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[Update 20190127_200249 UTC: corrected number of downmods to qualify for mod bomb from 4 to 5. Clarified that no mod bans have been handed out in a long while. --martyb]
Our primary goal at SoylentNews is to provide a forum for the community; In as much as is reasonably possible, we try to take a hands-off approach.
The infrastructure provides a means by which the community can (among other things) vote on polls, publish journal articles, submit comments, and perform moderations.
There are, however, some things that require an active role by the admins.
One of these is dealing with moderation abuse, something which can come in different forms. See the FAQ for some background. Addressed there are "mod bombs" and "spam mods". A mod bomb is deemed to have happened when one user (user1) has performed 4 5 or more downmods against comments by another user (user2). Upon review, if a mod bomb has been found to occur, then the moderator (user1) gets a 1-month mod ban on the first occasion; 6 months on the second and subsequent times. Mod bans have not been issued in a LONG while; extra mods are reversed.
Sockpuppets: And now we come to the focus of this article: there is another form of moderation abuse: sockpuppet accounts. Wikipedia has a suitable description:
A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term, a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock, originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.[1]
The term now includes other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a person or organization,[2] to manipulate public opinion,[3] or to circumvent a suspension or ban from a website. A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym[4] and the creation of a sockpuppet is that the sockpuppet poses as an independent third-party unaffiliated with the puppeteer. Sockpuppets are unwelcome in many online communities and may be blocked.
Right here I'll admit that I was sorely tempted to take unilateral action. Name names. Apply mod bans. And... you get the idea. Instead, I'm trying to take the high road. So, instead, I chose to present what I found to the community, solicit input, and then see what, if anything, needs to be done.
There may well be other cases, but the one I have discovered shows this history of upmods. Out of the 100 most recent moderations performed by "user1", 80 of those have been upmods of the same user "user2". And of these, there have been 10 upmods on January 21, 10 more on January 22, and yet 10 more on January 23. (For those keeping score that is 30 points in 3 days).
I cannot imagine in any way that 30 upmods in three days by "user1" on "user2" is reasonable or desirable.
This would be purely academic except that comment moderation affects a user's karma. All registered users start with a karma of 0. Submitting a story that is accepted on the site earns 3 points. Each upmod to a comment of yours earns a point. Similarly, each downmod deducts a point from your karma. Get enough karma and when posting a comment you can give it extra visibility so that it starts at a score of 2 instead of at 1. (Comments posted anonymously or by ACs start at 0.) Get a low enough karma and you earn a "timeout" against posting comments for a month.
Inasmuch as "user1" was able to perform 80 upmods of "user2" in 19 days ("user2" had hovered near the karma cap of 50 when this all started), that means that "user2" received approximately 80 downmods from the community. Excluding the actions of our sockpuppet ("user1"), "user2" should have been in negative karma and thus in a month-long "timeout".
What I see is that the community has spoken (the comments posted by "user2" are not of the kind the community wants to see on the site) and that has been intentionally countered by the sockpuppet activity of "user1".
Rather than the admins taking a unilateral action, I am asking the community what should be done in this case (and any others like it that may come up)?
I offer a proposal that is analogous to our handling of a "mod bomb."
What is a mod bomb? Four (4) or more downmods in 24 hours by "user1" against comments posted by "user2". qualifies as a mod bomb and earns "user1" a 1-month moderation ban (initially; subsequent mod bombs earn a 6-month mod ban) It's been a long time since mod bans have been issued..
Proposed: Four (4) or more upmods in 24 hours should also be considered a mod bomb (sock bomb?) and should receive the same treatment.
The point of moderation is not to bestow karma points, it is to help improve the visibility of well-written comments and reduce the visibility of the lesser ones. The karma is simply an incentive to actually perform the moderations.
I've toyed with various values for number of upmods per unit of time (4 per day? 20 per week?) I keep coming back to the same metric we use for our existing "mod bomb" definition: 4 down mods in one 24-hour span that commences when mod points are handed out at 00:10 UTC.
So, now it's your turn. I'd appreciate your feedback and thoughts on this. If we should choose to implement it, it would probably have a soft launch with any "violations" being met with a warning.
Ultimately, it's your site. How do you want us to deal with sockpuppets?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 25 2019, @03:56PM (7 children)
Someone pointed out that you don't have to login to post AC - well, with that door wide open the site could get flooded with bot generated garbage. Sure, there's a 2 minute hold between posts (which someone determined enough could probably circumvent), but even at face value, that's an opening for 720 garbage comments per 24 hours from every throttled spambot.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @04:18PM
Hey, you're right, AC doesn't need to login!
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @04:20PM
Hey, you're right, AC doesn't need to login:
Industrial Society and Its Future
Theodore Kaczynski
1995
INTRODUCTION
1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have
been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly
increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in
“advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society,
have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings
to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering
(in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and
have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The
continued development of technology will worsen the situation.
