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Emmanuel Macron has been declared the President of France after early vote counts:
France has a new president. Emmanuel Macron – an independent centrist who has never held elected office – has won a resounding victory over far-right, nationalist Marine Le Pen in the most important French presidential race in decades, according to early vote counts by the French Interior Ministry.
In early returns, Macron had won an estimated 65 percent of the vote to Le Pen's nearly 35 percent, according to the French Interior Ministry. Le Pen has already called to congratulate Macron and conceded defeat to a gathering of her supporters in Paris.
Also at The Guardian (live), Washington Post, NYT, Reuters, and The Local.
From CNBC: Euro hits six-month high on Macron victory
CNN editorial: Why Macron's victory is reassuring ... and yet not
BBC has an article about Macron's potential choice of Prime Minister.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 08 2017, @11:08PM (10 children)
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Tuesday May 09 2017, @05:32AM (9 children)
I don't think you can count. When I looked earlier today, a short time after your post, there were 20 in the queue.
In any case, look at the queue: it supports my proposal that there is a right-wing bias to accepted stories. Is the fact that two dogs were saved more important to a tech-centered site than issues of privacy, the influence of billionaires in elections, net neutrality, windows flaws?
This site is dying because it's pushing a biased political viewpoint and allowing hate and racism to be posted without consequences for the posters.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 09 2017, @09:03AM
I don't think you can count. When I looked earlier today, a short time after your post, there were 20 in the queue.
That's a part of my point. The number of stories go up and down rather quickly. The circumstances change and what was the situation when this story was posted probably was not the same as when you posted.
Is the fact that two dogs were saved more important to a tech-centered site than issues of privacy, the influence of billionaires in elections, net neutrality, windows flaws?
Apparently not, since that didn't make it out of the queue. Meanwhile I did see at the time, front page stories on the firing of EPA science advisors, people not trusting companies when it comes to research, California police unions opposing the banning of license plate readers, and consumer profiling for exploitation. Stuff you just might be interested in.
There's a simple name for this process, confirmation bias. You're more likely to remember the stories that are obnoxious or run counter to your beliefs, than the stuff that doesn't.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 09 2017, @02:15PM (7 children)
This site is dying because it's pushing a biased political viewpoint and allowing hate and racism to be posted without consequences for the posters.
Hmmm, reading over your post again, what sort of consequences would you suggest? And how do you keep that mechanism from backfiring on you, say by an administrator abusing their power?
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Tuesday May 09 2017, @05:13PM (6 children)
Well, since I discovered that there is an unwritten rule of "Don't down-mod The Mighty Buzzard excessively", I don't really know the answer to that.
I was told via email that the rule is "don't down-mod the same poster 5 times in a day", but since the rule isn't written in the guidelines and the person whom I down-modded and the person who banned me from moderating for a month are one and the same, it's not an unreasonable assumption to believe that the real rule "don't down mod The Mighty Buzzard excessively.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 09 2017, @09:40PM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Tuesday May 09 2017, @10:34PM (4 children)
It's possible that I modbombed others without consequence. Let's face it, Drunk Uncle (AKA "Ethanol-fueled") deserves a lot of downmods for his rants.
But my point remains: the rule "don't modbomb someone 5 times in a day" is not written in the moderation guidelines. When the person you modbomb is the same person who revokes moderation privileges and uses a "rule" that isn't actually documented, then it looks like the administrators are not acting impartially.
It looks like the rule was made up on the spot because I modbombed an administrator.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:59AM (1 child)
You should have been mod-banned the first time you did it to someone else but we're looking at making it not possible via code instead of having to dish out mod-bans for it, so I tried to warn you via Admin->User messaging, which you apparently had turned off and never received. The second time I did not handle it because I make a point of absolutely never making decisions like that where I'm in any way involved.
You're right that it needs to go into the moderator guidelines bit of the FAQ if it's going to stick around but like I said, we're looking at nuking them programmatically instead of trying to fight human nature and causing hurt feelings. I'll talk to one of the other guys tomorrow and see about lifting it this time and calling it a belated warning. But, and this is just a suggestion, you might want to turn Admin->User messaging on in your Messages Preferences. There's nothing automated ever going to be in them, it's strictly for when a human being wants to contact you about something site-related.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday May 11 2017, @06:14AM
I turned on the Admin->User messaging as you suggest.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)
I've reviewed the moderations, and agree there had been no clear statement about mod bombing in the Moderation FAQ [soylentnews.org].
In light of this, I have:
Further, there had already been discussion about how we can preclude a mod ban from ever occurring.
One thought was to put up some kind of message when we detected that a given moderation would be the 5th down mod by user 'A' against user 'B'. It sounded great, but there is an issue with that. A user could select moderations on multiple comments on a single story, and then click 'Moderate' — in that case, we receive all of those moderations in one batch which precludes putting up a warning.
We are leaning, instead, towards taking a similar approach to what happens when you attempt to downmod a comment that is already at the lower bound (or upmod a comment that is already at the upper bound). This can happen quite by accident. I load a story and see a comment modded '+4 Funny'. I think it is hilarious! I click the moderation box and set it for 'Funny' and am ready to click 'Moderate'. Unbeknownst to me, and at the same time, someone else has done the exact same thing, and has already clicked 'Moderate'. So, the comment is really at '+5 Funny' at this point. When I now click on the 'Moderate' button, the system detects that this would create a '+6 Funny', and basically ignores the moderation. (A comment's moderation is limited to -1 to +5, inclusive.)
The thinking is that when we detect a moderation that would have invoked a mod ban, we instead just drop the moderation on the floor and ignore it.
Lastly, though I can understand how it may seem otherwise, this had nothing to do with the user which was down modded. It is a credit to our team that whenever a discussion arises about a mod ban, if it affects one of the staff, they have universally stepped back from taking any unilateral action — in this respect, they are treated no different than any other user on this site.
I would also like to take a moment to mention that mod bans are exceedingly rare on this site. We have one heck of a community here and I feel privileged to be in a position where I can provide support to help ensure these discussions can continue.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday May 11 2017, @06:12AM
Marty,
thanks for the reasoned explanation.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory