and deserves some investigation.
                        --
                        Team Leader for SN Development
                        • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:23PM

                          by q.kontinuum (532) on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:23PM (#150004) Journal

                          *I* would be happy, and think it would be a great idea. However, seeing how ambiguous the feelings about the the "Overrated" mod seem to be, this would probably be worth a separate poll...

                          Do you want the "Overrated" mod back?

                          1) Yes, the way it was was great. (Poster got undeserved good karma, should be reduced again accordingly).

                          2) Yes, but with no karma-penalty for the poster. "Overrated" is a critique to the other moderators, not to the original poster.

                          3) No, leave it away.

                          --
                          Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
                          • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday February 27 2015, @06:18AM

                            by anubi (2828) on Friday February 27 2015, @06:18AM (#150308) Journal

                            I have to admit your point is as valid as mine.

                            There are some posts out there that are like those Amazon 5-star reviews of a crock of crap.

                            Good idea.. sounds like a good time for a poll.

                            --
                            "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:45AM

            by Reziac (2489) on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:45AM (#150900) Homepage

            After mulling for a while, I agree. It ain't broke. Don't fix it. Leave it the hell alone.

            I hadn't realised mod points were now daily! No wonder I've had so many lately. I'd thought it was just one of those things (like when Slashdot went overboard and gave me mod points ALL the time for six months). You're right about stuff getting modded up fast!

            Me, I don't downmod at all. There are already plenty of other folks eager to issue bitchslaps. I'd rather pull something worthy up into the air and light.

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:10PM (#149614)

        It is nice that you are asking, but you want re-read prior posts from prior rounds of this subject that have noted errors in Karma and other filtering systems that are in place. Also those posts have shown other ways to handle karma and scoring and separating the "score" with "class". "-1 Funny" just as valid "+1 Funny" or even "0 Funny".

        One example bigger issues is AC can be marked as troll with a single person doing the deed. That is akin to your -10 for spam. The difference is the KNOWN issue in slash code, that then locks out an AC permanently (unless you want to give up your id - which is known on your end already :) without automated forwarding it up the line. This system of blocking does not work, instead just makes posting a game of Whack-A-Mole, the SN cannot win. The agreement is cuts the Signal -to-Noise, but actually does not.

        The blocking goes as far as when requesting info on topics that SN related, the user is blocked also.

        The TP has the right idea. Posting and worth of post is a Thread-by-Thread value. Because one thread has a different pet-peeve, should not toss a AC out of ALL threads.

        PS: my user is +50 Karma. I post as AC because it is harder to heard and more meaningful when the value goes up.

                 

        • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:42PM

          by paulej72 (58) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:42PM (#149717) Journal
          Create an account and log in and this issue goes away. Some of the downsides of being anonymous are to encourage people to sign up an log in. Yes it could be fixed, but then there is one less benefit to logging in.
          --
          Team Leader for SN Development
          • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @11:41PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @11:41PM (#149775)

            So much for asking what is wanted (RFC). Though thank you for showing the bias of SN development (you and big bird)

            PS: What a joke you are keeping this:
            Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner or login and improve your posting. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email admin@soylentnews.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "xxxxxxxx" and "xxxxxxxx".

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:25AM

          by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:25AM (#149828) Journal

          One example bigger issues is AC can be marked as troll with a single person doing the deed. That is akin to your -10 for spam. The difference is the KNOWN issue in slash code, that then locks out an AC permanently (unless you want to give up your id - which is known on your end already :) without automated forwarding it up the line.

          Run that by me again?

          ACs are ACs, right? How can they earn negative points? I thought the whole purpose of people posting as ACs is to run away from their reputation?

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:26PM

            by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:26PM (#149950) Journal
            Back in the old days of Slashdot there were a lot of problems with people abusing AC posting, so things were tracked by IP address instead. So instead of an AC getting negative or positive karma, the IP address (and subnet) does instead. This can only become an issue when an IP address is used by lots of users, like our Tor exit node. One bad apple can make a problem for others. In this case we are now looking into the how the troll messages get triggered and may change the thresholds as our new moderation system is handing our more points than the old numbers were designed to happen. Right now the thresholds are set that if there are 4 downmods in 72 hours for the same IP, then the AC user on an IP is considered a troll.
            --
            Team Leader for SN Development
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:22PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:22PM (#150003)

              Do not forget that is permanent too. At least two months, is ALOT more then temporary.

              Again the issues:
              . number of points given out.
              . ability to mod in the same article as your post.
              . ability to post in the same article as your mod.
              . multiple post in one thread against something you dislike makes your IP a permanent troll.

              Fixes could be:
              . inability to mod a child of thread you post in.
              . inability to post in child of thread you mod.
              . "troll" meaning only counts once per article *and* only if *all* post by IP are marked as troll.
              . remove all negative post functionality. Allow higher post value Say 0 to 10 points.
              . remove value to classification assignment. Classification is akin to "like" button. I like this because it is "funny", "insightful"... Score is if you want to "tip" the person for being "funny". This way you can have "troll:5" and "funny:5" status at the same time get "tips: 10". some trolls a can be both.

              • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:43PM

                by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:43PM (#150038) Journal
                It is temporary, some ACs are just a serial trolls and keep getting modded that way.
                --
                Team Leader for SN Development
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:18PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:18PM (#150194)

                  Factually false.

                  Since you cannot post, then clock should have timed out long ago. But it has not, in the 2 months range now.

                  Add - Time to the "temporary" message when "troll" goes away. So temporary can be measured. Actually add time and count on "troll" posting. That way you know what the limit is, versus appears as a truly arbitrary "permanent" block.

                  So you follow Animal Farm: All animals are created equal, some are more equal than others.

                  • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Friday February 27 2015, @12:32AM

                    by paulej72 (58) on Friday February 27 2015, @12:32AM (#150228) Journal
                    Please send us the IP address that you are having issues with to admin@soylentnews.org. We will look into the problem. The IPIDs that you have used recently do not show any current issues, but you do seem to be posting on these ones. Without more info, there is not much more I can do.
                    --
                    Team Leader for SN Development
                  • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday February 27 2015, @01:41AM

                    by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Friday February 27 2015, @01:41AM (#150249) Homepage

                    I responded to you here [soylentnews.org].

                    We can investigate these things but you need to help us help you. If all you do is keep re-posting the same quote of the ban message you got for earning troll mods as AC repeatedly, I can't promise anything.

                    Posting as an AC, it take 1 person mark something as a troll, not a community

                    Actually, it takes 4 troll-mods in a 72 hour period. That's likely 4 different users, but it *could* be just one. Kinda hard to target you as AC unless you make yourself one though. We looked at the code, it checks to see if the AC IPID has 4 troll-mods withing 72 hours and prevents posting if that case is met.

                    in the 2 months range now

                    Unless you are accessing through TOR and posting AC (all ACs share the TOR exit-node ipaddress), and the planets aligned that every time you tried to post in that period 4 other TOR AC trolls had recently been modded, this is simply not possible (I just tried and successfully posted a comment as AC through TOR so I doubt this is the case). We've checked all the ban logs and we don't have any that we can find. It would not be from this temp-ban message that we've seen AC posting. Again send us the IPID and we can look into it.

                    SN does not want to fix something that is broken

                    If you look around at what we have changed due to pleas from the community (even if you don't agree with them), you would see this is false. You can't satisfy everyone despite your best efforts, people want different things.

                    So much for asking what is wanted (RFC)

                    RFC does not mean: "Tell us what you want and we'll do whatever one upset AC wants us to do", it means we are gathering info to look at future changes. Please understand none of this is meant to sound aggressive, but if you were modded troll 4 times in that period, there's likely a reason, and maybe you should consider re-evaluating your posts. Frankly that sounds like a decent system. If this was done wrongly, then we can look into it, but you have to show us the posts for us to do that (admin@soylentnews.org). We can honestly look into relaxing the filter but you haven't heeded any of our requests (namely showing us the mods that triggered this in the first place).

                    Continuously re-posting the same error message announcing to everyone that you garnered 4 troll mods in such a short period to then yield a ban won't help fix the problem unless you can aid us in the investigation. I know the situation is exacerbated by the fact that you are AC and aren't notified when we respond, but it has been pointed out that logging in has it's benefits, and you are free to do so over TOR [7rmath4ro2of2a42.onion] (TOR onion link).

                    Just to recap: your options for remedy are:

                    • Email us the IPID in question
                    • Log in (through TOR if desired)

                    This will likely be the last time we spend time to respond to you on this.

                    --
                    (Score:1^½, Radical)
                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:41AM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:41AM (#150867)

                      So give up AC, because you cannot fix a bug in software??

                      Yeah, right. Thank you for playing.

                      Here is more info... Maybe use a LIKE compare.
                      Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner or login and improve your posting. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email admin@soylentnews.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "7178439abf13e971507c3%" and "65b13b259426d5741f9%".

      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:40AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:40AM (#150898) Homepage

        Does this mean that if someone with good karma doesn't post for a while, they drop down to +1 ??

        I hate that. I really, really hate that. It means that reliably-good contributors, whose only sin is that they don't hang out here all the time, will sink from view.

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fadrian on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:47PM

      by fadrian (3194) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:47PM (#149555) Homepage

      How about in every thread everyone starts from zero.

      Sorry, quality of articles (which is what karma attempts to reflect) is a probabilistic measure. People who have posted informative or insightful (and what the hell, funny, too) comments in the past have a much higher probability of their next posts being informative or insightful. Ignoring priors is not useful here, unless you want to give spammers and trolls a free pass.

      --
      That is all.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by schad on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:06PM

        by schad (2398) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:06PM (#149609)

        Well, it's ridiculous overkill, but if I were presented with this problem I'd start by doing some statistical analysis. Certainly we all assume that there's predictive power to past good behavior. I'd like to try to quantify that a little better. Is behavior from a certain time more or less important? Are all mods equal (i.e. is funny as good as insightful, and is flamebait as bad as troll; for that matter, is flamebait as bad as insightful is good)? Is it better to have a lot of posts that get +1, or a smaller number that get +4? And some weirder things too, like whether replies are better indicators than new threads. You'd want to look at the moderation for an entire thread, too. If an entire thread is at score:1, your reply is less likely to be seen by moderators than if it's to a thread at score:5.

        It would be a fun exercise, even as stupid as it is.

        With all that being said, though, I suspect that "recent Karma" should actually be "weighted moving average of Karma change." Otherwise you'll get a lot of fluctuations from people who, like me, are mostly score:1 but sometimes score:5 and almost never in between. (Extrapolating a little from my history on the green site, because I haven't got much posting history here.)

        • (Score: 2) by fadrian on Friday February 27 2015, @12:52PM

          by fadrian (3194) on Friday February 27 2015, @12:52PM (#150393) Homepage

          Otherwise you'll get a lot of fluctuations from people who, like me, are mostly score:1 but sometimes score:5 and almost never in between.

          That's true of almost everyone. You'll note that the main issue is not in those whose karma fluctuates between one and 5, but those who fluctuate between -1 and 0. Trust me, there's enough density of good and bad scores around for better posters to be distinguished from worse ones.

          --
          That is all.
    • (Score: 1) by mvdwege on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:10PM

      by mvdwege (3388) on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:10PM (#151590)

      Oh please don't use this suggestion.

      If Karma is calculated per thread, it gives free reign to the loudest shouters, because there will be no permanent downside to being an arse.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by mvdwege on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:21PM

        by mvdwege (3388) on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:21PM (#151597)

        Off-topic a bit: that's an interesting error I made there. It should of course be 'free rein' as in not holding back your horse but just letting it get up to full speed on its own. 'Free reign' however, works just as well, as a metaphor for a tyrannical ruler that does not get any resistance.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:31PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:31PM (#149518) Journal

    I don't want to be gamified into some reddit-like obsession with making more and more meaningless internet points.

    I want to be able to use karma as a simple marker that I'm not a shithead who does nothing but attack and troll other users and have an intent of making meaningful conversation. Not as some e-penis to pretend matters at all.

    Huge hits to karma for particular kinds of downmods is also a bad idea because it encourages dishonest moderation. The new +0 disagree is great, because it lets you show your displeasure without turning things into a fight.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:35PM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:35PM (#149521) Homepage Journal

      Only the spam mod has a hit attached to it, and editors can undo those moderations in a single click, and ban abusers.

      --
      Still always moving
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:37PM

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:37PM (#149523) Journal

        The former objection is by-far the bigger concern to me.

