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posted by on Friday August 25 2017, @11:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the we're-really-big-time-now dept.

Welcome, new trolls! We're pleased as punch to have you aboard, unfortunately as you may have noticed our moderators are unable to give you the moderations you've been working so hard for. Since we can't really do much about people not moderating more, we're going to be giving out more points so that the ones that do can give you the attention you so desperately crave.

Moderators: Starting a little after midnight UTC tonight, everyone will be getting ten points a day instead of five. The threshold for a mod-bomb, however, is going to remain at five. This change is not so you can pursue an agenda against registered users more effectively but so we can collectively handle the rather large uptick in anonymous trolling recently while still being able to have points remaining for upmodding quality comments. This is not an invitation to go wild downmodding; it's helping you to be able to stick to the "concentrate more on upmodding than downmodding" bit of the guidelines.

Also, this is not a heavily thought-out or permanent change. It is a quick, dirty adjustment that will be reviewed, tweaked, and likely changed before year's end. Questions? Comments?

 
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  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by MostCynical on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:15AM (29 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:15AM (#559176) Journal

    Glad you're doing something; hope it works, even a little.

    Here is a suggestion:
    should *all* ACs go through "pre-moderation"?
    Logged-in users get a chat window with AC comments, once/if x number of logged-in users mod the AC comment as any positive moderation value, it appears in the comments, otherwise it just.. doesn't.

    (This was not my idea, so credit/brickbats to another user)

    This would slow the discussion down a little, but with quite a few of us being in disparate time zones, most worthy comments would appear reasonalbly quickly.

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   0  
       Disagree=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Disagree' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:29AM (16 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:29AM (#559180) Homepage Journal

    You hate me and wish further RSI upon me, don't you? Kidding. Javascript being necessary, and blocked by a lot of our community, for that I have to think it wouldn't work out as well as hoped. I'm not entirely discounting it but I'm sticking it behind a Break Glass in Case of Emergency thing as far as my own opinion goes. Usually better to exhaust less intrusive means first.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:35AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:35AM (#559188) Journal

      No, I wish no ill upon those who do so much good, especially those who already have crossed the line way beyond "masochist"

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:39AM (#559246)

      Require JS and this AC is gone.

      And you might not take my word for it, but I'm not among the hate-spouters.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:34AM (12 children)

      by Reziac (2489) on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:34AM (#559263) Homepage

      Am I doing it wrong? Cuz I have SN permanently set to threshold 0, and while there's some crap it's nothing I can't skim over.

      At 5 points, I often run out before I'm done modding up, so dunno why I'd waste 'em modding down the less than spectacularly egregious. So I'm sure I'll find use for 10. A few years back the Green Site lost its mind and gave me permanent mod points (I'd spend 'em all and instantly get 15 more; this went on for about six months) and ya know what? I still managed to spend most of 'em.

      What the heck is a mod bomb?

      As to a penalty for modding down -- with 10 points it might be practical to make a downmod use up two modpoints instead of just one. That would ensure it's no worse than before, at least, since in effect the max downmod points would be 5 per day.

      I do like the daily renew; that way they're handy just about any time I want them!

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:50AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:50AM (#559293)

        Mod bombing is why I refuse to log in. Basically. You can't mod the same person more than 5 times in a day. That's finally an actual rule rather than a non-rule that the people running the site like to enforce.

        And as of the last time I logged in. There's no feedback given before they ban the account's ability to moderate.

        It's there primarily to protect buzzy against all the well justified mods he'd get.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:23AM (10 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:23AM (#559378) Homepage Journal

        A mod bomb is spending your mod points on a vendetta rather than for their intended purpose; using five (or more now) points out of one batch to downmod one person. We're looking at programmatically eliminating them but I don't expect much in the way of site updates soon.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:16PM

          by Reziac (2489) on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:16PM (#559442) Homepage

          Ah. Well, I suppose a solution might be something like you can only mod down the same poster N-many times in a given period, say a week. I don't think that should be too tight, tho, because once in a while the same spammer might need repeated smiting.

          I've occasionally found myself spending all my mod points on one poster (usually when someone is bringing depth to a side of an argument that otherwise is seldom seen), but always to mod up. Would that be a Mod Hot Air Balloon? :)

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:53PM (8 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:53PM (#559455)

          Which is deeply problematic because there's at least a half dozen posters here that just troll. Expecting people to let things slide to avoid the arbitrary ban is ridiculous.

          I don't bother logging in any more and definitely not modding because of the unwarranted interference. If the first 5 troll posts I see are from the same person, they're the one that should be penalized not me.

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:24PM (6 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:24PM (#559540) Homepage Journal

            If you're using all your points to mod down trolls, you're doing moderation wrong to begin with. The idea is to get everything worth seeing above zero not to get everything crappy down to -1.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:20PM (5 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:20PM (#559633)

              Perhaps, but modding troll posts as troll posts is legitimate regardless of how many times you do it. Referring to it as a vendetta just because somebody chooses to mod one person's troll posts is a bit weak.

