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As promised, here's the round-table discussion post that I said on Wednesday was coming. We have a long history at SoylentNews of listening and responding to our community; I genuinely hope that never changes. I also recognize that I may have ruffled some feathers in the last few weeks with original content postings so here's the best place to get this all out.
I am mindful of the community's support and goodwill; I don't want to squander any of it. Yes, there are times where my hand may be forced (e.g., DCMA takedowns). Still, I'm always a bit hesitant whenever I post on the main site for anything that isn't site update news or similar. I may be the de facto site leader, but I want my submissions to be treated like anyone else's — I want no favoritism. The editorial team does review my stories and signs off before they go live (unless it's an "emergency" situation such as the last time we blew up the site). However, as the saying goes, the buck stops with me.
SoylentNews accepts original content. I'm also aware that I've probably submitted the most original content so far (See "Previously", below for some examples). I'm grateful for the community's apparent acceptance of my submissions and the positive responses to them. What I don't know is if there is an undercurrent of displeasure with these. Maybe everyone thinks these are all fine. Then again, maybe somebody has an issue with them. Rather than assume anything, let's get it all out in the open.
What I want to cover in this round-table discussion is original content and having images in posts as well as topics such as yesterday's Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020.
So, contributors and commenters to SoylentNews, get that Reply button hot and let me hear your feedback. As usual, either a member of staff or I will respond to your comments below,
73 de NCommander
Previously:
(2020-06-03) Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020
(2020-05-24) Retrotech: The Novell NetWare Experience
(2020-05-14) Exploring Windows for Workgroups 3.11 - Early 90s Networking
(2020-05-10) Examining Windows 1.0 HELLO.C - 35 Years of Backwards Compatibility
(2020-05-15) Meta: Having a Chat about SoylentNews' Internet Relay Chat
(2018-10-25) My Time as an ICANN Fellow
(2017-10-09) soylentnews.org experiencing DNSSEC issues
(2017-04-20) Soylentnews.org is Moving to Gentoo...
(2017-04-17) SN Security Updates: CAA, LogJam, HTTP Method Disable, and 3DES
(2017-03-13) Xenix 2.2.3c Restoration: Xrossing The X (Part 4)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday June 08 2020, @04:35PM (36 children)
Thank you for (finally?) commenting on this and answering some questions I've written here more than once.
But see, that's the whole problem! Readers with mod points won't see a comment that has been improperly downmodded below their reading threshold! Logical, right? I'm not going to read every -1 comment just to see if it needs fixing. Almost nobody does nor will.
I don't think anybody is asking you, TMB, or any one person to police / judge bad mods. However, at the very least I advocate for a downmod appeal system.
I can hear someone whining about the tremendous workload- I'll gladly participate in a mod jury. It'll be a self-limiting process. If the jury decides the downmod was inappropriate, the offending downmodder will be penalized. Extra penalty for misusing "troll" or "spam".
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @04:45PM
Meta moderation solved the problem in about the best, most fair way possible but I also understand why it was removed on a smaller site.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Monday June 08 2020, @04:49PM (14 children)
That's where you have to set your user preferences. I like to have anything at or above to 0 to be fully visible. anything at -1 will have the subject visible but content collapsed. Below -1, is hidden. That way, subjects with a more thought out subject line than "frost piss" I can quickly review while not having to bother with stuff that looks like obvious spam. Of course this setup isn't a panacea; it won't expose legit comments mod-bombed to -2.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Monday June 08 2020, @05:19PM (13 children)
DECbot, your response is great, but is exactly the the thinking problem- you're over-focusing and missing the big-picture. It seems so obvious that I'm a bit frustrated trying to explain it.
I, and most here, know about setting the reading threshold.
BTW, AFAIK there is no such score of -2.
1) Right now, your post is a "1" score. Average person with no login visits SN. Default reading threshold is 2. That person won't see your post!
2) Yes, anyone can change global threshold, or click the "+" in box icon, but will they? What percentage will? 50%? 20%? Your post is invisible to many.
3) What are the stats on registered users' reading thresholds? Mine is usually 0, but not always, and I rarely click on -1 posts.
Do you see my point? It is NOT a balanced system! By definition, everyone will see a score 5 post. And, almost no-one will see a -1 post - - to be able to rescue it if they were so inclined.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DECbot on Monday June 08 2020, @05:30PM (9 children)
If the decision was up to me, logged in users with mod points would be forced to see at least the subjects of comments at -1. If you want your default returned, use up your mod points. As for those not logged in, yeah I can see your point. For a user with no login, the default shouldn't be set so high. Though it may be deliberate to encourage people to get a login so they can set their own reading preferences to something more reasonable.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Monday June 08 2020, @07:22PM (3 children)
Wow, excellent ideas- thanks!
I may switch to -1 if someone can guarantee I won't see a goatsee...
(Score: 5, Touché) by coolgopher on Tuesday June 09 2020, @05:52AM (2 children)
Look, if it helps any, you're not safe from that at higher settings either.
I mean, anyone might try to sneak a +1 Funny past the filters just for the lolz. We're certainly known to have some such jesters here. And I mean, it's a classic by now. What self-respecting site would NOT have that in its history?