It will certainly subject human being to greater indignities
and inflict greater damage on the natural world,
it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological
suffering, and it may lead to increased physical
suffering even in “advanced” countries.
2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it
may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve
a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but
only after passing through a long and very painful period
of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing
human beings and many other living organisms to
engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.
Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will
be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying
the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of
dignity and autonomy.
3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still
be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more
disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is
to break down it had best break down sooner rather than
later.
4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial
system. This revolution may or may not make use
of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a relatively
gradual process spanning a few decades. We can’t predict
any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the
measures that those who hate the industrial system should
take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against
that form of society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution.
Its object will be to overthrow not governments
but the economic and technological basis of the present
society.
5. In this article we give attention to only some of
the negative developments that have grown out of the
industrial-technological system. Other such developments
we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does not
mean that we regard these other developments as unimportant.
For practical reasons we have to confine our discussion
to areas that have received insufficient public attention
or in which we have something new to say. For
example, since there are well-developed environmental
and wilderness movements, we have written very little
about environmental degradation or the destruction of
wild nature, even though we consider these to be highly
important.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM
6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply
troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations
of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion
of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction
to the discussion of the problems of modern society
in general.
7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th
century leftism could have been practically identified with
socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not
clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak
of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists,
collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and
disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But
not everyone who is associated with one of these movements
is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing
leftism is not so much movement or an ideology as a
psychological type, or rather a collection of related types.
Thus, what we mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly
in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology. (Also,
see paragraphs 227-230.)
8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good
deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn’t seem
to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do here is
indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological
tendencies that we believe are the main driving
force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling
the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our
discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We
leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion
could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early
20th centuries.
9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern
leftism we call “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization”.
Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of
modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic
only of a certain segment of modern leftism;
but this segment is highly influential.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @04:23PM (1 child)
Hey, you're right, AC doesn't need to login!
FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY
10. By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority
feelings in the strict sense but a whole spectrum
of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness,
depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred,
1
etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have some such
feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these
feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern
leftism.
11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything
that is said about him (or about groups with whom
he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings
or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among
minority rights activists, whether or not they belong to the
minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive
about the words used to designate minorities
and about anything that is said concerning minorities. The
terms “negro”, “oriental”, “handicapped” or “chick” for an
African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally
had no derogatory connotation. “Broad” and “chick”
were merely the feminine equivalents of “guy”, “dude” or
“fellow”. The negative connotations have been attached
to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal
rights activists have gone so far as to reject the word
“pet” and insist on its replacement by “animal companion”.
Leftish anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid
saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably
be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the
word “primitive” by “nonliterate”. They seem almost paranoid
about anything that might suggest that any primitive
culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply
that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely
point out the hyper sensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)
12. Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect”
terminology are not the average black ghettodweller,
Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person,
but a minority of activists, many of whom do not
even belong to any “oppressed” group but come from
privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its
stronghold among university professors, who have secure
employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority
of whom are heterosexual white males from middle- to
upper-middle-class families.
13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the
problems of groups that have an image of being weak
(women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals)
or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel
that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to
themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely
because they do see these groups as inferior that they
identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest
that women, Indians, etc. ARE inferior; we are only making
a point about leftist psychology.)
14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women
are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are
nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and
as capable as men.
15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image
of being strong, good and successful. They hate America,
they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they
hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating
the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real
motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike,
imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but
where these same faults appear in socialist countries or
in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them,
or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas
he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly
exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western
civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the
leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He
hates America and the West because they are strong and
successful.
16. Words like “self-confidence”, “self-reliance”, “initiative”,
“enterprise”, “optimism”, etc., play little role
in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is antiindividualistic,
pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve
every one’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs
for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person
who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve
his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is
antagohistic to the concept of competition because, deep
inside, he feels like a loser.
17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals
tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or
else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational
control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything
through rational calculation and all that was left was
to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.
18. Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason,
science, objective reality and to insist that everything is
culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions
about the foundations of scientific knowledge and
about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can
be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers
are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically
analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply
involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality.
They attack these concepts because of their own psychological
needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for
hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies
the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates
science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs
as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false
(i.e., failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority
run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of
some things as successful or superior and other things as
failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many
leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of
IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations
of human abilities or behavior because such explanations
tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to
others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame
for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is
“inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has
not been brought up properly.
19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose
feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a
bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of
person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit
in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still
conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong,
and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant
behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for
that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he
2
cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable.
Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel
strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass
movement with which he identifies himself.
20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics.
Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they
intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc.