        And, in response, you're ascribing more willingness of users to intercede over minor mismods than the vast majority of us would actually take

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:33AM

        by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:33AM (#149830) Journal

        Karma Hits from a single mod seems to play right into the hands of abusers.
        Unless EACH of them is reviewed, it should take a village.

        I suggested elsewhere that perhaps some moderation selections should only be available to high karma folks to prevent pots calling kettles sooty or some such thing.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Marand on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:47AM

        by Marand (1081) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:47AM (#149837) Journal

        Only the spam mod has a hit attached to it, and editors can undo those moderations in a single click, and ban abusers.

        The only change I think we really need right now is to move the spam mod away from the others on the list. It should be at the end, with a separator, to make misclicking it more difficult. Like so:

        [other entries]
        Underrated
        Disagree
        Touche
        ----
        Spam

        As for giving a way to encourage more posting, I'd suggest reading this post on codinghorror [codinghorror.com]. Especially the line early on: "If I have learned anything from the Internet, it is this: be very, very careful when you put a number next to someone's name. Because people will do whatever it takes to make that number go up."

        Having a lifetime karma that doesn't cap will encourage more posting, yes, but you're basically going to be asking for quantity at the cost of quality, especially with how modpoints are given out now. The result will be a bunch of echo chamber posts and dumb jokes because they're easy +1s and you've turned getting +1s into a game. When you "gamify" something, people will often try to "win" at any cost. I'm sure there's something that can be done to improve the system some, but ditching the hard cap in favour of any sort of open-ended system is just asking for the same sorts of crap discussions and low S:N ratio that you see at other sites.

        I'm not sure it's a good idea at all, but if you really want something "RPG like", try going for something more like alignment based (reputation tracking) instead of messing with karma itself. Track what types of mods the commenters get and maybe give titles accordingly, or show a chart with modpoint distribution, like a radar chart [wikipedia.org] or something, to provide a way to see what others think of your comments. Like anything else, though, there's a potential dark side: a user like Ethanol-fueled will look at the karma distribution and go "I want to become Chaotic Funny!" and try to get high +Funny, +Flamebait, and +Troll counts at the same time.

        You could do the same thing for mod points distributed, showing that a user is a modpoint asshole (only giving downmods), disagreeable (disagree mods often), etc.

        • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:34PM

          by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:34PM (#149953) Journal
          Moving the spam mod down the list will be difficult as Slash uses a sub to populate lists like this (which actually are pulled from the database). This makes it done all automagically and not easy to customize. We would need to make some major changes to the code to customize this list. We are planning on looking into this to see what can be done though.
          --
          Team Leader for SN Development
          • (Score: 1) by Somnanda on Friday February 27 2015, @02:24AM

            by Somnanda (4244) on Friday February 27 2015, @02:24AM (#150262)

            So... can you just add a mod or 2 named "------------" to the database? Preferably, that don't affect the comment score...

          • (Score: 2) by Marand on Friday February 27 2015, @10:24AM

            by Marand (1081) on Friday February 27 2015, @10:24AM (#150359) Journal

            It's a minor thing anyway, just something I thought about that might lower the risk of mis-moderating something as spam.

            I did thing of one area that could be changed rather than karma that could still encourage site partipation. Something like how free-to-play games do, to encourage daily visits of the site.

            Basically, you get a counter for the # of days you've visited the site, and maybe another for consecutive visits. Maybe give an icon or something at different tiers of days visited displayed on their user page to show they're a regular. No punishments for not visiting, just a subtle encouragement to check back and remember to keep visiting the site. The idea is that regular visiting keeps the site in people's minds and increases the odds that they'll see an interesting article in a timely manner, so that they can contribute without it being lost in the "nobody's going to read this old stuff" limbo.

            Also, one area that you might want to consider giving more attention to "high number = more better!" is accepted submissions. It displays it at the bottom, sure, but maybe something more prominent, like next to your karma score, as a reminder. Maybe even allow others to see it.

            • (Score: 1) by mvdwege on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:24PM

              by mvdwege (3388) on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:24PM (#151598)

              Didn't Slashcode encourage visiting and reading by increasing your odds of getting Moderator points? Perhaps restricting Moderator access a bit and freeing it up based on your visiting pattern might be a way to reimplent this?

              • (Score: 2) by Marand on Monday March 02 2015, @01:08AM

                by Marand (1081) on Monday March 02 2015, @01:08AM (#151691) Journal

                Didn't Slashcode encourage visiting and reading by increasing your odds of getting Moderator points? Perhaps restricting Moderator access a bit and freeing it up based on your visiting pattern might be a way to reimplent this?

                From my perspective, at least, I see two problems with that idea. One, it would come across more like a punishment for not visiting often, because it's taking away something we already have. Two, if the connection between "visiting the site" and "reward given" has any sort of randomness, I think it will interfere with the association between the two, making it less "I get this for logging in" and more "damn RNG didn't give me my thing"

                I don't have any citations for the latter, but I swear I've seen something in the past where a study was done on randomness and its effects on perception of linked events. Tried to search for it but I don't remember enough context to get any useful hits. :/

                • (Score: 1) by mvdwege on Monday March 02 2015, @06:29AM

                  by mvdwege (3388) on Monday March 02 2015, @06:29AM (#151728)

                  I never felt Slashdot's random moderator access was that deleterious to people contributing. It was made clear that it was an odds thing, and that you could 'game' the odds in your favour, but never more than that.

                  The mod system on Slashdot was one of the few things that worked well, a lot better than on other discussion forums, so it is worth it to keep it as close to the original as possible, IMO.

                  • (Score: 2) by Marand on Monday March 02 2015, @09:35AM

                    by Marand (1081) on Monday March 02 2015, @09:35AM (#151771) Journal

                    I never felt Slashdot's random moderator access was that deleterious to people contributing. It was made clear that it was an odds thing, and that you could 'game' the odds in your favour, but never more than that.

                    It's not that it's harmful, and that isn't what I was trying to say. What I meant, in separate points in a single post:

                    1. I don't believe messing with the behaviour of the karma or mod system is a good way to encourage participation. It works well and, due to the hard capped nature, it doesn't encourage shit-posting or echo chamber comments just to get easy upvotes. This should be largely left unmodified from its current state. Maybe some adjustment to numbers could be tested, changing caps, but no major overhauls needed.
                    2. I believe user participation can be increased simply by encouraging repeat visits of the site, because the hardest part is getting the user on the site and keeping him or her there. Encouragement to visit happens either by carrot (reward) or by stick (punishment).
                    3. Encouragement by punishment, such as karma decay, is a bad idea. It turns visiting or commenting into an obligation rather than something done out of interest. Punishing a user for not visiting also makes it more likely the user will go "screw it" and stop visiting after missing a week due to real-life issues getting in the way.
                    4. Encouragement by reward is a better solution to encourage repeat visits. Preferably by doing something that doesn't interfere with point #1, but is consistent and visible to that user (and not necessarily to others). Mobile games are an example of where this is used successfully. Some track daily logins and remind you with an increasing count and minor reward, but minimal punishment so you don't quit because you had to miss a day.
                    5. Random mod point rewards fails #4 due to lack of consistency. It won't discourage discussion, but being random, it fails to feel like a reward for visiting. Instead it's more like a lotto, and will fail to encourage repeat visits by itself. It also would fail point #3 right now unless implemented as an extra bonus on top of the guaranteed 5 points we get daily, but making it an extra on top would trivialise it further.

                    So, in summary: don't change the karma system itself. Encourage daily visits. Don't use punishments as incentive. Don't use random things as incentive. Also, if something is to be added, it should either be to encourage more submissions, or something tangential to the commenting, such as the original example I gave about showing how users are modding your posts via a radar graph.

                    Hopefully this makes what I meant clear, since it's all in one spot and expressed more concisely.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:56PM

      by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:56PM (#149562)

      I agree with your sentiments and have upvoted you for it. I am announcing this mundane act in the hopes that other individuals who also agree with you will give me upvotes as well to show that they agree with my agreement, giving me points without requiring effort. While I will not get as much as you for your original thoughts, the Moon doesn't work at generating light but it still shines, am I right?

      Also, I would buy you a subscription but I'm cheap. Have a poorly-drawn MS Paint image instead.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:14PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:14PM (#149578)

      +0 Agree. Karma on slash is simply a "don't get downmodded so often that you disappear". The extra +1 really doesn't mean anything here since the volume is pretty low anyhow.

      Making it into a complex Digg/Reddit/Imgur game system is not only useless but encourages people to post meaningless crap to try to karma/upvote whore.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:27PM

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:27PM (#149591) Journal

        Yeah, I forgot about that second part.

        The last thing I want is that subset of people who post, not because they have something to add, but because they think they can squeeze some karma out.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by naubol on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:56PM

      by naubol (1918) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:56PM (#149656)

      Totally agree. This argument does not go to systems that recognize karma over time.

      The karma system as it stands is totally stupid, but I don't see major gains being eked out by spending time on this. It serves its function more than well enough.

      OTOH, features like not reloading the page when moderating (if JS enabled maybe?) or reloading in the same spot (if no JS), private messaging, better filtering, maybe SUBMISSION moderation (IE I can finally downmod all the submitters who put in trollbait articles), and a million other features might be nice.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sudo rm -rf on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:34PM

    by sudo rm -rf (2357) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:34PM (#149520) Journal

    I like it, the "recent" karma works as it used to, while the "total" karma is an incentive to keep posting. Also I like the idea that total karma kann only grow, it might remind one who is on a spamming spree that in the past s/he actually wrote comments other soylentils liked.
    As far as I understand, the karma now is only visible to one self, isn't it? Maybe we should keep it that way, I am afraid to think of what karma-competition and karma-farming (karming?) could lead to (flame-wars, sockpuppets etc...)

    • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:46PM

      by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:46PM (#149553) Journal

      I like the basic idea, too. A lot. However, I'm not sure that downmods should not count against total Karma.. If a user has 5000 total lifetime karma and starts doing stupid crap, why shouldn't it count against that total as well recent? It's just another disincentive in my book. If the user has been good and is just going on an outburst or something then that user would have enough total Karma to absorb it (while recent Karma would take care of the immediate problem). There ARE occasionally some things in RPG's that can subtract from total experience, after all..

      --
      Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tathra on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:36PM

        by tathra (3367) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:36PM (#149593)

        thats just what i was thinking. losing pnly 'recent karma' isn't really enough disincentive to keep people from going on trolling sprees. maybe something like for every 10 'recent karma' lost, a point of 'level karma' could be lost, and if your recent karma hits negative you lose a karma level.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:41PM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:41PM (#149596) Journal

        Because whether we like it or not we have to worry about modbombing and cyberstalking? A few weeks back me and a couple other posters were getting modbombed, didn't matter what we posted the posts would suddenly "yo-yo" from +5 to -1 to +5 over and over AND OVER as somebody tried to game the system by burying the posts of whomever they didn't like. It was pretty obvious that this individual/s were stalking as even non controversial posts like "you can't tell how old a PC is by whether it came with XP as XP was sold as late as 09" would suddenly start to yo-yo and anybody that posted "What is going on, why is this happening?" would likewise suddenly start bouncing.

        So while I still see some use to the mod system (still wish there was an optional "No AC" button though) we have to be careful not to reward cyberstalking and modbombing, after all we came here to get AWAY from the Slash groupthink and karma manipulating, don't need to end up making something even worse. One idea another had I thought would help would be to show who is doing the modding, so one could see when a particular poster was targeting an individual, or at least have the admins run a few scripts to flag when a post starts to yo-yo to see if its a modbombing and punish those that target indivuals.

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
        • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:58PM

          by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:58PM (#149605) Journal

          Yes, this seems like a separate issue to me.. Maybe it could be minimized by your suggestion. Another possible idea might be to freeze a posts moderation level for a period of time if it becomes to active with moderation? Or frozen and flagged for meta-moderation or review if it became too active... I dunno.. just brainstorming.. :)

          --
          Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
          • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:01AM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:01AM (#149801) Journal

            Not really as its just the flip side of karma whoring, on one side you manipulate the system to get voted up, on the other side you manipulate the system to have somebody else buried. Both are using the same idea, gaming the system, they just have a different end goal.

            And I think meta-modding would be a waste of time as that is what we have now and why the posts "yo-yo" as modders go "WTF was this post buried for?" and mod up only for the modbomber to come back and mod it back down. Also temp freezes will not work as the modbomber can simply wait until a thread is no longer on the front page and THEN modbomb, remember the goal is to damage karma so they can simply mod down multiple posts that didn't get modded up and still accomplish their goal without doing a lot of movement. Take your current post which is at +2, if I were a modbomber I could simply target any and all +2 posts by you and drive them down to -1, this would hurt your karma without doing a large amount of movement to any one post.

            Frankly the only way I can see this being combated is on the admin side and it should be relatively easy with access to the logs, a simple script to flag when multiple posts by one person are being downmodded by an individual should be pretty easy to write and then they can just look at the mod history and apply some common sense. Is the modder ONLY downmodding? Are the posts they are downmodding worthy of a downmod? Have others modded the post positively only for the person to come and downmod? Because if its not an attack the general consensus should be on the side of the modder, not like its hard to tell the difference between a controversial post and something like your post and my reply. if the person is deemed to be modbombing they should have their ability to mod taken away and their IP address flagged, the reason for the IP flag is to insure they don't just turn around and start cranking up sockpuppet accounts to get around the mod ban. if they start whipping off sockpuppet accounts they should be banned by IP, as the last thing we need is somebody coming here for the express purpose of cyberstalking.

            So I would say it shouldn't be too hard to fix, it all comes down to having access to the mod logs which means it has to be taken on by an admin.

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:42PM

              by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:42PM (#149956) Journal
              Someone else suggested this, but having a min karma level to downmod could help with this. Another suggestion that someone had was have downmods cost the modder karma as well. Either of these could limit mod bombings. We are looking into both of these suggestions.
              --
              Team Leader for SN Development
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:49PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:49PM (#149720) Homepage Journal

          Modbombing is a problem but it's not an easy to solve one. Do you lot really want us becoming that powerful over what's a good mod and what's a bad mod? Generally if you let us know though, we have regular mod points enough to correct a mod-bombing between us. IRC being the fastest way to get in touch with us.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:46AM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:46AM (#149796) Journal

            How is it "powerful" to simply run a script and see if a poster is being stalked? Frankly that should be the least a website that allows comments these days should do. it should frankly be trivial to see if its the same UID/IP that is going after one individual (after all the odds even on a site this small of multiple posts being downmodded by the same person TOWARD the same user? pretty damned small if they are going by content and not attacking the individual) and then if the person is found to be modbombing banning them from having modpoints for the first offense and if suddenly new UID start popping up from the same IP after getting modding blocked (sockpuppet creation) they should be banned by IP address.

            The world isn't a nice place and you can get some seriously deranged individuals showing up to forums, having some basic system in place to do something about modbomb attacks and cyberstalkers frankly is just common sense.

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 26 2015, @12:51PM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday February 26 2015, @12:51PM (#149927) Homepage Journal

              Well, it's quite powerful to go mod-banning someone for that being as we currently only ban moderation for abuse of the Spam mod; before the Spam mod went in there wasn't even a way to ban someone from moderating. Supposing it did happen, we would not be releasing rules on what constituted mod bombing; if we did they would only be easily gotten around. I'm not saying we couldn't or shouldn't do it but it will require more community input and thought before it happens.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday February 27 2015, @09:19AM

                by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday February 27 2015, @09:19AM (#150339) Journal

                Just remember that modbombing is a form of stalking, a person is carrying enough hatred for an individual to go to multiple pages, sometimes ones that aren't even on the front page anymore, and searching all these pages for posts by the user to downmod....can you even imagine hating somebody enough to go THAT far out of your way to attack them? And if you don't nip that kind of shit in the bud? It will often escalate to full on cyberstalking.

                I should know as for nearly a year and a half I had to deal with a cyberstalker who happened to start out attacking me and attempting modbombs on Slash, by the end he was posting long death threats as replies to any post I did anywhere on the net and tried to doxx me multiple times, threatened my kids and attempted multiple times to get into my email accounts as well as take over my accounts on forums. So don't think this isn't a big deal, or that mod bans are a great offense, we ARE talking about straight up stalking another person and trying to silence the person from having a voice...you have to be a little bit "off" to consider this an acceptable response to a post you don't like and if it isn't nipped in the bud it will get REALLY ugly really quickly.

                --
                ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
                • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 27 2015, @12:03PM

                  by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday February 27 2015, @12:03PM (#150380) Homepage Journal

                  Like paulej72 said... er... somewhere... we're looking into it but it'll be a while yet before a solution is ready to push out.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday February 27 2015, @11:55PM

                    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday February 27 2015, @11:55PM (#150819) Journal

                    Not trying to rush anybody, just pointing out the reality because I found out with my cyberstalker most admins go "Oh its just somebody butthurt over a post so they are downmodding, no big deal" without thinking about what actually goes IN to being a modbomber.

                    I don't know about you but I honestly cannot even picture hating another person enough to follow them on a single page and downmod, much less follow them across multiple pages just looking for everything they post. Hell I've never even bothered to learn the whole "friend/foe" crap because I see no point in it, somebody can post a totally crappy post in one subject and an insightful as hell post in another, so why try to limit your exposure to an individual over a single viewpoint?

                    Before I was stalked I would have said the same thing, just somebody butthurt downmodding posts, but then i got to find out first hand there is some serious warped people out there that will decide "the net would be better without you in it" and will then dedicate a huge portion of their lives to making it happen. This person must have been dedicating most of his waking life to attacking me as it did not matter where on the net I went, within a few days he would figure out what site I was on and here would come the death threats, he even attempted to shut down the forums of a couple of smaller sites when they tried to stop him by creating a huge pile of sockpuppets and just spamming every thread with shit like "all of you fucking die" and "you are all worthless cunts".

                    So just remember when you are dealing with a modbomber? You are dealing with somebody who is spending a serious amount of time, days at the very least, scouring this website looking for every.single.post. by somebody he does not like and trying to erase them from view by downmodding. You really need to be a little unbalanced to consider that an acceptable use of your time, so whether it happens to me or anybody else that is behavior that should be taken VERY seriously, as it IS a form of stalking. So please take your time formulating a response, it IS a serious matter after all, just remember what goes into a modbombing and don't treat it as a trivial matter.

                    --
                    ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
                    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:26AM

                      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:26AM (#150862) Homepage Journal

                      Personal views here because this is an over my pay-grade issue, except for the technical bits. I don't see it that way at all. Mod-bombers are pathetic little dweebs with a sore ass that are best ignored. They're weak and incapable of actually hurting you or they wouldn't be doing their stalking from safely behind a computer monitor.

                      Best they can do here is injure your (mostly meaningless) karma score, and if I can keep perfect karma despite people I've butthurt wasting their points on me, someone with a more personable disposition certainly can.

                      Professional views, I expect we'll roll out something to cover mod-bombs and the like in the next update. Until then, just let us know if it happens. We have plenty of points sitting unused on IRC at any given time to reverse one douchebag's sad little cyber-vendetta. If that doesn't cover it, there're always harsher means handy though we're loathe to use them until we've discussed doing so with everyone.

                      --
                      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                      • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:38PM

                        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday February 28 2015, @01:38PM (#151033) Journal

                        Well I can only speak from my personal experience, but that is how my stalker STARTED on /. just another modbomber, it went from that to a year and a half of being stalked across the net, multiple attempts to hack my email accounts, multiple attempts to doxx me and my family, even a web page dedicated to a dear friend whose was losing her battle with breast cancer had to be blocked of comments because the sicko filled it with "She's a worthless cunt that deserves to die and so do you you fat fuck! DIE DIE DIE!" over 600 times, which with the 5 minute post timer on that site meant he had to spend a good 16 or 17 HOURS doing NOTHING but posting over and over AND OVER.

                        So just remember that it takes a special kind of unbalanced to decide a good portion of their day should be dedicated to nothing but attacking a single person, most normal people would never even have the thought of stalking a website, hell even a single page, and spending such a long amount of time attacking a single individual. Hell I had old "HOSTS are TEH BOMB!" APK writing me huge emails with that awful writing style of his (and I did try to get the guy to stop writing in such a painful to read writing style BTW, I failed but at least I tried) but even with my inbox filling up with love letters to HOSTS it never crossed my mind to go after the guy, I just explained that HOSTS were a nuke from orbit while my customers needed only a grenade, but I never even had the thought cross my mind that chasing the guy across the net was a suitable response.

                        And we shall see if simply undoing the mods does anything, I hope for the sake of this site that turns out to be all that is required, I really do. IME with my stalker cutting off that avenue just causes them to escalate, next comes the sockpuppets and dozens of filthy AC posts and death threats. I really hope whomever is modbombing me and the other guy just goes away, because you haven't seen creepy until you see a 100+ post with a good 80% of the posts being variants of "die you cock sucker shit, DIE DIE DIE!". Whether we like or even understand it there are some seriously sick individuals that can gravitate to a site like this and "claim it" as their own, and even admins can have trouble stopping them when they start using proxies and multiple accounts.

                        --
                        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:51PM

              by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:51PM (#149963) Journal
              We will look into modifying our recent mods admin function to show possible mod bombs. It would take some work, but it would allow for admins to patrol for abusers much easier. Thanks for the suggestion.
              --
              Team Leader for SN Development
              • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:47PM

                by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:47PM (#150087) Journal

                You are most welcome and FWIW I think if the admins could easily see when an individual was being stalked the admins could then get together and decide what is an appropriate action, be it banning them from getting mod points, block the person from modding the individual they stalked, or some other action decided by the group.

                Because as it is now there really is nothing stopping an unbalanced individual from making a swarm of sockpuppets and just modbombing the hell out of a user, and as somebody who has been stalked in the past (I had a person follow me across multiple sites posting death threats) I can say the LAST thing you want to do is have your site seen as a "safe haven" for stalking and modbombing, as it will only escalate.

                --
                ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
          • (Score: 1) by mvdwege on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:31PM

            by mvdwege (3388) on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:31PM (#151601)

            Before you go racing after wild geese, you might want to ask for examples. On Slashdot I see a lot of complaints about modbombing from people who in fact do post highly controversial responses. If you stake out a part of the discussion aggressively, you must expect people to react to it.

            I do do this. And I don't complain if I make someone mad enough to take his mod points to my posting history after a bout on a discussion. It happens, and I don't think it outweighs the actual moderations received throughout time.

            An interesting thing to do would be to do a statistical analysis on moderations, and flag any posts or users that get a disproportiate amount of mods regardless of direction within a certain timeframe and flag those for review. That could be done as a simple batch job running on the database nightly.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 01 2015, @11:07PM

              Mod bombs are extremely easy to detect even in realtime so we're not going to be taking anyone's word for it, we just haven't written the code yet. Even then any response won't be automated but simply flagged for manual review. I wouldn't worry about downmodding multiple posts from someone who spammed a thread with garbage, just make sure you're not downmodding them simply because you disagree with the poster.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:43AM

          by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:43AM (#149832) Journal

          Maybe, negative mods, troll, flamebait, spam, etc (but not disagree) should cost the modder some karma.

          At some level of karma reduction, one should lose the ability to negatively mod other posts, like maybe around 25 or so, certain mods just fall out of your list of available mods.

          Wouldn't that keep the mod armies at bay? After all people with 17 IDs cant possibly post enough good stuff to raise their karma from those secret mod army accounts.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday February 26 2015, @07:07AM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday February 26 2015, @07:07AM (#149874) Journal

            The problem is gonna be sockpuppets, which the only real defense is having an admin running a few scripts to catch the perps. Again look at what happened to me and the other poster a few weeks back, in less than 48 hours I had had over 30 downmods, to such controversial posts as "you can't judge the age of hardware by an XP sticker". Unless I'm mistaken on how modding on this site works this person either had to have helpers (or more likely) was using sockpuppets to give him/her enough mod points to repeatedly bury posts by those they targeted. i had one single post go from +5 to -1 to +5 something like 3 times, no way they could have that many mod points....unless they are an admin, which if we have an admin modbomber this site be fucked.

            But talking to the other poster (sorry i didn't think to remember his UID, if you read this sorry dude!) he likewise was getting the "yo-yo" affect to several posts so between him and me there must have been a good 50 to 60 modpoints used in a 72 hour period, so unless one of the admins is a whack-a-doodle (which again if so? Site is fucked, move on) we already have somebody rocking some serious sockpuppets. Again if one only had access to the mod history of the time in question a simple review of exactly who was doing the negative modding would reveal the culprit, and a simple script that flagged if a UID/IP downmods multiple posts by a single user for admin review, but both of these are gonna require an admin, nothing we users can do about such things without access to the relevant data.

