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After my last SN post the topic of moderation was brought up. Since its been quite awhile since we last openly discussed the state of moderation, I want to give the community a venue to discuss their feelings on it, and if the system needs further refinement. As a reminder, here's a review for how the system is currently setup:
- 5 mod points are handed out to at 00:10 UTC to users with positive karma
- ACs start at +0, users with karma less than 40 post at +1, users above that can post at +2
- You need 10 karma to mark some spam or troll
- Under normal circumstances, the staff do *not* have unlimited mod points, but can (and have) banned abusers of the moderation system
Please also review our SoylentNews Moderation Guidelines.
As always, we are willing to make changes to the system, but please post examples *with* links to any cases of suspected mod abuse. It's a lot easier to justify changing the system when evidence is in black and white. I also recommend that users make serious proposals on changes we can make. I'm not going to color the discussion with my own opinions, but as always, I will respond inline with comments when this goes live, and post a follow up article a few days after this one
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I don't want a pickle,
I just wanna ride on my motorsickle.
And I don't want to die,
I just want to ride on my motorcy.
Cle.
-- Arlo Guthrie
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Thursday May 21 2015, @04:03PM
Uhhhh...no it doesn't, it only shows the last 2 user mods which doesn't show modbombing. For example look at this post [soylentnews.org] which according to that has only been modded three times, 2 interesting and 1 overrated. yet when I go to my inbox (which of course I can't show you since the link would only go to YOUR inbox and not mine) over the last 24 hours its gone from +5 to +4 to +3 to +2.
You see the post page does not show when an admin undoes moderation which is how the mods here are trying to "deal" with the modbombing rather than admit they have a problem. this approach is like putting a bandaid on the bulletwound as it costs the modbomber nothing and in fact will embolden them when they see they can do it for as long as they want with ZERO penalty for themselves. this means also that the law of averages is on the modbombers side as the odds that the admins will catch every time he modbombs? VERY low, unless they are literally babysitting the accounts of those being modbombed.
I have seen this happen at multiple websites and it does NOT end well. Either you nip this kind of shit in the bud or you invite gaming the system,just look at how bold the sockpuppetry is on slashdot with guys like "mickey(insert every increasing number)" and I have also seen what merely trying to silently undoing modbombing gets you, they tried the same bit over at OSNews, claiming "its a free speech issue" until it got to the point that the person being stalked, a very nice and insightful OS hobbyist who just happened to be a lesbian, would post and it would be followed by up to a dozen "choke on a cock you stupid dyke bitch" posts to the point threads were unreadable for all the trolling and attacks.
They ended up doing exactly as I have suggested here, instituting a few scripts that highlight modbombs and after a single warning to cut that shit out handing out IP bans and now? There is pretty much zero trolling there and modbombs are unheard of. But as long as they simply try to silently undo modbombs in the background? All they are doing is playing whack a mole with guys that will always win, as they literally have nothing better to do.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:13PM
it costs the modbomber nothing and in fact will embolden them when they see they can do it for as long as they want with ZERO penalty for themselves. this means also that the law of averages is on the modbombers side as the odds that the admins will catch every time he modbombs? VERY low, unless they are literally babysitting the accounts of those being modbombed.
Agreed.
Modbombing comes in two forms. Positive modbombing and Negative modboming.
One brings more attention to an article. The other serves only to silence unpopular (non-group-think) opinions.
This is why I've pushed for a negative mod to cost MORE karma. (I suggested 5 karma, but that's just me). The idea is to limit the damage-hammer that we let mod-bombers inflict, by whacking them with enough negative karma till they can't mod at all. If all of one's mod-army accounts acquire negative karma it would shut them down fairly effectively.
I would like to see all the mods in the mod summary.
I would like to seesaw modding (in excess of some number of valence changes - like two mod-armies dukeing it out) be flagged on the purple header line with the word "Modbombed".
At least that way we could all see what is happening.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday May 22 2015, @01:09AM
I would 100% support your idea IF they would put some sort of limit on IP address or some sort of ID system, because otherwise? See "mickey(insert ever increasing number)" at Slashdot who just cranks out accounts so he can modbomb.
Hell for awhile there on Slash there was even a modbomber that had made "knock offs" of all the posters he didn't like, there was "Mcgriew", "Hairytoes", you get the idea. Using this method not only could he farm mod points for modbombing but for extra damage he'd post a ton of racist foul shit under these knock off names in the hopes that people would mistake them for the real person and start modding them down thinking they were racist trolls.