              Ultimately, things like this make people not want to spend the time moderating as it becomes a chore having to remember whom you've been modding.

              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @12:37AM (4 children)

                Well, see, you've got a choice... You can either have arbitrary rules that apply equally to everyone and a guarantee of no favoritism or you can have rules that get interpreted by the person implementing them. We've chosen the former but I'll be happy to sort through anyone who wants me to's moderations and reverse every one I disagree with. Who wants to go first?

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:51AM (3 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:51AM (#559711)

                  It would be equally equal if we could just mod whomever we wanted based on the criteria. Half the time I wasn't even paying attention to whom I was modding or how many times. If somebody is such an asshole that they get all the down mods for being of topic or trolling, then so be it.

                  Similarly I fail to see why it's ok to spend all positive points on the same person.

                  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:36AM (2 children)

                    Because promoting crap inserts a small amount of noise. Demoting intelligent stuff you disagree with removes signal. The goal is to be able to set your preferences to where you get all the signal with as little noise as possible and lowering the signal threshold to pick up wrongly demoted content adds back in a whole hell of a lot more noise than one person could ever wrongly mod up in a day.

                    --
                    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @02:28PM (1 child)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @02:28PM (#559851)

                      And yet the mod bomb rule doesn't actually address that at all. I can think of a handful of posters that never contribute anything of value and by value, I'm using an extremely lax definition. Not even bad jokes or obvious insights, but pure trolling.

                      And yes, the goal is to improve the SNR, but there are a handful of posters here that basically don't ever contribute anything that isn't a troll comment and there shouldn't be a penalty associated with moderating things that aren't even in English into oblivion as part of that effort.

                      Plus, some of us don't even look at the author until after we've made a decision about whether or not something should be modded. In which case, we might not even know how many times we've modded them and how recently.

                      The ACs can be a problem, but it's mostly people who sign in under their own name that cause me not to bother logging in anymore. At least with ACs they're easy enough to just ignore if they're behaving badly. The named accounts are virtually impossible to chase off. Which may or may not be a bad thing depending upon your view point, but they are definitely a bigger problem in my experience.

                      • (Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @05:09PM

                        Actually, the mod bomb rule addresses that quite directly. Truthfully, it doesn't go far enough given the goals of moderation. If you're spending five points on downmodding (even to different people), you're doing far, far less to help the signal-to-noise ratio than you would by promoting five comments you find worthy of reading. The goal is for people to be able to browse at >= 1 and still have plenty of comments worth reading, not to be able to browse at zero without seeing things that annoy you.

                        --
                        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday August 28 2017, @08:59AM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday August 28 2017, @08:59AM (#560109) Homepage
            You seem to think that you're the only person who considers such posters trolls. An annoying troll would receive negative moderations from many people, which is why almost everyone gets mod points every day.

            And don't confuse posting blunt views that you disagree with for trolling. People have mentioned TMB by name already, so let's take him as an example - occasionally he posts arguments which I fervently disagree with - yet I still give him +1 interesting moderations for them, as he's expanding the discussion. I also reply to tell him where I disagree with him, and I'm sure he thinks I'm as wrong as I do him. Often we'll find common ground. That's what mature discussion is for.

            Don't debase your opponent if you can instead debate him.
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:56PM

      by Justin Case (4239) on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:56PM (#559474) Journal

      Javascript being necessary

      This is not a vote in favor of the suggested feature, but a thought how it might be implemented without taking control of the user's browser, if the feature itself garners support.

      Have a separate page (URL) that shows the last X anon comments in strict time sequence regardless of context. Those who want to lavish special attention on anons (plus or minus) could reload this page whenever they felt the urge to smite the evildoers / rescue those who need to speak without fear of backlash.

  • (Score: 2) by lentilla on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:32AM (11 children)

    by lentilla (1770) on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:32AM (#559406)

    I've been considering something like this - let me outline my version.

    There is a two-fold aim:

    1. As much as possible, we want to get rid of the absolute dross.
    2. We want to encourage people to log on. It's easier for continuity, and better builds a community.

    Implementation:

    1. Anonymous Coward posts have a default score of -2.
    2. -2 posts appear as a one-line entry, in grey, with the words "awaiting promotion". ("One-line" means truncated at sixty characters - we want A.C. posters to see their post was successful. Truncation is not applied when viewed by logged-in users, perhaps they should be coloured differently to indicate "promotion required".)
    3. There is no "Reply" button to -2 scored posts.
    4. Moderation options: the drop-down list box has just two options for -2 scored messages: "promote" and "destroy". Moderation of these messages is free to anyone with moderation status.
    5. If a message is "promoted", it immediately gets a score of 0, and thus becomes a regular post. If a message is "destroyed", by two posters (maybe move it to -3, then -4), it is deleted, never to return. ("Deleted" here means never displayed, to anyone, regardless of their threshold settings.)