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
          • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:58PM

            by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:58PM (#149965) Journal
            looking at this in combination with a minimum karma level to do downmods. This should limit mod bombing with sock puppets.
            --
            Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by MrNemesis on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:35PM

    by MrNemesis (1582) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:35PM (#149522)

    Apologies if it's been brought up before, but is there any merit in being able to spend your karma to buy more mod points? Or for people at, say, level 3 to get awarded more mod points than someone at level 2? I'd be wary of giving high-karma users a higher-by-default posting score IMHO since you could conceivably be in a situation where people have to spend two mod points to knock a high-karma user back down to 1 or 0 if they make a particularly stupid post; I've been at karma-cap both here and at ToGS since forever and my posts are just as stupid as they've always been :)

    --
    "To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:17PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:17PM (#149581)

      So more like StackOverflow's system. The only time people would want to "spend" to get more mod points is when they are doing activist moderating and most of that is on downmods for someone they disagree with.

      If there was something else to spend mod points on, maybe, but I don't see the point.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 5, Touché) by aclarke on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:42PM

    by aclarke (2049) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:42PM (#149525) Homepage

    1. Could you please fix what I assume is a misspelling in the moderation options? "Touche" is the present tense of the French verb "to touch", and "Touché" is French for "touched". As in the fencing term, when you "touched" your opponent with your sword or whatever they call it.

    2. What about assigning more/less karma for an up/down vote by someone with more/less karma? In other words, an upvote/downvote by a troll would be pretty much meaningless, but a moderation by someone with a lot of karma would carry more weight.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:45PM (#149526)

      1. Seriously..?
      2. This would give certain individuals way too much people to bury their internet enemies. This is a bad idea. I hope you and others are capable of seeing this.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by aclarke on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:49PM

        by aclarke (2049) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:49PM (#149558) Homepage

        1. Yeah, seriously. It's just wrong, and that should be obvious unless you're one of a subgroup of people from a certain country who don't know any better.

        2. I didn't flesh out the entire concept, and there may be holes, but no it doesn't really do that in my opinion. Along with metamoderation to keep abusive high-karma moderators in check, possible lowering of karma for continued downmodding (especially of the same person), and other balances, I believe it's an idea that is a net positive.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:36PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:36PM (#149626)

          You wouldn't be stereotyping a large group of people would you? That would be a bit rude, don't you think? I mean I avoid stereotyping French people as smelly, cowards, or assholes. I would appreciate it if you as well avoided stereotyping Americans as fat and stupid.

      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:43PM

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:43PM (#149757) Homepage Journal

        Yes, seriously. The missing accent bothers me every time I see it's missing.

      • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Thursday February 26 2015, @12:38AM

        by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Thursday February 26 2015, @12:38AM (#149782) Homepage

        What if "bought points" could only be used to upvote? That might be hard to do, but might fix the issue with this suggestion...

        --
        (Score:1^½, Radical)
        • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday March 01 2015, @05:39AM

          by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Sunday March 01 2015, @05:39AM (#151427) Journal

          Bought upvote points could be useful to snowball the raising of a sockpuppet army. Perhaps not enough reason to kill the idea of "bought points", but nonetheless something to consider before implementation.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by MrNemesis on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:59PM

      by MrNemesis (1582) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:59PM (#149535)

      Re: 1 - it's a bugbear for me too [soylentnews.org]. I can barely scrape a sentence together in french but if it's not Touché it just doesn't look right.

      --
      "To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:55PM (#149561)

      1. Could you please fix what I assume is a misspelling in the moderation options? "Touche" is the present tense of the French verb "to touch"

      Isn't that what it's suppose to mean? Every time I've used that moderation it's because I was feeling a bit handsy. How am I supposed to be creepy without being able to reach out and touch someone?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:44PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:44PM (#149599)

      From Mirriam-Webster's Dictionary:

      touché
      interjection
      tou·ché
      \tü-ˈshā\

      —used to admit that someone has made a clever or effective point in an argument

      Since I can't find the "é" key on my keyboard, I have no problem with "e" being used instead.

      • (Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:42PM

        by Ryuugami (2925) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:42PM (#149756)

        Since I can't find the "é" key on my keyboard, I have no problem with "e" being used instead.

        That's true, but you don't type the mod in, you choose it from a drop-down menu. The only reason not to make it "Touché" is if the mod menu doesn't support Unicode.

        BTW, Firefox red-squiggled "Touché" and suggests "Touche". Well, well.

        --
        If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
        • (Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 27 2015, @01:55AM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday February 27 2015, @01:55AM (#150254) Homepage Journal

          It supports unicode, I tested it on dev a while back. Honestly, it was a minor bit of dev-trolling. Seems to have worked brilliantly too if I do say so myself. Look for the proper accent in an update coming soon to a site near you.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:46PM (#149652)

      And of course you are modded +5 Touche. :)

      • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Buck Feta on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:50AM

        by Buck Feta (958) on Thursday February 26 2015, @05:50AM (#149862) Journal

        +5 Douche

        --
        - fractious political commentary goes here -
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by naubol on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:07PM

      by naubol (1918) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:07PM (#149663)

      An idea to combat #2:

      Karma minimum (35?) required to down mod. If you choose to downmod, it costs karma using logarithmic exponential increase in cost that depreciates over time. So, in practice, downmodding once a month costs maybe 0 points of karma, two downmods costs 1 point, three costs 10, four costs 40.

      The anticipated counter argument, that someone might want to legit downmod four times a month does not seem credible to me.

      To prevent bungee karma whoring, the maximum cap of earnable karma could be reduced to the original max less the last paid cost to down mod. IE, if you started at 50, you burned 40 karma to downmod 4 times, you now have a max earnable karma of 50-40=10 which "recovers" over time as well.

      Registering multiple user accounts to down mod is probably a sufficient barrier for most current abusers who are too lazy for such things, but of the few who remain, there's a combination of banning downmods by IP, deleting or freezing suspect user accounts, and so forth. For instance, TOR exit nodes may need to be IP banned from downmodding.

      I'm concerned, however, that this is a solution in search of a problem. Is abusive downmodding an issue of sufficient severity to require serious efforts?

      • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:54PM

        by darkfeline (1030) on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:54PM (#150094) Homepage

        So if SN were to be flooded with a huge amount of low-quality posts, you want to dissuade users from downmodding? Sounds like a stellar idea. After all, now everybody knows there's going to be a limit on the the total amount of downmods in a given period of time.

        --
        Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:45PM (#149527)

    Is there anyway you could incorporate more representations of things visually and less numbers/letters?

    • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:06PM

      by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:06PM (#149540) Journal

      Yes! I want pixel-tokens!

      "My weeks posting netted me a trophy emoji, a kabooom and two gummi bears!"

      --
      You're betting on the pantomime horse...
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:22PM

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:22PM (#149545) Journal

      Literacy is hard.

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:58PM (#149563)

        Literacy is hard.

        What does that mean?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Buck Feta on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:50PM

    by Buck Feta (958) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:50PM (#149530) Journal

    > what incentive do they have to really keep posting?

    A better incentive than that of making their "Karma penis" bigger.

    --
    - fractious political commentary goes here -
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:18PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:18PM (#149585)

      > what incentive do they have to really keep posting?

      How about making this site a better place? People who just want to fight or karmawhore and do not care about making Soylent better, need not post.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by kebes on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:25PM

      by kebes (1505) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:25PM (#149590)
      Agreed. We should learn from the growing-pains that Slashdot encountered; and not repeat mistakes. (Slashdot has done many things wrong, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the things they got right!)

      Slashdot used to have a karma-score that you could see and would just keep growing. People tried to get a maximum score--i.e. gamification--but this led to people constant-refreshing to get posts in early, copy-pasting high-rated comments from previous discussions, and producing generic comments meant only to reinforce the group-think and thus boost their score. The solution was to hide the karma-score, keeping it as a purely internal book-keeping number, and only publicly display a vague word like "Karma: Good" or "Karma: Excellent".

      SoylentNews is still small, so these kinds of issues may not appear immediately. But, in my opinion, this non-numeric karma was one of the good things about Slashdot. It focused on consistently contributing quality comments (so that your karma stays in good range), without turning it into a pure quest to maximize some arbitrary integer.

      Personally, I post comments because I want to contribute. I hope my comments are appreciated, and I like getting up-mods because it shows that someone found my comment productive. A comment-reply of "thanks" or "that's interesting" or even "I disagree, but that's well-worded!" is just as motivating for me. If we want to optimize for productive discussions, I'm not sure a gamified-no-limit karma-score is what we want.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:09PM

        by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:09PM (#149635) Homepage Journal

        The code to set the karma as it is on Slashdot {Terrible|bad|None|Good|Excellent} is in Slashcode, just disabled out of the box. We could just enable it ...

        --
        Still always moving
      • (Score: 1) by Aichon on Wednesday February 25 2015, @11:11PM

        by Aichon (5059) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @11:11PM (#149766)

        Spot on. As another user mentioned, the most useful aspect of karma is basically just to indicate to others that you're not a troll. Beyond that, it doesn't do a whole lot. In fact, as you pointed out, turning it into a game can actually lead to some major, negative effects, as many of us saw firsthand at Slashdot.

        Tying in with what you're saying, I completely agree that it should not be displayed numerically and absolutely should have a max cap to prevent people from spamming. But I also like parts of what was proposed in the summary, such as the fact that it encourages continuous good behavior, as well as that it ensures users are not immune to moderation.

        So, riffing off of what you said, how about only displaying something like the following to users, based on their Total Karma (which, once again, is a hidden number):
        -15 to -1: Poor
        0 to 30: None
        31 to 35: Good
        36 to 45: Exceptional (users default to Score: 2)
        46+: Noteworthy

        As for how those values are computed, it's just three parts, Total = Lifetime + Recent + Average:
        1) Lifetime ranges from 0 to 25 and increments by one with each positive moderation. It never goes down.
        2) Recent ranges from -10 to 10, goes up/down by 1 with each positive/negative moderation, and migrates towards 0 at a rate of 2 per week.
        3) Average ranges from -5 to 25 and is simply 5x the average score of a user's last 50 posts (assume Score 0 to make up the difference if the user has <50 posts).

        With such a setup, hitting Good is just a matter of being around for awhile and contributing anything positive whatsoever. It's basically just about accruing Lifetime, so all it really indicates is that you've been not a troll on a consistent basis.

        Reaching Exceptional will be a bit of a hurdle, since the points to reach it will be coming from Recent for most users, meaning you'll probably have to get Recent to its max value. But once you cross that hurdle, the score modifier will slowly raise your Average, making it easier to maintain Exceptional karma, so long as you stay the course.

        And, finally, if you stay the course for long enough, your Average will continue going up until Noteworthy starts to become feasible. Exceptional users who simply post regularly and get up-modded regularly should routinely hit Noteworthy. Exceptional users who begin try-harding too much or engaging in the sorts of trickery you were talking about will find their Recent value crashing, along with any chance at maintaining Noteworthy. Users who are unfairly down-modded by a troll should be able to reattain Noteworthy without any trouble if they simply stay the course.

        More or less, it highlights users who who consistently post beneficial comments without overdoing it, which is exactly what most of us seem to want.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:58PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:58PM (#149533)

    This is a highly technological site, provide the lifetime karma in decibels relative to AC where AC = 1 so I've got +17 dBAC means I've got 50 points or whatever. Then add moderation rules such that you -1 or whatever people more than 10 dB low relative to your current dBAC level.

    Make the database use floats because it pisses people off and is funny (its just karma, not a bank balance). Low precision floats don't increment by one very well once the total (or, numerical one is less than the mantissa can represent) is over ten digits, well, when I get there, soon enough, I probably won't need to increment anyway.

    A very controversial idea might be giving a comment a +1 mod point costs one of your 0.5 or 0.1 lifetime karma points. Maybe upvoting should cost something, to make it worth something. Just don't make it cost too much. Whuffie?

    Another controversial idea might be as a token gesture combined with storing karma as a float instead of int, give 1.01 or 1.001 lifetime karma points to "yellow star subscribers" where the non-payers only get 1 lifetime karma point per karma earned. Its not enough to sell out or game the system, yet its a nice token reward. More than 1.1 or so could be interpreted as selling out-ish. So A and B both have 100 lifetime points, and A is a sub, A "should" be rewarded as ranking higher, even if its only 100.1 vs 100.0

    A controversial idea to piss people off... the intensity color of the foreground of your post relates to your lifetime karma. Not trying to censor or make it hard to read, but an interesting goal of accumulating 1000 points of karma to have comments be a microscopically darker, yet noticably darker, shade of black. Maybe too extreme for their post, but how bout just adjusting the color of their nick? Or even more humorously to prevent karmawhoring behavior, make it harder to read the nicks of people with higher karma on the assumption that if the post is any good it'll get upvoted by its inherent worth rather than who said it.

