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from the I-love-the-smell-of-burning-trolls-in-the-morning dept.
Things finally came to a head on slashdot last night, and now anonymous posts are banned. No more anonymous nazi ASCII art, no anonymous racism, and no APK. More in this journal entry [Ed's Comment: And lots of interesting comments too ...].
It's one way to combat anonymous hate speech and forum spam.
[Editor (JR) We've looked at the site but we cannot find an announcement that anonymous posts are actually banned; it might simply be a case that the software is not working correctly, although it would seem to be an unlikely cause. Does anyone in our community have any additional information to categorically prove or disprove that anonymous comments are disabled?
Furthermore, as there are many more comments in the journal entry than there are here, I would recommend making any new comments on BarbaraHudson's journal entry rather than splitting the discussion into two.]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 11 2019, @12:31AM (7 children)
Good idea, but then you're gonna get idiots like me who complain that it's too hard to learn RegEx. Actually, that could be a good thing. People will either learn RegEx, or embrace an ecosystem of RegEx filters for others. SN could sell filters on its app store so you know that some smartass isn't gonna let every 100th "niggerfaggot" slip through the cracks.
Now that we're discussing this, what's wrong with a good ol' ignore list? Ignore the people you hate, add the option to ignore any sub-threads or threads in which people you hate post, add the option to ignore AC. That's 3 extra checkboxes and 1 to a few database tables depending on how lazy the devs are. Would that situation be workable as a compromise if more folks chipped in donations?
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 11 2019, @01:57AM
Because then if you fell in the forest, nobody would hear you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 11 2019, @12:06PM (3 children)
Like the present "foe" list? You can even set it up to ban people on your foe list from posting in your journals, if you so choose. I have one guy who does that to me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 12 2019, @04:26AM (2 children)
And yet I can still see your comment here. I see them, and I sometimes read them. I could, theoretically, downmod all "foes" by default so I never see one of your posts again. But I won't do that, as I respect the moderation system within the public forum on this site.
But my journal is my journal. I don't have to allow comments at all if I just want to yell out something at the universe. But I sometimes enjoy seeing other's reactions. I don't enjoy people who waste my time.
To the GP's point, though, you're right -- one can effectively implement an "ignore" list here if one wants.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 12 2019, @04:44AM
You wasted your time. I'm not taking blame for that. I'll note that the only person on my foe list can still post in my journals and does [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @03:01PM
On the money.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday August 11 2019, @07:08PM (1 child)
I think that it a horrible solution (and I use the term "solution" loosely), primarily because it completely breaks discourse. I have seen websites implement ignore lists with the best of intentions (ignoring spams/trolls/stalkers/etc...), and what eventually happens is that the community starts to splinter off into little bubbles, where all those they disagree with are ignored.
These people in the bubbles then self reinforce each other, thinking themselves the "majority", which further isolates each group from the other (as alternative viewpoints, or even mild disagreement, become seen as more "extreme" from within the bubble, more people get ignored), until you have multiple separate "realities" that don't interact.
It really sucks from the point of view of a lively debate. What is the point of going on a topic and just having everyone affirm your biases and agree with your beliefs? The thing about interacting with different viewpoints is that they allow your ideas, beliefs and values to be challenged. If your ideas/beliefs/values are well founded, then they will be easy to defend, and they (and you) will come out better for it, if not also more popular. If not, then the ideals will falter and be altered and/or replaced, for the benefit of all.
Plus if you ever visit a site that has ignore lists, you will tend to see multiple bubbles of people with differing viewpoints (sometimes widely), circle-jerking over how they are "right", "in the majority", etc... generally affirming each other.
I am not saying soylent will turn into the above as soon as ignore lists are added (assuming they would be), but over the course of years I think you will see the above occurring, which would be a shame. I find the conversations here worth coming for, despite the trolls/spam/etc... and the moderation system seems to be working well.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 12 2019, @04:16AM
Uh, don't we effectively have them already? You can "foe" people, and then you can tweak your comment settings here to moderate any foes into oblivion. (-6 is the maximum modifier.) So you wouldn't even see a post unless it were moderated +5 and you browse at a -1 threshold or below. I believe 0 is the default, so you can completely ignore your list of "enemies" if you wanted.
And for the record, replying to the GP's request that you were discussing, AC posts can also be given a default modifier too, so they too could become basically "invisible" unless you specific choose to expand a thread.
Not that I'm recommending people do this. I personally don't implement any personal modifiers, but it's been built in to the system here for years for those who want it.