SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
posted by
janrinok
on Saturday February 03 2018, @05:40AM
from the you-don't-own-anything-anymore dept.
from the you-don't-own-anything-anymore dept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w
When it comes to repair, farmers have always been self reliant. But the modernization of tractors and other farm equipment over the past few decades has left most farmers in the dust thanks to diagnostic software that large manufacturers hold a monopoly over.
Farmers using Eastern European cracking software for their tractors, and MS, Apple, etc. want to stop them.
Related: Right to Repair
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 87 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
A list is only as strong as its weakest link.
-- Don Knuth
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:42AM (5 children)
You have to be logged in to moderate. Imagine the fun to be had if any AC could just kill a point of view on a whim. Nope, we demand people with at least the guts to be accountable to make such actions.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:59AM
Of course you can be logged in yet still post anonymously using the corresponding option. Or you can post while not logged in, but moderate while logged in. You could even use proxies to have your moderation and anonymous comments come from different IPs.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday February 03 2018, @10:42AM (3 children)
Exactly, jan... post obliteration is serious business, and one prankster could nail the entire site. Anyone with that kind of power needs to have his dog in the fight. In my mind, that means anyone who has contributed enough to this site to have accumulated that much karma, which does not come overnight. I might as well go for 50+, if the internal Karma limit was raised to, say 60, but the most that would display is still 50. Meaning one must have "perfect" karma to have the "Power of God" to strike down posts.
And be held totally responsible with ones own karma, which may have taken a year to accumulate, at stake. I do not think its unreasonable to ask any of us to be a member of this site for at least a year, maybe 3 to 5, before being given that kind of authority, given the temptation for abuse.
I think it would make it easier on all of us, as the curators of this place aren't constantly watching each and every forum, and hundreds of us are online and reading at any given time. If we already have the offensive post on our screen, just one button press from any of us would "flush the turd" so the rest of us will never even see it.
Due to the severity of the mod, our curators need to have a log of every post so deleted, and who dunnit, so if any of us do get power-happy, they won't do it again for at least another year or so.
I would say give us "free" spam mods, but that would be way too dangerous. Just one guy could nail the whole site with a script. Best limit the damage to ten per moderator, as is presently done. If we do get a problem moderator, undoing his doings is probably not nearly as bad as trying to wade through all these spam posts.
I hardly consider offtopic or trolls to be sufficient grounds for obliteration - I think we all know what kind of posts I am referring to.
If nothing else, try it for a while, keep backups, and see what happens?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday February 03 2018, @12:32PM (2 children)
Those who are logged in can already mark a post down to below the normal viewing threshold such that it should not become a problem for normal discussion to take place. Nervertheless, I'll point your post out to others on the staff and hopefully create a discussion on your suggestion, but I suspect that there will be downsides to your suggestion that neither you nor I have spotted. Still, it will be good to air the matter again and see if any views have changed.
There are also a small number of our community having high levels of karma who are, from time to time, prone to acting before thinking. The current system has some built in safeguards that prevent the majority of potential abuse from becoming a reality.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday February 03 2018, @01:07PM (1 child)
I tried to ferret out just posts moderated "Spam" in my preferences, and nail them with a strong negative number, so I would no longer see them, but I still wanted to see the other negatively moderated posts. There is probably a way for me to do it by giving the other negatively moderated posts positive bias.
I guess what I am asking about is the possibility of having one more level of "bad" that can only be reached by Spam.
I normally cruise at -1, because I still want to see offtopic and troll posts - some are quite good. I often "rescue" them. I'm sure you have logs that show how users use their modpoints.
I really hate to negatively moderate anyone...as they are just jumping at the chance to vent their feelings about something, but I will nail a spam pretty fast. I will even positively moderate posts I do not agree with - because he brought up a good point and made me think a bit.
I have been known to post several lengthy religious diatribes here as well, as I am curious as to what other people will say about it. Offtopic as all getout. Especially this group. I can't get a rational discussion in the church, believe me. They are terrified to talk about anything but canon and the doctrine they have been told to respond with.
I feel this place would just look a lot better if any of us could kill off these spam posts, so the rest of us don't have to see them as well. Like I said before, crowdsourcing the janitorial work.
If anyone really wants to see it all, cruise at the sewer level: -2.
I see our TMB has posted some of his take on this. I appreciate you guys considering it. I thought I would run the idea up the flagpole and see if anyone saluted.
I concede to your observations - as you are running this place and see a helluva lotta stuff I am not privy to.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday February 03 2018, @03:05PM
There are 2 parts to this problem. The first is - "there is no such thing as a small software change" - particularly when it comes to moderation! This is beyond my area of expertise so I will leave it to the 'coding team' to let us know the what is actually possible (TMB at the moment!).
Secondly, we will have to think the entire problem through to see if it has consequences that are not immediately apparent. But you have explained what you want to see clearly so we have plenty to chew on and we can kick the idea around on IRC before coming up with our ideas.
We sometimes put those ideas out to the community for a bit more discussion so the entire process is unlikely to be fixed in the short term. TMB has plenty on his plate at the moment and he will have to prioritise this along with all of the other stuff he has to work on. He also has a life no matter how unlikely that sounds!
Thanks for raising the issue though. Without the feedback we probably wouldn't even be looking at the problem. It does seem that we are seeing more spam and crap postings than we did a while back but that is probably because we are attracting more readers - although most are not signing up for accounts. And also we actually support freedom of speech so we intentionally do not stamp on comments and/or submissions with a pair of heavy boots, despite what some in our community might think.