    If the site "lives on comments" and discussion, maybe someone who earned the site 1000 karma worth of discussion and traffic should be able to sell some of that lifetime karma back to the site to give a one month subscription gift anonymously to a poverty stricken SN user or a cheap bastard SN user. Oh I'm sure this won't be controversial at all LOL. Also it means karma would kinda be worth money, sorta, which might not be right.

    Or even funnier, set up an auction sidebar where people can bid to permanently spend lifetime karma on "semi humorous mostly non-controversial" temporary site adjustments. So up for bid this month is "up for bid is one wish, exactly one of the following, top bidders choice: 1) For one day, much as anon posters are named anonymous coward, non subscribers will be named cheap bastard 2) For one day, winners theme of choice within legal limitations and admin veto will be default site theme (so OMG ponies theme will be accepted, but goatse theme will not, at least I hope not, when you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes back into you) 3) For one day, winner name is displayed on all pages with a prefix of "king for the day" 4) winner gets one story posted subject to executive veto (so forget spam or pr0n) 4) winner gets to rickroll exactly one hyperlink without any karma consequences". I suppose you could make a tradition of the last friday of every month is shenanigans day.

    How about you can buy a quote by spending lifetime karma highest spender wins? I see "Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle?" Thats fixed per article for all viewers isn't it? Even if someone participates in "misbehavior" its kind of self correcting given the cost of raising karma and the cost of changing the quote increments by 1 every time someone changes the quote. This could be moderately amusing. Name and shame the last changer, or anon? Moderate before viewing (good luck scaling that) or free speech?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:05PM (#149569)

      This all seems very complicated. Can't we just zap people with low karma through their keyboards? We'd have to ban bluetooth keyboards, but I think the honor system would work. Don't you?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by moondrake on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:58PM

    by moondrake (2658) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @03:58PM (#149534)

    >This obviously presents a problem since once a user hits 50, what incentive do they have to really keep posting?

    You think Karma is the reason people post?

    I do not really understand the underlying philosophy here. Seems to me that we first have to decide whether we actually want a karma system, and secondly what it should be used for. This should come before deciding that we need 2 pools of karma!

    I think if karma is not useful for something, it is just a number, and nobody cares much. In the game example you use, your level allows you to kill bigger monsters. Since what we do here is post and mod, we only have few choices. Things I can think of would be:
    - buying modpoints or getting more modpoints per day
    - allowing to metamod
    - making (cost or possibility of) downmods dependable on difference between karma levels
    - modding posts instead of comments
    - vote things up/down in the queue
    - silly things like avatars, fancy icons surrounding your username, changing color themes and other candy.

    I am not particularly impressed by most of such ideas. I doubt most others are (glancing over the comments so far). So at this moment, I do not see a need to split karma in two.

    I dislike the 50 cap not because it would stop me from posting, but because it is a useless number. In fact, just making it asymptotically increase would give me more gratification.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:13PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:13PM (#149542)

      I dislike the 50 cap not because it would stop me from posting, but because it is a useless number.

      Ever heard:

      Life begins at 50

      Now lets be realistic, back in 1996 cmdrtaco probably made that mysql column a one byte char or shortint, so we're stuck with +/- 127 or whatever, but we're not so limited with todays disk storage capacities. So hilarious idea of the day is use bigint for the DB column and the cap increases by precisely 1 every day of SN operation. So whatever the cap is today, it'll be about 365 higher in a year, or a cap of about 410 around March 2016.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:51PM (#149559)

      You think Karma is the reason people post?

      Until recently I had no idea I *had* karma. Mostly I post because I want to spout off...

      I almost always post AC because I really do not feel like having anyone follow me around (had that on the other site and he got nasty).

      Here is the problem I see with 'karma'. It is the Animal Farm problem. We are all equal but some are more equal than others. Having a 'score' is fine. But tying any sort of rewards to it (which is always considered) makes it a game and people will game it to be 'better' than others.

      • (Score: 2, Disagree) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:50PM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:50PM (#149602) Homepage

        Making fun of retards, SPAM SPAM SPAM!

        Beating up nerds and taking their lunch-money SPAM SPAM SPAM!

        Pushing old ladies down the stairs SPAM SPAM SPAM!

        Pissing in the holy water SPAM SPAM SPAM!

        Bricking your servers SPAM SPAM SPAM!

        Aww, yeah. Suck it, bitches! Hahahaheeheehoooooo!

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tibman on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:01PM

        by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:01PM (#149607)

        How do you track your AC posts? If someone replies, how do you know?

        --
        SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:57AM

          by Marand (1081) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:57AM (#149838) Journal

          Save the tab for a day or two and check back occasionally. If you don't post constantly it's more than sufficient. That's what I did when I quit logging in to slashdot years back but occasionally wanted to answer a question that nobody else seemed to be able to answer.

          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:32PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:32PM (#150034)

            I usually just search for a keyword or two I know I left in the message if I care. If I *really* care I tag it in a bookmark and come back.

            But most of the time I am just spouting off on the internet and, here is the cool part, it doesnt matter much if I do not come back. As sometimes I can not find it again. :)

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:30PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:30PM (#149592)

      >In the game example you use, your level allows you to kill bigger monsters.

      So if I gain enough karma I could kill Hugh Pickens?

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:41PM (#149939)

        Funny.

        But stop your sniping from the sidelines. I am grateful to all people who submit stories in good faith. And I am grateful to the editors for their efforts; I think they are right to accept all those submissions of Mr. Pickens.

        In your previous attacks on him, I don't remember seeing any actual legitimate complaints. Perhaps you could take his most recent accepted submission as an example and tell us your concerns?: The Case Against e-readers - Why Digital Natives Prefer Reading on Paper [soylentnews.org]

        Is your problem just that his name gets hyperlinked to his website like this?: "Hugh Pickens [hughpickens.com] writes ..."

        • (Score: 2) by Open4D on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:48PM

          by Open4D (371) on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:48PM (#149942) Journal

          ^^ This is my comment. I was not logged in for some reason.

          Long Live Hugh Pickens!

        • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:02PM

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:02PM (#150133)

          Its the 18 zillion links in the summary and the editorializing that I take most exception to.

          But my comment was mostly meant to be funny, his stories are easy to ignore. At least his summaries have good grammar.

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Open4D on Friday February 27 2015, @11:41AM

            by Open4D (371) on Friday February 27 2015, @11:41AM (#150374) Journal

            his stories are easy to ignore

            Okay, so you're softening your tone from previous comments.

            Its the 18 zillion links in the summary and the editorializing that I take most exception to.

            Well, the 'paper preferred to e-readers' story that I mentioned has 4 useful & relevant links and no obvious editorializing.

             
            I am always happy to see plenty of links in a submission. It means the submitter has invested some of his/her time to save lots of other people's time. In my most recent submission [soylentnews.org], for example, although I expect most people had heard of the Chaos Computer Club, I took the time to link to the Wikipedia article for those that hadn't. So you won't be surprised to hear that I approve of Mr. Pickens linking to polyethylene glycol [wikipedia.org] in his most recent submission [soylentnews.org]. In this case, even though I didn't click on the link, it's presence was kind of reassuring. Whereas I suppose from your perspective, a Wikipedia link is doubly bad, because Wikipedia articles themselves are full of links. I bet something like the France article [wikipedia.org] summary is your worst nightmare!

             
            Lets look at 5 more Pickens stories from the last week:
            https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/02/26/2014224 [soylentnews.org] 5 useful links, no obvious editorializing.
            https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/02/23/1959203 [soylentnews.org] 4 useful links, no obvious editorializing.
            https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/02/22/190259 [soylentnews.org] 4 useful links, no obvious editorializing.
            https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/02/22/132210 [soylentnews.org] 5 useful links, no obvious editorializing.
            https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/02/21/1914250 [soylentnews.org] 5 useful links, no obvious editorializing.

            • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Friday February 27 2015, @09:59PM

              by nitehawk214 (1304) on Friday February 27 2015, @09:59PM (#150760)

              You may have a point here, and I will even concede that there are worse submitters.

              What I am confused about is why you are taking this so personally and showing point by point counterarguments to my off-the-cuff comment.

              --
              "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
              • (Score: 2) by Open4D on Friday February 27 2015, @11:05PM

                by Open4D (371) on Friday February 27 2015, @11:05PM (#150798) Journal

                Because submitted stories are the lifeblood of the site, and I know how rarely I feel up to the hassle of doing it. I'm grateful to all those who make up for my failings, and I don't like the sniping I see directed at the most prolific ones.

                It's true I could have saved a lot of time if I'd just seen your joke as not having any sub-text. But then I made the mistake of Googling site:soylentnews.org nitehawk214 pickens

                 
                So really my comments have been an opportunistic response to your previous commenting history, rather than this particular joke. In fact, jokes are almost always desirable. I urge you to keep up the jokes - including at Hugh Pickens's expense.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:35PM (#149625)

      Some of the most prolific posters here spew the most crap. We need to think carefully if this is what we want to incentivize.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:00PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:00PM (#149536)

    I don't post for the karma - I maxed that out a long time ago - I post because I find the discussions interesting and think I might have something useful to contribute to them. Also, it's good practice for writing.

    About the only reward I could think of for higher levels is some sort of indication next to my name.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tadas on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:54PM

      by tadas (3635) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:54PM (#149603)

      I don't post for the karma

      I agree. I never really understood the need for karma, either here or at Slashdot (where I have an ID in the 30,000 range), beyond acting as sort of a probation period for newbies. That has value in drowning out the GNAA trolls so they're invisible to those who read at level 0. One unfortunate side effect in the early days of Slashdot was filtering out *entertaining* trolls, like OOG, the Open Source Caveman (as the proposer of the "Touche" moderation category -- and please add the accent, I'm an ignorant American and don't know how to produce it with a US keyboard - I'd sometimes wished for "+1 Troll" for cases like OGG).

      That being said, I do like seeing the numbers going up, so store the value in a long integer and don't cap it. (and mod me up )

      • (Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:23PM

        by jdccdevel (1329) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:23PM (#149618) Journal

        Unfortunately, trolls like OGG are few and far between, which is too bad. He really was a lot of fun! It's too bad he stopped posting when he did... IIRC people started modding him insightful rather than funny so he'd get the karma.

        His posts are the only ones I can think of that a "+1 Troll" would ever have worked for though... Maybe a "+1 Entertaining"? That might get used more often.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:16PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:16PM (#149700) Journal

        as the proposer of the "Touche" moderation category -- and please add the accent

        Usually, I'm copy/pasting from "Character map" - works well enough for something one doesn't need it intensively. Or Google for the word, some results will pop-up with the correct spelling.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jdccdevel on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:09PM

      by jdccdevel (1329) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:09PM (#149613) Journal

      I agree completely. I don't post, or submit stories, for the mod points, but because I want to contribute to the discussion(s) here. A "Good Karma" badge next to my name would be cool.

      That said, I can see how some incentive to submit stories and constructively comment would be good for improving the quality of the site.

      Giving high-karma users the ability to moderate (or provide some other feedback on) the articles would be really nice. Something to provide a good feedback mechanism to the editors about the content that active, contributing users like to see. (Other than raw comment count).

      The ability to vote on articles in the queue would be cool too, so long as it doesn't usurp any of the editors responsibility.

      Rewarding high karma users by allowing them to provide more feedback, and therefore allowing them to contribute even more, seems like an excellent idea. Maybe if they contribute enough, it could turn into a source for new editor recruits?

      Just a thought.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:00PM

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:00PM (#149689) Journal

        Well I certainly agree with the first part of your comment - I don't post to get brownie points or to look good, I'm trying to take part in an intelligent conversation. I often learn from the other comments and they cause me to think about topics about which I know very little.

        Moderation and Karma are, of course, inextricably linked. But I don't agree with the need for many of the moderation categories. We need a way of removing those who come to troll and spam, and further to acknowledge those who say something insightful or of particular value or noteworthy, but the other categories to me (Funny, Disagree etc) are completely unnecessary. The latter is a conversation killer in my view and is incorrect in the way that we use it. Let me explain why.

