Since the launch of SoylentNews in February of 2014, there have been 274,870 comment moderations made against the 412,100 comments that our community has posted to our site. Who has posted the most comments? Who garnered the most up-moderations? The most down-moderations?
Such simple questions, but they led to a fun bit of DB querying. The results surprised me, and I thought others might be interested, as well. Most surprising to me was the assessment of comments from Anonymous Cowards.
[Continues...]
Who received the most moderations?
For better or worse, to whom did Soylentils direct their greatest moderation effort?
NICK | UID | TOTAL | DOWN | UP | NET |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Mighty Buzzard | 18 | 2260 | 626 | 1634 | 1008 |
takyon | 881 | 2315 | 103 | 2212 | 2109 |
aristarchus | 2645 | 2494 | 615 | 1879 | 1264 |
c0lo | 156 | 2717 | 183 | 2534 | 2351 |
Thexalon | 636 | 3225 | 83 | 3142 | 3059 |
Ethanol-fueled | 2792 | 3447 | 1238 | 2209 | 971 |
VLM | 445 | 4401 | 346 | 4055 | 3709 |
Runaway1956 | 2926 | 4531 | 992 | 3539 | 2547 |
frojack | 1554 | 5855 | 593 | 5262 | 4669 |
Anonymous Coward | 1 | 78936 | 13002 | 65934 | 52932 |
The single greatest target of moderation was the "Anonymous Coward" with 78,936 moderations. This was followed by frojack, Runaway1956, VLM, Ethanol-fueled, and Thexalon who garnered over 3000 moderations each.
Who had the most down-moderations?
Here, only the number of down moderations was considered — it mattered not whether it was Flamebait or Troll — they all counted the same.
NICK | UID | TOTAL | DOWN | UP | NET |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
VLM | 445 | 4401 | 346 | 4055 | 3709 |
Hairyfeet | 75 | 1620 | 387 | 1233 | 846 |
MichaelDavidCrawford | 2339 | 1513 | 387 | 1126 | 739 |
frojack | 1554 | 5855 | 593 | 5262 | 4669 |
aristarchus | 2645 | 2494 | 615 | 1879 | 1264 |
The Mighty Buzzard | 18 | 2260 | 626 | 1634 | 1008 |
jmorris | 4844 | 2144 | 753 | 1391 | 638 |
Runaway1956 | 2926 | 4531 | 992 | 3539 | 2547 |
Ethanol-fueled | 2792 | 3447 | 1238 | 2209 | 971 |
Anonymous Coward | 1 | 78936 | 13002 | 65934 | 52932 |
Once again, our prolific AC topped the list with 13,002 down-mods. Ethanol-fueled was the only other user who topped 1000 down-mods, coming in with 1238. Runaway1956 made a valiant showing with 992 down-mods.
Who had the most up-moderations?
In the eyes of the community, who most often received an up-mod? Again, no consideration was given for the nature of the up-mod — Insightful, Interesting, or Informative — all were considered the same.
NICK | UID | TOTAL | DOWN | UP | NET |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
aristarchus | 2645 | 2494 | 615 | 1879 | 1264 |
Phoenix666 | 552 | 2184 | 80 | 2104 | 2024 |
Ethanol-fueled | 2792 | 3447 | 1238 | 2209 | 971 |
takyon | 881 | 2315 | 103 | 2212 | 2109 |
c0lo | 156 | 2717 | 183 | 2534 | 2351 |
Thexalon | 636 | 3225 | 83 | 3142 | 3059 |
Runaway1956 | 2926 | 4531 | 992 | 3539 | 2547 |
VLM | 445 | 4401 | 346 | 4055 | 3709 |
frojack | 1554 | 5855 | 593 | 5262 | 4669 |
Anonymous Coward | 1 | 78936 | 13002 | 65934 | 52932 |
Once again AC reins supreme with 65,934 up-mods. This was followed by frojack with 5,262 and VLM with just over 4000.
Who had the highest net-moderation?
Putting it all together — subtracting the number of down-mods from the number of up-mods — who had the highest net moderation on our site?
NICK | UID | TOTAL | DOWN | UP | NET |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
wonkey_monkey | 279 | 1754 | 117 | 1637 | 1520 |
maxwell demon | 1608 | 1786 | 55 | 1731 | 1676 |
Phoenix666 | 552 | 2184 | 80 | 2104 | 2024 |
takyon | 881 | 2315 | 103 | 2212 | 2109 |
c0lo | 156 | 2717 | 183 | 2534 | 2351 |
Runaway1956 | 2926 | 4531 | 992 | 3539 | 2547 |
Thexalon | 636 | 3225 | 83 | 3142 | 3059 |
VLM | 445 | 4401 | 346 | 4055 | 3709 |
frojack | 1554 | 5855 | 593 | 5262 | 4669 |
Anonymous Coward | 1 | 78936 | 13002 | 65934 | 52932 |
Once again, the shy but prolific AC tops the list with a net of 52,932 mod points. Only one other Soylentil was able to surpass 4000: frojack with 4,669. Two other Soylentils exceeded 3000: VLM with 3709 and Thexalon with 3059.
Who hath pointy horns?
Who managed to acquire the most down-mods as a percentage of all moderations on their comments? For a tie, number of moderated comments is the second sort field. Who is the devil in our midst?
NICK | UID | TOTAL | #DOWN | %DOWN | #UP | %UP | NET |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
scarboni888 | 5061 | 1 | 1 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -1 |
MooCow | 6048 | 1 | 1 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -1 |
cybergimli | 436 | 2 | 2 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -2 |
rancidman | 769 | 2 | 2 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -2 |
rmdingler | 1038 | 2 | 2 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -2 |
SoylentsISay | 1331 | 2 | 2 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -2 |
stupid | 2631 | 2 | 2 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -2 |
contrapunctus | 3495 | 2 | 2 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -2 |
killal -9 bash | 2751 | 5 | 5 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | -5 |
Pfft, just a few minor imps around here. killal -9 bash topped (bottomed?) the list with 5 down-mods out of 5 moderations.
Who earned a Halo?
Whose comments had the best percentage of up-mods to total-mods? And in the case of ties, received the most up-mods? Who are the angels among us?
NICK | UID | TOTAL | #DOWN | %DOWN | #UP | %UP | NET |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
dx3bydt3 | 82 | 69 | 0 | 0.00 | 69 | 100.00 | 69 |
romlok | 1241 | 70 | 0 | 0.00 | 70 | 100.00 | 70 |
Hawkwind | 3531 | 75 | 0 | 0.00 | 75 | 100.00 | 75 |
jdccdevel | 1329 | 78 | 0 | 0.00 | 78 | 100.00 | 78 |
rleigh | 4887 | 102 | 0 | 0.00 | 102 | 100.00 | 102 |
DrMag | 1860 | 103 | 0 | 0.00 | 103 | 100.00 | 103 |
SrLnclt | 1473 | 117 | 0 | 0.00 | 117 | 100.00 | 117 |
Joe | 2583 | 126 | 0 | 0.00 | 126 | 100.00 | 126 |
Aiwendil | 531 | 164 | 0 | 0.00 | 164 | 100.00 | 164 |
Here, it appears we've got a flock of angels, or at least people who know which way the wind blows. All folks listed here scored 100.00% meaning all of their moderations were up-mods. Aiwendil topped our list with 164, and we had 4 others — Joe, SrLnclt, DrMag, and rleigh — who each had over 100 such comment moderations... not even a single down-mod among them!
I must admit I was surprised to see the sheer number of positive moderations of AC comments, and the fact that 83.5% of those mods were positive.
[Update: Added two tables, one each for top percentage of down-mods and of up-mods. -Ed.]
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @02:49AM
Just for clarity's sake, we don't store ip addresses of users; anonymous or otherwise. We store a one-way hash of the address and use that. Still useful for this purpose but not capable of outing anyone's location.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by toph on Monday October 10 2016, @03:23AM
With only 4 billion IPV4 addresses, inverting the hash with a rainbow table is trivial. For IPV6, the hash should work well enough.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @03:48AM
True enough, which is one of the major reasons why we don't make them public. We could always add a salt into the mix and make the rainbow table argument moot but there hasn't been a pressing reason to since they're not publicly shown.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @04:19AM
There might not be that many AC IP addresses...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @10:05AM
Even if you had unique salts for every IP address it would still be insecure because it wouldn't be that hard to crack an IP address if the salts and the hash list leaked.
Perhaps to make it more secure you can use a combination of IP address and hostmask + unique salt but given the fact that hostmasks tend to follow predictable patterns I would argue that's still not that secure, especially if someone had a list of all the hostmask/IP address combinations.
Even with IPv6 addresses it's possible that they follow patterns and various unused or not yet used addresses can be added to the list of addresses not to attempt to crack.
IP addresses were not meant to provide cryptographic security through being an address that's hard to crack, that was never the intent and it probably won't be good for that purpose.
I wasn't considering privacy when I wrote my above AC comment about posting those AC statistics. Obviously storing IP addresses removes privacy but storing a hash instead doesn't add that much more privacy. It makes it more inconvenient for hackers at best, which any degree of inconvenience is good but won't be good enough to thwart a determined entity with resources and access to tons of information (ie: from ISPs).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @10:09AM
Also this wouldn't be possible without either
A: Storing the IP address itself. Now you have a list of all IP addresses that post. It would be very trivial for someone with that list and with your hash to figure out who you are.
B: Having some kind of algorithm to go from IP address to salt and from salt + IP address to hash. That algorithm is ... another hash function, easy to crack.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 10 2016, @11:00AM
In theory, adding IPV6 addresses to the pile of IPV4 addresses before hashing easily solves this. In practice given how little IPV6 traffic there is? Someone besides me would need to do the math. I'm a crypto user not a crypto guru.
Worrying about the salt slipping out isn't much of a worry though.
I'd personally be more worried about the email addresses for everyone leaking. That's really the most sensitive bit of information we store (assuming you didn't do like I usually do and give president@whitehouse.gov whenever possible). Thankfully, I have yet to hear a credible report of the slashcode we started with having any SQL injection vulnerabilities (aside from the one I found that is utterly useless for actually pulling anything off) and we've made a point to keep up those particular best practices of our coding forefathers since forking.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.