    As for encouraging people to log in... I prefer reading posts by named authors. I don't care what the name is - after all, I'm using an anonymous handle here. I perceive two impediments to people posting as themselves:

    1. Perception that creating an account is hard. Which would be quite incorrect. SoylentNews has the least painful registration I have encountered since the early days of the web. If I remember correctly, an handle and an email was wanted. Dead easy. So what I think we need to do is remind Anonymous Cowards; perhaps at the time of posting; that registering is dead easy.
    2. Doxing concerns. This has me somewhat flummoxed - although a number of comments in this thread mention this. Just use a fresh SoylentNews-only handle, right?

    There are enough people that lurk on SoylentNews to make this a tenable strategy. If the message has any credibility, it will quickly achieve a score of 0, especially if there is zero cost in the moderation. The best part is two-fold: firstly the crap never gets a chance to rise out of the bucket, and secondly, A.C. users are encouraged to post using an account.

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:31PM (9 children)

      by Reziac (2489) on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:31PM (#559447) Homepage

      My objection to that comes from two places:

      I find that AC posts are generally of the same quality as named-posts; yeah, there's an idiot contingent but there are idiots among the named posters too. So I'm not much bothered by the fact that ACs aren't named. I suppose a hash-name could be assigned chan-style but sometimes the point of being AC is that you want to speak differently and not get dogpiled for it, and a hash-name really isn't functionally different from a nym. Anonymity matters in a free society, and I think it does to our community as well. Not to every community, but to ours, it does.

      I cruise at 0 since I find that lets me see pretty much everything, but by the time I get here the genuine dross has already sunk to -1 and bothers me not -- but they're still visible inline and can be clicked on (sometimes worthwhile depending on how the discussion is going), and occasionally I do find a worthy post languishing at -1. A default below zero and now I've got to swim in the muck to see a good many posts that I now see by default. At which point I stop bothering. I can't be alone in that. The net effect would be that a good chunk of what is now a different viewpoint would be lost.

      I think your system might be really good in a single-topic forum where hard facts and hard experience are the goal (eg. engineering), where informative matters far more than opinion. But here a lot of the goal IS opinion, and its cousin insight, and that needs to make a default of visible, rather than invisible.

      In any event, those who don't want to see unmodded ACs can always set their comment threshold above 0.

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:28PM (8 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:28PM (#559607)

        None of the AC posters are as bad as Aristarchus, Buzzy or jmorris. And for the most part browsing at 0 filters out nearly all of ones not contributing anything of value.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @12:38AM (7 children)

          You just have no appreciation for fine trolling.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 27 2017, @07:12AM (6 children)

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday August 27 2017, @07:12AM (#559735) Journal

            We can all appreciate a fine troll. You, my fine friend, are not it. Much too much emotion behind them. You shouldn't post stuff you're serious about and then go "haha only trolling" when you get your beak blasted 90 degrees off the side of your head, Daffy Duck style. Eth does it better.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:38AM (5 children)

              I think you need to learn the difference between trolling and mocking you with the truth.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @12:22AM (4 children)

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 28 2017, @12:22AM (#559975) Journal

                I think you need to learn the difference between truth and wishful thinking :) If your overall post history is any indication, you're just slightly less qualified to talk politics than, say, the average limpet is to teach skydiving...

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 28 2017, @01:48AM (3 children)

                  Since you seem utterly unable to distinguish between someone trolling and someone disagreeing with you, there really isn't any point in continuing this. I've tried numerous times to educate you, it just never sticks. The only conclusion left at this point is that you're just not the sharpest bowling ball in the shed.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @05:33AM (2 children)

                    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 28 2017, @05:33AM (#560068) Journal

                    We've been over this before: accusing someone else of that which you yourself are guilty does not magically absolve your of your sins. Especially when you're wrong about THAT, too. A few months ago you reached critical mass in terms of "how many people can tell Uzzard's fulla beans?" and there's no going back. Stick to what you're good at (coding, sysadmin stuff).

                    --
                    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 28 2017, @10:16AM (1 child)

                      I can't believe you really just replied with "No, you are!".

                      --
                      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @06:26PM

                        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 28 2017, @06:26PM (#560377) Journal

                        Except I didn't. So your lack of belief is warranted, but like just about every time you say something not to do with technology, you're right for the wrong reasons :) Man, aren't your tailfeathers sore yet? Or do you actually *like* pain?

                        --
                        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Monday August 28 2017, @12:34PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Monday August 28 2017, @12:34PM (#560192) Journal

      First off, I don't think there's any real need to punish ACs specifically. A lot of great comments come from ACs, and a lot of spam comes from logged in users. It's not like it's difficult to create a new account as you pointed out yourself.

      Secondly, I've posted AC myself a few times, and I'm sure other users have as well. For example, suppose you want to post something which you aren't really supposed to be discussing due to legal/contractual obligations. There can be no free speech without anonymity.

      And finally...from what I've seen of the various social networks, even forcing people to post under their actual legal identity still doesn't do a damn thing to block spam. You need to filter the content, not the users.