        If you disagree with what someone has said, then reply with an intelligent comment explaining why you disagree. The 'Disagree' should be in the title of your comment, not as a tag to the comment you are referring to. The fact that you disagree with a comment does not mean that that comment was wrong, inaccurate or should not have been written. Marking a comment as Disagree is as useless as marking it 'Yellow' or 'Tree' We all have differing points of view and they are all worthy of being heard - just as they are all open for criticism and intelligent debate. The problem that I have seen quite often, and twice in as many days, is people tagging a post 'Disagree' and then not making any comment as to why they hold a different view. The value of this site, as we say to ourselves time and time again, is in the comments. Anything that dissuades us from making comments is counter-productive to what we are trying to build here.

        The 'Funny' tag possibly has a place but I could probably work out if a comment is funny by reading it. I don't believe (or at least I hope) that no-one just skims the comments looking for 'Funny' tags; there are plenty of other sites catering for that demand.

        I don't need to know a poster's level of Karma when assessing how much value a post might have - in addition to reading the comment, I look at the poster's nick and make my judgement from that. I now know that several of our members are relative experts in a specific field or topic and I value their comments rather than an AC who is stating something that I have to go and check elsewhere to see if they are correct or just making a noise. But if a comment is at or above my browsing threshold I read it and judge it on the content alone.

        As an editor I have to go through the comments twice. Once with my editor's hat on looking for moderation abuses, spam or whatever, and for that I have to browse at -1. The second time I browse at 1, or even 2, and try to enjoy the intelligent posts that can be found at that level. And therein lies the rub. We have to have moderation or we have no way of filtering the dross from the nuggets in a thread. And I appreciate that those who make a greater contribution to the site should be easily identifiable and get some form of recognition for their efforts. But I feel that we are in danger of over-egging the pudding, of spending too much effort trying to create a Karma system that is more of a game than an indication of an individual's worth. When the Karma becomes more important than the comments we get people commenting just to improve their Karma. It is too open to abuse. And no matter what system is decided upon here - there will still be some who dislike it and in another 12 months, or maybe even sooner, we will go through the entire discussion again and create more unnecessary work for the devs. Lets adopt the KISS principle and concentrate on the real reason that this site is here.

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday February 26 2015, @07:28PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday February 26 2015, @07:28PM (#150052) Journal

          One quick thought on the "Disagree" mod: it would be best to express disagreement in a post explaining why you do. But I don't know about anyone else, but composing thoughtful, well-reasoned posts for this crowd takes me non-zero time. Off-the cuff remarks most often add more heat than light. So a "Disagree" mod, should you have mod points, is a way to register that without pouring unnecessary vitriol into the conversation or sucking up real chunks of your day to post as you suggest. As someone whose posts occasionally attract "Disagree" mods, I find it useful, because it gives me some feedback mechanism while not actually punishing my karma for what seems to boil down to a philosophical disagreement. It strikes me as appropriate and gentlemanly.

          I also would say I don't care about karma either. I never did, nor would I. Regular users in the community know me based on what I've written in the past. They will appreciate what I write, or not, but that would be true without karma. For someone who reads one of my posts for the first time, it's fine that that post succeeds or fails on its own merits, in the eyes of the reader. Karma doesn't need to play a role in that.

          Moderation is much more important. It's case-by-case. I'm happy when I get modded up. I'm not terribly distraught when I get modded down, because sometimes I'm cranky and write cranky things and it's just fine that moderators bury my splenetic. It helps other readers skate past it to the valuable things that others have written.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:24PM

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:24PM (#149705) Journal
        jdccdevel - sorry, I started by responding to your post and then went off and wrote what should have been a separate comment to the main thread. It was not directed at you personally! jr
        • (Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:07PM

          by jdccdevel (1329) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:07PM (#149736) Journal

          No problem, I find myself wandering into a tangent sometimes too ;-)

          I'm curious what you think about rewarding high karma users by allowing them to provide more feedback. Access to a system for moderating articles and/or voting on items in the queue seems like a good additional incentive to me. It could also create a positive feedback loop, encouraging even more participation.

          That said, sometimes an article gets a really low comment count, but that doesn't mean it's uninteresting... just that it doesn't provide much to discuss. It would be nice to be able to signal to the editors that an article was worthwhile, without posting an inane "Cool Article" type comment.

          • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:42AM

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:42AM (#149889) Journal

            First of all, I must stress that my comments on a thread are the same as any other users - I am not claiming that my opinions represent the rest of the staff or the community at large.

            ...what you think about rewarding high karma users by allowing them to provide more feedback?

            That depends by what you mean by feedback. If you are referring to the content of a thread then there is no limit to how many comments one can make providing one doesn't begin trolling and find oneself being moderated off the page - this does not apply in most cases though. Alternatively, if you are suggesting at providing more feedback to the editors then, personally, I get the best feedback from seeing an article initiate a good discussion. However, as you have pointed out, some good stories do not generate a large number of comments and any feedback - positive or negative - that I receive by email (janrinok@soylentnews.org), by quick one-liner comments, or on our IRC channel is always welcome.

            Access to a system for moderating articles ...

            There is some merit in this suggestion but it is not as straightforward as you might first imagine - not impossible by any means but we have to be careful how it is implemented. In the majority of cases, each story is reviewed by 2 separate editors before it hits the front page and, in an ideal world, neither of them should have been involved in the preparation of the submission. There are some exceptions - RFCs for example, statements about our business, or site update announcements etc. This process is designed to prevent any abuse of the publication system by an individual, or to prevent a bias being created towards a particular submitter, topic or, perhaps worse, being used to push a specific political agenda. However, the story is moved into the pending queue after the first editor has completed his editing. At this point, although the story has been prepared for release and will, usually, continue to the front page it may still undergo significant editing on its second pass. For example, links might be added or removed, whole paragraphs could be removed or rewritten, or the story might even be killed altogether if the second editor spots a potential legal problem that the first editor missed. If the community begin to comment on a story before the second pass it is possible that their comments will become meaningless or refer to information which no longer appears in the version of the story that is eventually released.

            ...and/or voting on items in the queue

            Voting for which stories in the submission queue you would like to see next is more achievable - but I'm not speaking as a coder - and I can see some value in the suggestion. However, we try to vary the topics and submitters to ensure that everyone in the community gets a story that should be of interest to them. There is a small but keen sub-community with an interest in astronomy, for example. Such stories do not attract the largest response but that shouldn't stop us from publishing stories of interest to them when we get them. The group is probably not big enough to swing the voting but is still big enough to have their needs catered for.

            That response turned out longer than I expected it to, but I hope it helps explain how the system (should) work today.

  • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:04PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:04PM (#149538) Journal

    Why not simply raise the Karma limit to 100, and add Karma for submitted or accepted submissions?

    To keep the count moving, maybe have the +2 bonus cost 1 Karma? That will make it fairer for new users.

    The Experience Points idea could be a different count, such as the total tally of posts + positive moderations - negative moderations.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:07PM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:07PM (#149541) Homepage Journal

      Same problems with just raising the cap, we've gotten a lot of complaints on the karma front so we're looking at revising it but IMHO, it may not be a solvable problem. Submissions earn a user +3 karma anyway.

      --
      Still always moving
      • (Score: 3) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:21PM

        by q.kontinuum (532) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:21PM (#149544) Journal

        Submissions earn a user +3 karma anyway.

        Thanks for telling, I didn't know that. Is it documented anywhere?

        --
        Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:12PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:12PM (#149694) Journal

          Thanks for telling, I didn't know that. Is it documented anywhere?

          Yes (now) it is [soylentnews.org] (grin)
          (seriously, I see you had some submissions as early as 2014 June; haven't you noted this?)

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:08PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:08PM (#149664) Homepage
        I have no problem with having what's effectively a higher cap, if there's natural decay (pipedot did this, IIRC)

        Let's say you lose 10% of your karma per day, but there's no cap. On a few days in the last few weeks, I've gathered about 10 +ve mod points per day. Even if I could do that every day, it's only enough to preserve a steady state of 100 Karma. So it's effectively self-capping, and rewards regular contributions.

        However, before anything, I would say *is any change really necessary*? How is the current system actually broken? What is the problem for which a solution is being sought?
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Tramii on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:06PM

      by Tramii (920) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:06PM (#149611)

      I was thinking about suggesting going the opposite way. I think Karma should be modified to max out at 10 (making it range from -10 to +10). I feel like once you reach 50 karma, you have so much padding that you can basically post a bunch of crap and not have to worry about it. But if we keep the caps low, posters can't be insulated from bad posting habits for very long.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by snick on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:05PM

    by snick (1408) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:05PM (#149539)

    This is my proposal in a nutshell, feedback welcome.

    Yes, I know, the current karma system doesn't address the needs of the ADD folks here, but it is a rough gauge of whose voice has been helpful and whose has been unhelpful.

    If you want a game where you can brag on racking up the high score, go play a game. If SN is a game ... then enjoy it while it lasts. There are lots more interesting/engaging/entertaining games out there.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:16PM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:16PM (#149543) Journal

    I like the idea to have some more fluctuating "recent" karma. But I have some further ideas (some of them I already posted in earlier discussions).

    1. It would be great, if accepted submissions could also earn some karma. Rejected submissions could earn karma, if they were good but duplicate, and the other story submitted only a specific threshold earlier.

    2. I don't mind the karma-cap. But once the cap is reached, any deductions should be mtched against gains of last 24h. If I give a comment and receive +4 Interesting, and then someone thinks this is too much and mods me down (troll, because unfortunately "overrated" is not available anymore), I get a net-loss of 1 insted of staying at 50.

    3. I miss the "Overrated -1". There are highly emotional topics (Microsoft, Systemd, Linux), where people seem to award "Insightful" to stupid comments, just because they like them. This is not Facebook. This is a technical site, and if a comment is rated "Insightful +4", it better really is. Sometimes an answer appears later, debunking the hidden stupidity in the first post, and it would be fair to down-mod the first post. Together with (2.) it would still be ensured there is no net-loss for the poster, which I think is fair.

    4. I'd like to have some multi-dimensional karma, where one could get a maximum of e.g. 20 points for each of funny,insightful,interesting,touche,etc.
    The recent Karma could then be calculated as
    SUM(funny,insightful,...,accepte_submissions)

    5. For the fluctuating karma, I think some decay would be fair. It's called "recent", so it shouldn't be preserved over years. Maybe a threshold would be ok? Like, karme decays down to 50% of max value only?

    6. I'd like to be able to rate stories, keeping higher-rated stories on top of the list, and maybe awarding the karma points to the submitter of the story (with some factor 0..factory..1, to be determined). The story-rating could either decay, or story rating is somehow combined with story-age to determine its position on the page,

    --
    Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by GeminiDomino on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:41PM

      by GeminiDomino (661) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:41PM (#149550)

      2. I don't mind the karma-cap. But once the cap is reached, any deductions should be mtched against gains of last 24h. If I give a comment and receive +4 Interesting, and then someone thinks this is too much and mods me down (troll, because unfortunately "overrated" is not available anymore), I get a net-loss of 1 insted of staying at 50.

      That's a good point. I never thought of that. Well done. :)

      You're right about "Overrated", too, unfortunately. All those "emotionally/politically charged" topics (tech and otherwise) all have their own long-discredited bullet points that still get put up and upmodded by their particular "side" every time (now, I usually go with flamebait, since they make me want to point out, with vitriol, how disingenuous, uninformed, or hypocritical the poster is - baiting me to flame them). I still question why it was removed, rather than just closing the "not subject to metamod" hole which is why it was used for troll/revenge moderation.

      --
      "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:58PM (#149604)

      1. It would be great, if accepted submissions could also earn some karma.

      They do. +3 Karma for an accepted submission.

      2. I don't mind the karma-cap. But once the cap is reached, any deductions should be mtched against gains of last 24h. If I give a comment and receive +4 Interesting, and then someone thinks this is too much and mods me down (troll, because unfortunately "overrated" is not available anymore), I get a net-loss of 1 insted of staying at 50.

      So, let me see if I'm understanding this right, While at the cap, you get modded +4 Interesting and then -1 Troll, giving you a net loss of 1. Thats exactly how it works now. Once you reach the cap, all +moderations are thrown away, so even if you get +20 moderations followed by a -1, your karma decreases by 1.

      • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:44PM

        by q.kontinuum (532) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:44PM (#149651) Journal

        All moderations are still in the database. What I propose is that the -1 should be ignored if the database has a positive rating for the same user during the last 24h prior to the -1, so if the soylent swarm intelligence concludes the comments are worth a total of +3 it is not rated like a total of -1.