These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use
them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER
masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.
21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated
by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle
does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type.
But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main
motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a
component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power.
Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated
to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim
to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative
action is good for black people, does it make
sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic
terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a
diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at
least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who
think that affirmative action discriminates against them.
But leftist activists do not take such an approach because
it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black
people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve
as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and
frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm
black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward
the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.
22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists
would have to INVENT problems in order to provide
themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.
23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend
to be an accurate description of everyone who might be
considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general
tendency of leftism
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday January 25 2019, @07:56PM
Ted Kaczynski's ghost has been mod-bombed by the Unamodder!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @04:26PM
Hey, you're right, AC doesn't need to login!
OVERSOCIALIZATION
24. Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate
the process by which children are trained to think
and act as society demands. A person is said to be well
socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of
his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that
society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are
over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless,
the position can be defended. Many leftists are
not such rebels as they seem.
25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that
no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way.
For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet
almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other,
whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are
so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and
act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order
to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive
themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations
for feelings and actions that in reality have a
nonmoral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe
such people. [2]
26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a
sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the
most important means by which our society socializes
children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or
speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If this is
overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible
to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF.
Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized
person are more restricted by society’s expectations
than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority
of people engage in a significant amount of naughty
behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break
traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they
say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to
get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot
do these things, or if he does do them he generates
in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized
person cannot even experience, without guilt,
thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality;
he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization
is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to
conform to many norms of behavior that do not fall under
the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is
kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running
on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized
people this results in a sense of constraint and
powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest
that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties
that human being inflict on one another.
27. We argue that a very important and influential segment
of the modern left is oversocialized and that their
oversocialization is of great importance in determining
the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized
type tend to be intellectuals or members of the
upper-middle class. Notice that university intellectuals [3]
constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society
and also the most leftwing segment.
28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off
his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling.
But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against
the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the
goals of today’s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted
morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted
moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses
mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples:
racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people,
peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom
of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally,
the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty
of society to take care of the individual. All these have
been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its
middle and upper classes [4] for a long time. These values
are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed
in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream
communications media and the educational system. Lef3
tists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually
do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility
to society by claiming (with some degree of truth)
that society is not living up to these principles.
29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized
leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional
attitudes of our society while pretending to be in
rebellion aginst it. Many leftists push for affirmative action,
for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for
improved education in black schools and more money for
such schools; the way of life of the black “underclass” they
regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the
black man into the system, make him a business executive,
a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class white
people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want
is to make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead,
they want to preserve African American culture. But
in what does this preservation of African American culture
consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating
black-style food, listening to black-style music, wearing
black-style clothing and going to a black-style church
or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial
matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects most leftists
of the oversocialized type want to make the black man
conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make
him study technical subjects, become an executive or a
scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove
that black people are as good as white. They want to make
black fathers “responsible,” they want black gangs to become
nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of
the industrial- technological system. The system couldn’t
care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind
of clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as long
as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the
status ladder, is a “responsible” parent, is nonviolent and
so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the oversocialized
leftist wants to integrate the black man into the
system and make him adopt its values.
30. We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the
oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental
values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some
oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel against
one of modern society’s most important principles by engaging
in physical violence. By their own account, violence
is for them a form of “liberation.” In other words,
by committing violence they break through the psychological
restraints that have been trained into them. Because
they are oversocialized these restraints have been more
confining for them than for others; hence their need to
break free of them. But they usually justify their rebellion
in terms of mainstream values. If they engage in violence
they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.
31. We realize that many objections could be raised to
the foregoing thumbnail sketch of leftist psychology. The
real situation is complex, and anything like a complete
description of it would take several volumes even if the
necessary data were available. We claim only to have indicated
very roughly the two most important tendencies
in the psychology of modern leftism.
32. The problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems
of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive
tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the left.
Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are
widespread in our society. And today’s society tries to socialize
us to a greater extent than any previous society. We
are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how
to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @04:29PM (1 child)
Dear diary
Today I saw a boy
And I wondered if he noticed me
He took my breath away
Dear diary
I can't get him off my mind
And it scares me
Cause I've never felt this way
No one in this world
Knows me better than you do
So diary I'll confide in you
Dear diary
Today I saw a boy
As he walked by I thought he smiled at me
And I wondered
Does he know what's in my heart
I tried to smile, but I could hardly breathe
Should I tell him how I feel
Or would that scare him away
Diary, tell me what to do
Please tell me what to say
Dear diary
One touch of his hand
Now I can't wait to see that boy again
He smiled
And I thought my heart could fly
Diary, do you think that we'll be more than friends?
I've got a feeling we'll be so much more than friends
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @05:09PM
thank you fuckmunch