Besides, it's not like there isn't an arms race between the comment filter and the posters anyway, so something it bound to slip past onto unsuspecting eyes. To quote that timeless movie1 - "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something". As for a goatse, let me continue to quote that same movie - "As youuuuuu wiiiiish"...
1) By which I of course mean The Princess Bride [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @04:17PM (1 child)
Thanks for reminding me, time to clear them out since nobody's tried to get around any of them for probably six months or more.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by coolgopher on Wednesday June 10 2020, @01:29AM
That compression filter is mean. In the end I had to code up a small entropy generator to get past it. Definitely discourages random crap posting and forces some dedicated trolling :D
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hubie on Monday June 08 2020, @07:50PM (1 child)
I think this is a great idea. I'm one of the 10% mentioned that always browses at -1, and I always have even on the green site. I have always shared the concern that there is a lot of very good stuff at or even below 0 that gets missed by people who refuse to lower their threshold. Perhaps to use mod points, you need to click a button to enable them which then kicks in a forced -1 viewing threshold. Forcing this will probably somewhat reduce participation in moderation, but I personally like the tradeoff. I've always viewed slashcode moderation as being sort of like voting, where you are performing a civic duty to make your society better.
Is browsing at -1 really that much of an annoyance? Maybe after all these years I'm just used to scanning by obvious troll/spam posts, but I really don't see it as a problem. Lately there are these "boomer" posts, which are easy to pass by, and the "apk tranny hate" posts, but I really don't see it as that big of a problem. The goatse stuff you need to actually click on, so you never see that stuff either unless you can't resist seeing where a link is going.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday June 09 2020, @05:28AM
Likewise I always read at -1, skipping some posts that are obviously not worth reading. Here, I assumed most read at -1 as it isn't like there are that many posts. On the green site, I often use most of my points up-modding AC's who actually have something to say that is worth reading. Here I don't moderate as much due to assuming most read at 0 or -1, which it seems was a bad assumption.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @12:21AM (2 children)
Hmmm...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday June 09 2020, @02:26AM (1 child)
If you do it, make sure to post a banner explaining what happened or you'll get a billion but reports.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday June 09 2020, @04:51AM
FTFY.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday June 08 2020, @06:10PM (2 children)
I'm one of those who views at -1 all the time. Otherwise a response I may agree with and need to upmod will have the same visibility as GNNA style posts which I don't need to see. There's an enormous issue on this site with people conflating opposing opinions with troll/flamebait posts.
One way this could somewhat be addressed is to give controversial posts two scores -- a negative and a positive -- and an option to view controversial comments. I've seen posts with 12 or more moderations back and forth at the extreme end. The way things are now, the moderation is mostly controlled by the last mod unless it has gotten up to +4 or 5. Anyway, if a post has a sufficient number opposing moderations, instead of seeing just a "+1", it could show as "-3 | +4" and not be treated in the same way a GNNAish post would be because it is more likely to have that sort of mod war (of course trolls can try to create controversy by upmodding a troll post but if you require 4 or more opposing mods, that would limit that issue).
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday June 08 2020, @07:24PM
More excellent thoughts- thank you!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @12:30AM
I'd say that's more a failing in human psychology than anything specific to us.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 08 2020, @05:07PM (3 children)
According to a quick check of the db, about one out of ten registered users have that as their default setting. Can't speak to what ACs read at but they don't get mod points, so it doesn't matter.
Yeah, I get that not many folks enjoy a downmod motivated by butthurt or spite rather than "does this further the discussion in some way" but the only differences between reading -1 posts normally and correcting bad moderations or reading them as part of a mod jury is that not everyone gets to have a say in a mod jury and punishment gets dished out. The former's less work for everyone and doesn't tell anyone they're not entitled to an opinion for the next N days, so it sings to me more personally.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday June 08 2020, @07:25PM (1 child)
I often read as AC because I'm too lazy to login. (Unless the screen is bothering me, then I login so I'll get "dark mode".) However, if something catches my eye, I'll login and comment or mod something. I should clarify that I clear my cookies upon browser exit which is why I have to login so often.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday June 09 2020, @09:07PM
I use classical dark mode, in which I get a monospaced green font on a black background.
It amuses me whenever someone speaks of the "green site".
For me, this site is green.
And I let my laptop's browser log me in automatically so I never see the site any other way.
I have very little use for images.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday June 08 2020, @08:58PM
And thank you for the db info / stats. :)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday June 08 2020, @08:40PM (13 children)
Interesting idea to toss around:
Lets say for political discussions there's two divergent worldviews; from a 3rd party sense there is no good or bad mod possible.
Solution is people can up or down mod either the left or the right mod score but not both.
As a trivial example: "Donald Trump is the best president in the history of the USA" can't be expressed as a single number; or rephrased the single number is really more of a demographic population survey which means little unless it motivated (or demotivates?) readers into procreating with their spouses. On the other hand, you can usefully express the quality of a post like that using two numbers. My scientific hypothesis is that statement would be hyper triggering to those with clinical levels of Trump Derangement Syndrome so the angry Jewish lesbian types will mod the left opinion point counter to approximately negative six million and from a right wing perspective he's better than the average deep state scumbag or RINO but still isn't quite the "orange Hitler" whom we really need, so that statement would get a tepid +3 or so on the right wing opinion counter.
Might extend the social voting experiment to users can only pre-select the next six months of votes, so they can mod the left counter or the right counter but not both at the same time (other than alts obviously LOL)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday June 08 2020, @09:05PM
Very interesting ideas. In general, this is exactly what I was hoping for here- brainstorming. :)
My take on your post, and maybe I've filtered it through what I've been thinking for quite a while: a main mod system that really works as it should, and an alternate one that is more of a popular vote, but doesn't affect a comment's visibility.
As martyb mentioned above, again paraphrasing, these are all good ideas that will require coding and that will take some time, which is quite reasonable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday June 08 2020, @09:09PM (11 children)
no one can even agree what "left" and "right" even mean.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 09 2020, @12:57PM (10 children)
In political debate discussions we don't in practice seem to have much trouble.
In tech type discussions yeah I don't think there's a left/right for something like surface mount soldering vs thru hole soldering as a hobbyist. Or horrible automobile analogies for STEM article commentary.
Maybe three buckets to throw your moderation vote into: left center right.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @05:05PM (7 children)
Sure we do. You can't mention the word left or right in a national (or smaller) context without some chucklehead insisting that Western Europe's standard of left and right is the entire world's standard and no other standard should ever be used.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday June 09 2020, @05:23PM (5 children)
Or Americans believing that their definition should be the standard and that they have a 'left wing' party. It is left of the extreme right, but there you go. There are other definitions [wikipedia.org] too.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @11:44PM (4 children)
It should be the standard when we're talking domestic stuff, same as any other nation should have their own standard. Trying to make it a global standard defined by the elites for domestic issues is just framing the narrative in an attempt to leverage more control.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 10 2020, @06:57AM (3 children)
This site has commentators from all over the globe and it would probably help if you explained your version of right and left wing.
Is North Korea left or right wing, when compared to China for example? How about Vietnam or Kazakhstan? How about where do China and Russia sit in relation to each other on your scale. Is it that anyone outside of the USA is now left wing?
Taken from Wikipedia. [wikipedia.org]
Where do these parties sit when compared with the 'left wing' Democratic party? More to the left, more to the right?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 10 2020, @11:36AM (2 children)
Dude, that'd be a totally legit argument if we weren't talking about the most back-seat-driver'd nation in the world as far as politics goes.
How China and Russia sit is a global scale issue not a domestic one. It's like if I say I'm heading out to the east for a fishing trip. If I were in the habit of international fishing jaunts you could expect it to mean somewhere in Asia. But I'm not so the farthest it should be taken to possibly mean without clarification is surf fishing in the Atlantic.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:24PM (1 child)
This discussion has run its course - but we weren't talking about the USA. This is a round-table discussion for the whole community. The suggestion was that 'there was a political discussion'. Nobody mentioned US politics, just politics in general which is entirely valid. You chose to interpret that as US politics, many of us didn't, because the world is much bigger than the USA alone.
But your point was well made - there is always some chucklehead who comes along to point that fact out ;-)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday June 12 2020, @03:22PM
Shit, I was the chucklehead this time, wasn't I? Oh well, you win some you lose some.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday June 09 2020, @07:05PM
Oh if only t'were that simple! Are we talking the Western Europe of today, 30 years ago, or 75 years ago? And what part of Western Europe? It's not a country you know, as much as some Europhiles would like to think. There is no standard.
Yeah, yeah, I know I'm preaching to the choir, Buzz. I was just feeling like a smartass!
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday June 09 2020, @05:15PM (1 child)
From here in Europe there are 2 right-wing parties in the US - you see, there is no confusion at all.
But Americans tend to think that we are all communists because we have a working healthcare system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @07:58PM
Give it a few more years and those Americans will be the minority. They might already be, universal healthcare has finally entered the national conversation in the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @01:40AM (1 child)
Another easy fix here. If you have mod points, read at -1. The quality and value of this site is dependent on the registered users to use their mod points. Soylent News is People.
I get it. Who wants to wade through lots of garbage all the time, when you can just look at the good stuff?
But how do we come to the conclusion that something is "the good stuff?" By your peers reading at -1 and modding stuff up/down.
If you're dissatisfied with how others are modding stuff when they read at -1, then be part of the community and add your voice to theirs. Otherwise it seems like you're abdicating your power and blaming others when things aren't to your liking.
This is a community. One with many voices, frequent disagreement, vitriolic exchanges and obnoxious jerks. It also has a bunch of people with useful and interesting things to say.
I read at -1 to limit the impact of the obnoxious jerks and obvious garbage/spam because I want *my* community to have robust, interesting (that doesn't mean agreement) and useful discussions.
As a member of this community, perhaps *you* might want to do so too. We'd likely all benefit.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @04:31PM
Gotta say, I'm a big fan of folks taking personal responsibility over heaping it all on us admin types, if only for all the work it would save me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.