        --
        Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
        • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:14PM

          by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:14PM (#149973) Journal
          While this seems like a good idea, I fairly sure that this would be a bugbear to code. Slash does all of the karma changes at the time of the moderation. Changing this to do a sum over a time period, would be very difficult to do in a manner that would keep karma relatively current and correct. We may look into this at some point.
          --
          Team Leader for SN Development
    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:31AM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:31AM (#149903) Journal

      ... Rejected submissions could earn karma ...

      Some people would read the subs list, cut and paste a relevant story from elsewhere, and sit back and watch their Karma climb.

      Rewarding successful submissions encourages people to search out a good story and submit it promptly so that we have a chance of getting it processed and onto the front page if it is time critical, or otherwise in a reasonable timescale. If there are multiple stories on the same topic, we try to merge them and each individual gets the appropriate Karma score.

  • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:26PM

    by Aiwendil (531) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:26PM (#149546) Journal

    Replace the karma-system with three karma (karmas? what is the plural?)

    * Lifetime karma - The sum of all your karma so far
    * Yearly karma - The sum of all your karma since the same date last year (or the last 365.24 days), use this one of moderation/karma bonus
    * Monthly karma - Since same date last month (or nearest possible, or last 30.44 days) , mainly to see how well you've been doing this month - this can also be used for those with a competitive side.

    Or... you could just keep the current karmasystem and set the cap at 2**31-1 instead..

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by slinches on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:14PM

      by slinches (5049) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:14PM (#149577)

      That gives me an idea ... why not use a *nix load average type format? Maybe list the average moderation score over the last 5, 25 and 125 posts?

      • (Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:05PM

        by mechanicjay (7) <reversethis-{gro ... a} {yajcinahcem}> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:05PM (#149734) Homepage Journal

        This is a really interesting idea!

        --
        My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
      • (Score: 2) by Popeidol on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:42AM

        by Popeidol (35) on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:42AM (#149811) Journal

        That's a very interesting idea. It's probably a better representation of the 'value' of your posts than recent/lifetime karma.

        A couple of things that come to mind:

        • You'd still have to base the free +1/+2 on the current method, or else you'd get a feedback loop. alternatively you could measure 'positive moderation actions' per post, but that'd penalise people who start at +2.
        • Unlimited lifetime karma encourages frequent posting, 'average' karma would encourage infrequent but high-quality posts. Each could have a negative effect, but I'd definitely prefer the latter.
        • It'd create a kind of probationary period before you had enough posts to calculate the figure

        Personally I've always liked the karma cap. It's an indicator that you're a 'good citizen' and put some time into your posts, but you can't turn it into a pissing contest.

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by slinches on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:26PM

          by slinches (5049) on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:26PM (#150031)

          By the way, I really don't have any problems with the karma system as is (including the cap) either. That was just a thought I had as I was watching the load trends on my workstation while it was running an FEA solution. The current system is simple and effective at penalizing disruptive content and as you say doesn't "turn into a pissing contest". It just dawned on me that it would be nice to have a diagnostic tool similar to load averages that show the trends in my post quality in the short medium and long term.

          You'd still have to base the free +1/+2 on the current method, or else you'd get a feedback loop. alternatively you could measure 'positive moderation actions' per post, but that'd penalise people who start at +2.

          It would certainly make it more difficult to get to the threshold for the free +2 and easier to keep that status if set at the same level. Although, you could resolve that by setting the thresholds at different values. e.g. a 25 post average > 1.3 to move from +1 to +2, but you have to maintain a > 2.1 average from there on to keep it.

          Another way to address that would be to normalize the net upmods by the possible positive moderation actions. Then someone with a free +2 gets moderated to +3 receives a 0.33 score for that post whereas a +1 going to +2 would get 0.25.

          Unlimited lifetime karma encourages frequent posting, 'average' karma would encourage infrequent but high-quality posts. Each could have a negative effect, but I'd definitely prefer the latter.

          Yeah, true. Averaging would tend to discourage frequent posts of moderate quality that tend not to get modded. And those types of posts can add value to the site since they occasionally spur discussions even if the score doesn't show it. Maybe that could be avoided by only counting moderated posts?

          It'd create a kind of probationary period before you had enough posts to calculate the figure

          True, although that could be useful. If someone new has a good 5 post average score and posts something stupid, others could explain the transgression rather than just modding them to oblivion.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:10PM (#149573)

    Please apply my karma bonus to future postings from AC.

    • (Score: 1) by soylentsandor on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:17PM

      by soylentsandor (309) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @07:17PM (#149642)

      Please apply my karma bonus to future postings from AC.

      Well played AC, well played...

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:17PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:17PM (#149580) Journal

    Suppose someone cracks your password, then posts a bunch of flamebait or pro MS propaganda under your name? Your karma is destroyed. Could start over with a new account of course. But the cracker does not change your password, and you are able to regain control by changing it yourself. Or, it's tied to an email account you have, and you are able to reset the password.

    Point is, the system won't be foolproof. Recovery from such problems should not be too onerous. For example, I have a Facebook account I have been unable to access for over a year even though I have the correct password, and also access to the email account it's linked to. Their "security" policies ensure that I may never be able to access it again. I used fake info, including a random birth date, never supposing that publicly available info would be used as a security measure to "prove" that I am the creator of that account. I can't get back in because somehow it became locked, and Facebook demands that I give the correct birth date to unlock it, the password alone isn't good enough. There's no other info that Facebook will accept thanks to me not entering any more info into Facebook than the minimum necessary to create the account. I thought of checking the walls of friends of that account or asking them what birth date I had used, but unfortunately, I set birthday announcements to private. Facebook is also notorious for keeping accounts alive forever-- can't ever be completely deleted, only permanently deactivated. Can't call customer support either. I've been trying to guess the birth date, and have now covered several hundred dates I thought likely, but so far no luck. At a max of 3 guesses per hour, it's slow going.

  • (Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:18PM

    by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:18PM (#149584) Journal

    I have in the past asked for an increase to the karma limit. Having said that, I agree with others that say they post because they want too, not because they want to increase their Karma.

  • (Score: 2) by Random2 on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:24PM

    by Random2 (669) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:24PM (#149588)

    Under the proposed system, are moderation points allotted based on recent karma, unchanged from the current method?

    Personally I don't really think the system needs any major changes other than hiding the exact value (specifically so people don't game it). Putting out a number encourages people to game things, to make sock puppets, to groupthink for karma, etc. IIRC this was the reason that the other site switched to the vague values they use.

    Really, I think it might be worth taking another step back and ask 'what are we trying to encourage'? What is a 'quality' post? One that has lots of references to scientific papers? One that presents and argument and backs it with facts? A short, clever, funny post? One that provokes the user 'to think', even though it itself may be short or not well-cited?

    And how does Karma encourage this? By making a user's post more visible, or not? What are the pitfalls of this approach? Are we encouraging people to 'get their message heard' by having sock-puppet accounts to mod themselves up and get the 'karma bonus'? Are we encouraging groupthink by allotting the most karma to the 'commonly held' views on the site? Is that what we mean to do? If not, how do we combat that?

    What about other, less visible effects? For example, 'insightful' or otherwise 'good' posts taking longer to create and post, thus being 'missed' by or 'redundant' to the moderators (a race condition of sorts for posting in an article)?

    Personally I don't post all that much because I don't have much meaningful to say, karma aside. Early on there was some ingrained incentive to put 'extra care' in what I said so it'd get moderated highly, but that also means I was tailoring responses to match preconceived notions about what would be 'acceptable', aka groupthink. Having levels opens that route back up, especially with decaying karma schemes proposed in alternate methods.

    So, what do we want to encourage, and how are we going to do it, mitigating the other inherent risks involved?

    --
    If only I registered 3 users earlier....
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:38PM

    by pTamok (3042) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:38PM (#149594)

    I am at Karma 50.

    I try to remember to click on 'No Karma Bonus' when I post - I don't always remember.

    I think it is useful to track whether somone's karma is positive or negative over the total of their contributions, but it is not the only determinant of somone's 'worth' - unpopular opinions can sometimes be valid, even if unwelcome.

    For me, obsessing over how the Karma system works strikes me as worrying about not-particularly-important details, although I appreciate other people can, and do, think differently.

    Overall, voting comments up or down is useful, and it may be an idea to have no maximum upvote value - rather take the log base of the current total and allow filtering of views around integer multiples of , with the ability to set a cap in the individual filter so that values above 5x are all treated a 5x (this means there is no point in gaming the system to have very high values, but if people want to see the range, they can).

    For me, individual Karma is not important. I partipate in other forums that don't have karma, and they seem to work.

    I just hope we don't have a bitter, divisive discussion over it.

    • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:18PM

      by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:18PM (#149976) Journal
      FYI: there is a setting in your Comments Preferences that lets you set the No Karma Bonus to default to checked.
      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
      • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:43PM

        by pTamok (3042) on Thursday February 26 2015, @08:43PM (#150083)

        Thank-you for letting me know. I have now set that preference, so 'No Karma Bonus' is my default setting.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:38PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:38PM (#149595) Journal

    Sign me up for the Conservative SlashCode Party. I would imagine a lot of us here left the other site because they kept screwing with a proven, time-tested, commenting system. Would be a shame to make that same mistake...

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:48PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:48PM (#149630)

      So far the overlords have been tweaking things for the better. Today's SN experience is better than when it launched. SD's beta wasn't a tweak on the old system. They ripped its face off, blended it for five seconds, and then poured the remnants into a much smaller UI. The bits that didn't fit in the new UI fell onto the floor.

      Conservative is good, imo! But frozen in time is bad.

      --
      SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:08PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:08PM (#149692)

        > So far the overlords have been tweaking things for the better.

        With the latest round of moderation changes we've reached the point of diminishing returns.

        The only obviously better thing to come of that was the increase in the number of mod points being made available. There have been a lot more usefully up-modded posts since then. Everything else has been neutral at best - the +0 disagree mod happens a couple of times a day but it doesn't seem to improve the quality of conversation.

        Seems almost like the devs are getting bored and just want to hack stuff for the sake of hacking.

        • (Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:38PM

          by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:38PM (#149716)

          I'd love for the Moderate button to be turned into an ahref tag like the "Reply to this" and "Parent" buttons. So i can open it in a new tab and not be forced to navigate away. Either that or use ajax on navigate (if JS is enabled). People have requested a way to vote up/down stories in the pipe. People have suggested that high karma users have editor-like powers to get a story out. I'd like to post as AC but keep all the logged in benefits (like reply tracking). There is still some work to figure out with site funding. That could go in so many different directions. People have requested subscribing with a CC and not using paypal. Diminishing returns are still returns : )

          --
          SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
          • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:01PM

            by paulej72 (58) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:01PM (#149730) Journal
            We have plans to fix the moderate buttons, but there are more important things ahead in the queue. I was just recently able to fix some issues with the redirect code in slash that will make fixing the moderate buttons easier.
            --
            Team Leader for SN Development
            • (Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:22PM

              by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:22PM (#149746)

              You're awesome : )

              --
              SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:51PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @10:51PM (#149761)

              I'm all for bug hunting and functionality improvements. But trying to change user behavior seems like a waste to me, there have never been any glaring problems in that vein, just a couple of loudmouths talking up their pet peeves.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25 2015, @05:59PM (#149606)

    One problem I have run into is that apparently the moderators aren't reading Anonymous posts (score 0)-- neither do users with a login who may or may not ever moderate.

    I don't care to create a login and inflate a reputation for myself here; I just want to occasionally contribute, and the current situation on Soylent News really discourages that. How do I know the moderators and login users aren't reading anon posts? I have posted a detailed comment to answer a question on more than one occasion, only to see an hour later the *same exact thing* posted by someone else with a login. Sometimes directly under my comment, sometimes far down in the page. And to top it off, being close to an identical comment as mine, it might get a +4, while mine never budges from zero.

    The quality of discussion is subpar if people aren't reading the site and yet making posts. The moderators' job should be to elevate posts that might be skipped over otherwise and mod them up to where they will be read. Some people only want to read highly rated posts and set their filters accordingly; the moderators should help make this system work by looking at anonymous posts as well and possibly upvoting them. Otherwise, this site will turn into a clique of registered "personalities" with logins who claim the site as theirs like obnoxious barflies.

    • (Score: 2, Disagree) by Wootery on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:30PM

      by Wootery (2341) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:30PM (#149623)

      The unhappy truth is that by categorically ignoring ACs, one is almost guaranteed to have a better time. Most poor-quality comments are posted anonymously, and much of what's posted anonymously is poor-quality (spam/trolling/abject idiocy). The correlation really is striking.

      That might be annoying for someone in your position, but it's how it is. I'm not sure if there's a 'quick fix'.