I'm NOT bringing this up because I give a rat's ass about my karma or even this account, I've got enough places I frequent that one either way makes no difference and I ain't changing my views for NOBODY, Mr Modbomber can kiss my hairy southern ass for all I care. But the way this place was sold to me was "A return to the old Slash, heavy on tech, light on politics and groupthinking" and if that is the case? Then this kind of shit really needs to be nipped in the bud, otherwise you end up with something like The Escapist where everyone interesting has walked away because of all the modbombing and all you have left is an echo chamber that just parrots whatever the admin who does the modbombing (because in that case it IS an admin, in fact he brags about his bias regularly) so its about as interesting as reading some douchebag's manifesto on Eastern Socialism and its affect on modern feminism.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday May 22 2015, @01:09AM
frojack, don't you see all the mods in the summary? I do. Are you and Hairy on some kind of restriction?
(Oh, that whole down-modding as censorship, I don't think we have seen any evidence of that in this entire thread. Nothing actually gets hidden here, so I have to repeat myself and say I don't see the problem. )
(Score: 3, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Friday May 22 2015, @01:17AM
That is blatantly false. We do not un-do moderation. At most, if the community hasn't stepped in, we might elect to use some of our own points as we see fit (we do not have unlimited points either).
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @12:28PM
i'm not staff, but i was involved in one such incident of undoing an unfair modbomb on some comments by hairyfeet as a result of discussion on irc. i can attest that we only use our own points and when we run out that's all we do.
to hairyfeet - comment threads are a bit hard to have a real conversation. if you're having some troubles with modbombing, best to hop onto irc.sylnt.us:6667#soylent (or simply click here [soylentnews.org]) and bring it up. it's full of weirdos but if you have an issue with an unfair mod chances are someone will be around who would be happy to help if they have any points.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday May 22 2015, @12:53PM
Then please explain to me why when I click on the post I listed above it says it has ONLY been modded twice, 2 interesting and 1 overrated and is rated +4....yet in my information box it shows the post going 5,4,3,2,1? Either you sir are not privy to what the other mods are doing or your information system is BADLY broken, because it obviously is giving two different and conflicting reports.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @01:15PM
i'm not a dev, but i took the liberty of submitting an issue on your behalf for the devs to take a look at when they get a chance
might not be a bug, but if it is they're the ones that will be able to fix it :)
https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode/issues/453 [github.com]
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Friday May 29 2015, @02:32PM
That's odd indeed. Could you provide a screen-shot. You could add it to the issue on github or simply email me if that's easier. Here's the issue on github [github.com].
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday May 29 2015, @11:59PM
I've cleared the info but when I get modbombed again (which happens pretty constantly from the info reports) I'll be happy to post one to the post, I bookmarked it.
But according to the information center every single one of my positive rated posts in the past few weeks have been following the same pattern...get to +5, almost immediately followed by 4,3,2,1, sometimes going all the way down to -2, yet when I click on the post in question? Zing, it suddenly shows the post has only been modded a couple times, and is suddenly back to (usually) +4.
If I had to guess I'd say there is at least one admin who is "flipping" the posts, which would explain why they always seem to leave the first downmod (since they would probably consider one disagreement to be fair, I would probably do the same) but then "erase" the following modbomb.
While it "could" be simply a glitch in the system, considering I have talked to other posters this is happening to and they all are seeing the same pattern AND they usually posted to a thread a certain radical had? I'm thinking I don't need to be Kojack to solve this case. The one throwing insults and attacks modbombs those that don't follow his politics, a certain admin then comes along and erases his mods, lather rinse repeat.
But I have your response bookmarked and will be happy to shoot you a screencap when I have one. We've had a death in the family recently so I haven't had time to mess with the net so it may be a week or two, sorry but you really can't predict these kinds of things.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday June 03 2015, @06:44PM
We are still looking at this error, but I believe it has to do with the karma bonus confusing the messaging system. See this bug report: https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode/issues/452 [github.com]
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday May 23 2015, @08:18AM
I will also point you to this post [soylentnews.org] which again shows exactly 4 mods...Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Overrated=1, three postive and one negative...wanna guess what it says in my inbox? That's right...5,4,3,2 its a countdown, over and over AND OVER I'm getting countdowns yet when I click on the actual post? Poof...mods be gone!
So you really need to talk to your fellow admins, because either somebody is doing something without telling you or your information system is horribly broken, neither is a good thing but I would vote for the former.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.