      • (Score: 2) by Bytram on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:10AM

        by Bytram (4043) on Thursday February 26 2015, @01:10AM (#149788) Journal

        It would be great if I could read at, say, score==-1.

        All *those* comments should be universally Troll, Flamebait, Offtopic, and the like.

        If I could browse at score==0, then I should only see comments with *that* score. Those comments should be pretty much "meh". And so on for each possible comment score, culminating with browing only those comments that score 5 which should all be cream-of-the-crop, A1, wow, etc.

        That way, I couls easily scan and find the AC posts that needed an up-mod -- ditto for score -1 and find those that were unfairly downmodded into oblivion.

        • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday February 26 2015, @04:39PM

          by Wootery (2341) on Thursday February 26 2015, @04:39PM (#149993)

          I'm not opposed to your feature suggestion, but I'm not there are likely to be many like you willing to fight the good fight for the ACs.

    • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:32PM

      by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:32PM (#149624) Journal

      I, for one, browse at -1 when I'm moderating.. sorry that I missed your posts (or didn't think worthy to moderate up)

      --
      Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
      • (Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:50PM

        by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @06:50PM (#149632)

        Brave man : ) I only dive down to -1 if the replies to the hidden post are good.

        --
        SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
    • (Score: 2) by fleg on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:07AM

      by fleg (128) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:07AM (#149802)

      i read at -1 and mod AC posts. the issue for me is there is slightly less incentive to mod AC's up (tho not down) because i only have 5 points and if there are logged in users i'd rather give their good posts the points. as i said it is only a slight consideration but if others are doing the same maybe this is what you're seeing.

      • (Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:29PM

        by cmn32480 (443) <reversethis-{moc.liamg} {ta} {08423nmc}> on Thursday February 26 2015, @06:29PM (#150033) Journal

        Ditto!

        I do the same thing, and feel the same way. Thanks for expressing it so I didn't have to think about how to type it.

        --
        "It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:35PM

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:35PM (#149674) Homepage Journal

    As has been pointed out several times, why make changes to the karma system unless there is some tangible value to be derived?

    The way I understand it, karma is a mechanism to provide a leg up to historically good (in the opinion of moderators, i.e., us) posters. Making it a game or creating Rube Goldberg-esque rules to boost the egos of those who would use karma points to make themselves feel better seems counterproductive.

    Perhaps we should take a step back and rather than ask "how can we improve the management of karma," ask a different question: "If the goal of SN is to provide a site where news and information can be shared, digested and discussed, what is the best way to promote the highest quality submissions and discussions possible?"

    It seems to me that making karma about anything else than rewarding high quality participation detracts from the most important (IMHO) goal -- creating and maintaining a quality news/information sharing site with intelligent, interesting discussions that includes diverse opinions and points of view.

    I'm not seeing how the suggested changes to karma would positively affect that goal. Or am I missing something?

    Okay, yes, the current systems does penalize ACs to the benefit of logged-in users who, in the opinions of other logged-in users, contribute in a positive way to our discussions. If one wants to maintain their anonymity (which is certainly a reasonable point of view), they can do so. Currently that makes those who are okay with pseudonymity (at least those who are respected by others who are okay with the same) have an (initially) louder voice than ACs.

    Personally, I'm okay with that. What say the rest of you?

    TL;DR: If it ain't broke, why "fix" it?

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by kbahey on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:49PM

    by kbahey (1147) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @08:49PM (#149684) Homepage

    This is yet again a solution in search of a problem.

    Karma has been proven to work well for 15+ years at Slashdot, and has been unchanged over that period.
    If Slashdot had anything going for it, then it is the moderation system, followed by karma.

    So, I am echoing all here who say: leave it alone.

    What needs attention is not technology at all. The site works. What is needed is what I said repeatedly before: more visitors and participants [soylentnews.org].

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:13PM

      by pTamok (3042) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @09:13PM (#149696)

      That's the first rule of rural motor mechanics:

              "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

      I think it is an important point that if the current Slashdot Karma system works well enough for us, we should not rush into making changes.

      Maybe agree to review the situation in say, six months time.

      And I agree that more visitors and more participants would be a worthy goal.

  • (Score: 2) by prospectacle on Wednesday February 25 2015, @11:11PM

    by prospectacle (3422) on Wednesday February 25 2015, @11:11PM (#149767) Journal

    Re: People who are against gamification, karma-whoring, etc:

    1 - Unless we have no modding system at all, we need to aim for good incentives and disincentives. Some people will care how their individual posts are moderated. Some will care about their overall mod balance. So any karma system will mean it's treated partly as a point-scoring game. That's inevitable. This doesn't mean those same people won't also treat it like a real discussion that they want to learn from and make a positive contribution to. If we have a system at all we need to have an effective one.

    2 - Changing the system might have unwanted side effects, but so does the current system. Once you hit fifty you can only lose points. If a post is modded up three times and later it's modded down three times, then you go down to 47. This acts as a disincentive, that will sometimes makes the difference between posting or staying quiet.

    3 - Your karma is invisible to others, so you can't compete very hard anyway. An overall karma score would just be for your own interest if you care about that kind of thing. No one is forcing you to care about that kind of thing.

    ===
    Re: It ain't broke: see point 2 above.

    ===
    Re: Mod-bombing:

    What if the lifetime-karma score was two scores: a positive score and a negative score. e.g. you've got 100 upvotes but 50 downvotes. You can do the sophisticated calcuations to work out the difference if you want, but any mod-bombers or stalkers won't take away your positive points.

    ===
    Re: Recent-karma as a form of karma-decay:

    If recent karma were the total of the last X days, then it would have the same effect as decay, but without the perceived (maybe real) unfairness of just taking points away maliciously for someone not posting for a while. Instead, if you didn't post much recently, you won't have many recent points. Simple. This would encourage people to post, but, combined with your lifetime score idea (good idea), wouldn't exactly punish people for not posting. I suggest 60 days.

    ===
    With so many strong, conflicting opinions, it's a perfect example of where one day, if implemented, a simple, fair and easy voting system would help a lot. I know it's a fetid can of worms, and it's not actually urgent, but it will continue to be important either by its presence or its absence, for as long as the site exists in its current, community-driven form.

    --
    If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
    • (Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday February 26 2015, @04:10AM

      by Marand (1081) on Thursday February 26 2015, @04:10AM (#149841) Journal

      2 - Changing the system might have unwanted side effects, but so does the current system. Once you hit fifty you can only lose points. If a post is modded up three times and later it's modded down three times, then you go down to 47. This acts as a disincentive, that will sometimes makes the difference between posting or staying quiet.

      It's not much of a disincentive, considering you keep your extra karma bonus until you go under what . . . 40? And even then you're still a long way off negative karma. There's a nice buffer there so that, if you want to say something controversial, you don't have to worry about your karma hit lasting very long. Especially with the increase in mod points and removal of "overrated", it's easier to get modded up than down right now, which is good.

      Hell, if you want to take it to an extreme, you can troll the shit out of people for a day or two and then post a few funny comments after that and be right back up at 50.

      • (Score: 2) by prospectacle on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:34AM

        by prospectacle (3422) on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:34AM (#149897) Journal

        You're right it's not a massive disincentive, but it's persistent once you've hit fifty:

        Contributing can't possibly make your score go up, but it could go down. Refraining from contributing won't make your score go down.

        This is not the only consideration when deciding whether to post, or the most important, but with a few tweaks it can be removed entirely. We could just ask people to not care what their karma score is instead, but that won't work. Some care, some don't. Instead we can refine the karma system to remove its most obvious flaws.

        --
        If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 25 2015, @11:15PM

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 25 2015, @11:15PM (#149768) Homepage Journal

    What we want is something that predicts whether a post ny you is likely to be a good post or a bad post. So have an average of up-moderations versus down-moderations, say over the last hundred of so times you are moderated. If you want, recent mods can could slightly more than older ones. This could even be an exponential backoff.

    Maximum karma +1.000, minimum -1.000. If you want to scale this linearly to another min and max, go ahead. That would be a cosmetic change only.

    Missing moderations (those that don't exist because the poster is new to the site) chould be averaged in as zeros.

    Note I count moderations, not time. How often someone posts should not affect the evaluation of the posts he does make.If the last hundred posts were all excellent, his next one is likely to be excellent too, whether the last hundred were posted over a timespan of a day, a month, or a decade.

    -- hendrik

    • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:38AM

      by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:38AM (#149831) Homepage Journal

      Maybe better, instead of averaging the last 100 or so *moderations*, one could average the current scores of the last 100 submitted *comments*.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by martyb on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:46AM

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 26 2015, @02:46AM (#149813) Journal

    As a reader of /. from before there even were UIDs, and having been with this site since the slashcott, I've held off a bit to see what others had to say before I chimed in. The community has certainly come up with some interesting ideas!

    First off, I don't really see that much of a problem with karma as currently implemented.

    Karma Cap:I must admit that at the beginning, I worked hard to reach the SN karma cap of 50 points. Yes, it was a bit of a game. And now that I've been at the cap for quite a while, it doesn't really concern me much any more. I post comments and submit stories because I *want* to contribute to the community.

    Karma Aging: I had previously advocated for some form of karma aging to reduce one's karma over time. I no longer subscribe to that view. There should be no penalty just for remaining silent for some period of time. "If I don't have something good to say, I shouldn't say anything at all." Also: "Silence is golden."

    Constant Karma: Currently, the only way to lose karma is to have a comment down-modded. That level of participation is relatively easy to maintain. At least I've found it so.

    Karma Spending: What if there were opportunities to 'spend' karma? At the moment, with a sufficiently-high karma (30 points?), I can post an unlimited number of comments with a starting score of '+1' (whereas an Anonymous Coward's comment always starts at '0'). In fact, that is the default posting level -- I have to actively choose to not get a karma bonus on each such comment I submit.

    What if I had to spend a Karma point each time I wanted to post at '+1' instead of at '0'?

    --
    Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 2) by prospectacle on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:04PM

      by prospectacle (3422) on Thursday February 26 2015, @10:04PM (#150136) Journal

      What if I had to spend a Karma point each time I wanted to post at '+1' instead of at '0'?

      I think that's a great idea. That way you can't just rest on your laurels, you have to earn the threshold (40+) and then you have to earn every +1 post with an additional karma point. I think a slight raise in the cap would be good to accompany this. It wouldn't have to be a lot, maybe 60 insetad of 50.

      --
      If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:09AM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 26 2015, @03:09AM (#149822) Journal

    At +40, the user gains the ability to post at +2.

    I always assumed that the Karma Bonus (modifier assigned to posts where the user has good karma) was strictly voluntary on the part of each user, and affected only how THAT USER saw OTHER people's posts with higher scores, and my checking or unchecking that option didn't affect how anyone else saw MY posts. Am I reading you right?

    I've never understood whey that check box existed, and have never used it. Seems kind of duche-baggery to check that box if it affects how you appear to others.

    This obviously presents a problem since once a user hits 50, what incentive do they have to really keep posting?

    Who comes for the karma? We post because we find it interesting, and want to throw in our 2 cents.

    john_doe decides to contribute 3 insightful comments, all getting moderated up to +5 Insightful

    Plus 4 insightful, informative, etc should have some partial(positive) effect as well. Often stories fall off the front page, and aren't viewed as much before 5 people bother to moderate. Having all the juice flow only at +5 seems a tad rigorous, and maybe some accumulation at +4 is warranted.

    The spam moderation knocks the post down to +0, and inflicts a -10 karma ding. John's recent karma value will drop to 2,

    Too much power in the hands of stalkers and haters.
    In fact, I think ANY SPAM modding should be confirmed (by somebody, some how), just to prevent misuse.

            Note: I assume "spam" here is meant in the sense of lurking around and occasionally posting something that is purely a UCP
              (Unsolicited Commercial Posting, or blog flogging).

    Other negative Mods, (Troll, Flamebait) are also occasionally used as stalker tools.

    All in all, I'm not sure Karma is all that broken. I wasn't even aware if offered any privileges at all. Thought it was just a measure of how much or how little I managed to piss off others.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:44AM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Thursday February 26 2015, @11:44AM (#149914) Journal

    Could we increase the maximum value for posts? In user preferences I can award additional points for posts being modded Funny of Insightful. But most regulars post at +2 anyway, so the whole rating takes place between 2 and 5. There is not much room for customization. Also I think with our current amount of mod points, we see quite a lot of maxed out posts, would be nice to be able to still differentiate a bit more.

    --
    Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum