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Welcome, new trolls! We're pleased as punch to have you aboard, unfortunately as you may have noticed our moderators are unable to give you the moderations you've been working so hard for. Since we can't really do much about people not moderating more, we're going to be giving out more points so that the ones that do can give you the attention you so desperately crave.
Moderators: Starting a little after midnight UTC tonight, everyone will be getting ten points a day instead of five. The threshold for a mod-bomb, however, is going to remain at five. This change is not so you can pursue an agenda against registered users more effectively but so we can collectively handle the rather large uptick in anonymous trolling recently while still being able to have points remaining for upmodding quality comments. This is not an invitation to go wild downmodding; it's helping you to be able to stick to the "concentrate more on upmodding than downmodding" bit of the guidelines.
Also, this is not a heavily thought-out or permanent change. It is a quick, dirty adjustment that will be reviewed, tweaked, and likely changed before year's end. Questions? Comments?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by MostCynical on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:15AM (29 children)
Glad you're doing something; hope it works, even a little.
Here is a suggestion:
should *all* ACs go through "pre-moderation"?
Logged-in users get a chat window with AC comments, once/if x number of logged-in users mod the AC comment as any positive moderation value, it appears in the comments, otherwise it just.. doesn't.
(This was not my idea, so credit/brickbats to another user)
This would slow the discussion down a little, but with quite a few of us being in disparate time zones, most worthy comments would appear reasonalbly quickly.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:29AM (16 children)
You hate me and wish further RSI upon me, don't you? Kidding. Javascript being necessary, and blocked by a lot of our community, for that I have to think it wouldn't work out as well as hoped. I'm not entirely discounting it but I'm sticking it behind a Break Glass in Case of Emergency thing as far as my own opinion goes. Usually better to exhaust less intrusive means first.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:35AM
No, I wish no ill upon those who do so much good, especially those who already have crossed the line way beyond "masochist"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:39AM
Require JS and this AC is gone.
And you might not take my word for it, but I'm not among the hate-spouters.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:34AM (12 children)
Am I doing it wrong? Cuz I have SN permanently set to threshold 0, and while there's some crap it's nothing I can't skim over.
At 5 points, I often run out before I'm done modding up, so dunno why I'd waste 'em modding down the less than spectacularly egregious. So I'm sure I'll find use for 10. A few years back the Green Site lost its mind and gave me permanent mod points (I'd spend 'em all and instantly get 15 more; this went on for about six months) and ya know what? I still managed to spend most of 'em.
What the heck is a mod bomb?
As to a penalty for modding down -- with 10 points it might be practical to make a downmod use up two modpoints instead of just one. That would ensure it's no worse than before, at least, since in effect the max downmod points would be 5 per day.
I do like the daily renew; that way they're handy just about any time I want them!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:50AM
Mod bombing is why I refuse to log in. Basically. You can't mod the same person more than 5 times in a day. That's finally an actual rule rather than a non-rule that the people running the site like to enforce.
And as of the last time I logged in. There's no feedback given before they ban the account's ability to moderate.
It's there primarily to protect buzzy against all the well justified mods he'd get.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:23AM (10 children)
A mod bomb is spending your mod points on a vendetta rather than for their intended purpose; using five (or more now) points out of one batch to downmod one person. We're looking at programmatically eliminating them but I don't expect much in the way of site updates soon.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:16PM
Ah. Well, I suppose a solution might be something like you can only mod down the same poster N-many times in a given period, say a week. I don't think that should be too tight, tho, because once in a while the same spammer might need repeated smiting.
I've occasionally found myself spending all my mod points on one poster (usually when someone is bringing depth to a side of an argument that otherwise is seldom seen), but always to mod up. Would that be a Mod Hot Air Balloon? :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:53PM (8 children)
Which is deeply problematic because there's at least a half dozen posters here that just troll. Expecting people to let things slide to avoid the arbitrary ban is ridiculous.
I don't bother logging in any more and definitely not modding because of the unwarranted interference. If the first 5 troll posts I see are from the same person, they're the one that should be penalized not me.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:24PM (6 children)
If you're using all your points to mod down trolls, you're doing moderation wrong to begin with. The idea is to get everything worth seeing above zero not to get everything crappy down to -1.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:20PM (5 children)
Perhaps, but modding troll posts as troll posts is legitimate regardless of how many times you do it. Referring to it as a vendetta just because somebody chooses to mod one person's troll posts is a bit weak.
Ultimately, things like this make people not want to spend the time moderating as it becomes a chore having to remember whom you've been modding.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @12:37AM (4 children)
Well, see, you've got a choice... You can either have arbitrary rules that apply equally to everyone and a guarantee of no favoritism or you can have rules that get interpreted by the person implementing them. We've chosen the former but I'll be happy to sort through anyone who wants me to's moderations and reverse every one I disagree with. Who wants to go first?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:51AM (3 children)
It would be equally equal if we could just mod whomever we wanted based on the criteria. Half the time I wasn't even paying attention to whom I was modding or how many times. If somebody is such an asshole that they get all the down mods for being of topic or trolling, then so be it.
Similarly I fail to see why it's ok to spend all positive points on the same person.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:36AM (2 children)
Because promoting crap inserts a small amount of noise. Demoting intelligent stuff you disagree with removes signal. The goal is to be able to set your preferences to where you get all the signal with as little noise as possible and lowering the signal threshold to pick up wrongly demoted content adds back in a whole hell of a lot more noise than one person could ever wrongly mod up in a day.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @02:28PM (1 child)
And yet the mod bomb rule doesn't actually address that at all. I can think of a handful of posters that never contribute anything of value and by value, I'm using an extremely lax definition. Not even bad jokes or obvious insights, but pure trolling.
And yes, the goal is to improve the SNR, but there are a handful of posters here that basically don't ever contribute anything that isn't a troll comment and there shouldn't be a penalty associated with moderating things that aren't even in English into oblivion as part of that effort.
Plus, some of us don't even look at the author until after we've made a decision about whether or not something should be modded. In which case, we might not even know how many times we've modded them and how recently.
The ACs can be a problem, but it's mostly people who sign in under their own name that cause me not to bother logging in anymore. At least with ACs they're easy enough to just ignore if they're behaving badly. The named accounts are virtually impossible to chase off. Which may or may not be a bad thing depending upon your view point, but they are definitely a bigger problem in my experience.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @05:09PM
Actually, the mod bomb rule addresses that quite directly. Truthfully, it doesn't go far enough given the goals of moderation. If you're spending five points on downmodding (even to different people), you're doing far, far less to help the signal-to-noise ratio than you would by promoting five comments you find worthy of reading. The goal is for people to be able to browse at >= 1 and still have plenty of comments worth reading, not to be able to browse at zero without seeing things that annoy you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday August 28 2017, @08:59AM
And don't confuse posting blunt views that you disagree with for trolling. People have mentioned TMB by name already, so let's take him as an example - occasionally he posts arguments which I fervently disagree with - yet I still give him +1 interesting moderations for them, as he's expanding the discussion. I also reply to tell him where I disagree with him, and I'm sure he thinks I'm as wrong as I do him. Often we'll find common ground. That's what mature discussion is for.
Don't debase your opponent if you can instead debate him.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:56PM
This is not a vote in favor of the suggested feature, but a thought how it might be implemented without taking control of the user's browser, if the feature itself garners support.
Have a separate page (URL) that shows the last X anon comments in strict time sequence regardless of context. Those who want to lavish special attention on anons (plus or minus) could reload this page whenever they felt the urge to smite the evildoers / rescue those who need to speak without fear of backlash.
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:32AM (11 children)
I've been considering something like this - let me outline my version.
There is a two-fold aim:
Implementation:
As for encouraging people to log in... I prefer reading posts by named authors. I don't care what the name is - after all, I'm using an anonymous handle here. I perceive two impediments to people posting as themselves:
There are enough people that lurk on SoylentNews to make this a tenable strategy. If the message has any credibility, it will quickly achieve a score of 0, especially if there is zero cost in the moderation. The best part is two-fold: firstly the crap never gets a chance to rise out of the bucket, and secondly, A.C. users are encouraged to post using an account.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:31PM (9 children)
My objection to that comes from two places:
I find that AC posts are generally of the same quality as named-posts; yeah, there's an idiot contingent but there are idiots among the named posters too. So I'm not much bothered by the fact that ACs aren't named. I suppose a hash-name could be assigned chan-style but sometimes the point of being AC is that you want to speak differently and not get dogpiled for it, and a hash-name really isn't functionally different from a nym. Anonymity matters in a free society, and I think it does to our community as well. Not to every community, but to ours, it does.
I cruise at 0 since I find that lets me see pretty much everything, but by the time I get here the genuine dross has already sunk to -1 and bothers me not -- but they're still visible inline and can be clicked on (sometimes worthwhile depending on how the discussion is going), and occasionally I do find a worthy post languishing at -1. A default below zero and now I've got to swim in the muck to see a good many posts that I now see by default. At which point I stop bothering. I can't be alone in that. The net effect would be that a good chunk of what is now a different viewpoint would be lost.
I think your system might be really good in a single-topic forum where hard facts and hard experience are the goal (eg. engineering), where informative matters far more than opinion. But here a lot of the goal IS opinion, and its cousin insight, and that needs to make a default of visible, rather than invisible.
In any event, those who don't want to see unmodded ACs can always set their comment threshold above 0.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:28PM (8 children)
None of the AC posters are as bad as Aristarchus, Buzzy or jmorris. And for the most part browsing at 0 filters out nearly all of ones not contributing anything of value.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @12:38AM (7 children)
You just have no appreciation for fine trolling.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 27 2017, @07:12AM (6 children)
We can all appreciate a fine troll. You, my fine friend, are not it. Much too much emotion behind them. You shouldn't post stuff you're serious about and then go "haha only trolling" when you get your beak blasted 90 degrees off the side of your head, Daffy Duck style. Eth does it better.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:38AM (5 children)
I think you need to learn the difference between trolling and mocking you with the truth.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @12:22AM (4 children)
I think you need to learn the difference between truth and wishful thinking :) If your overall post history is any indication, you're just slightly less qualified to talk politics than, say, the average limpet is to teach skydiving...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 28 2017, @01:48AM (3 children)
Since you seem utterly unable to distinguish between someone trolling and someone disagreeing with you, there really isn't any point in continuing this. I've tried numerous times to educate you, it just never sticks. The only conclusion left at this point is that you're just not the sharpest bowling ball in the shed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @05:33AM (2 children)
We've been over this before: accusing someone else of that which you yourself are guilty does not magically absolve your of your sins. Especially when you're wrong about THAT, too. A few months ago you reached critical mass in terms of "how many people can tell Uzzard's fulla beans?" and there's no going back. Stick to what you're good at (coding, sysadmin stuff).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 28 2017, @10:16AM (1 child)
I can't believe you really just replied with "No, you are!".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @06:26PM
Except I didn't. So your lack of belief is warranted, but like just about every time you say something not to do with technology, you're right for the wrong reasons :) Man, aren't your tailfeathers sore yet? Or do you actually *like* pain?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Monday August 28 2017, @12:34PM
First off, I don't think there's any real need to punish ACs specifically. A lot of great comments come from ACs, and a lot of spam comes from logged in users. It's not like it's difficult to create a new account as you pointed out yourself.
Secondly, I've posted AC myself a few times, and I'm sure other users have as well. For example, suppose you want to post something which you aren't really supposed to be discussing due to legal/contractual obligations. There can be no free speech without anonymity.
And finally...from what I've seen of the various social networks, even forcing people to post under their actual legal identity still doesn't do a damn thing to block spam. You need to filter the content, not the users.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MrGuy on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:18AM (53 children)
Should we at least consider if we want unregistered commenters?
I know it's somewhat against the spirit of a free and open conversation, and it's arguably punishing the many to defeat the few. But in my view, we have AC because That Soye has AC. We should have a better reason than that.
It's not impossible to not allow unregistered commenters and still let registered people have a "submit anonymously" option.
I don't even know if I would be in favor of such a proposal. But I think it's worth a discussion. Is "you need to register to comment" an unacceptable burden to impose?
Impose?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:23AM (41 children)
Not really an option for us. Most of our community, like 10:1, prefer to not register. And there are some pretty strong arguments in favor of anonymous speech being important in a free society.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:37AM (8 children)
I post AC because in the view of public opinion you are guilty until proven innocent. Even then what you say can and will be used against you. People are mimicking what they see in the news. They think it is just dandy to 'punish' those they perceive as doing them a wrong. One dude at a major corp recently got doxed because he brought up that exact point. I have seen it happen time after time for years. Some were surprised what happened to him. I wasn't. If he had dropped it AC he would still have a job and could still be making a difference there.
Sure I could just create some rando login and use that. But why? I like to tease one of the other AC's out there but he puts his name on it. May as well log in then... But to each his own.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:55AM (7 children)
Yeah: you don't put your name on it, someone can post as you and just stick, like
__gewg__
or whatever on their post.
Be like identity theft.
Meeeeen!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:21AM (2 children)
If you don't replicate the originalowner badge perfectly you will be instantly outed as a fake.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:19AM (1 child)
Well, copy&paste is no rocket science.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:50PM
PGP, however, is hard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @09:26AM (3 children)
How about this: each post gets a hash which poster can optionally use as temporary "in-thread identity", but doesn't need to be bound to it forever (next post has option to use newly generated hash). Anonymity is preserved, but also none can hijack a conversation.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:39AM (2 children)
Already has a comment id. Might as well go off of that and save some db space.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday August 28 2017, @09:25AM (1 child)
Here's an idea, change the "post anonymously" check box to be a pull-down: "post identifiably (default) / post pseudonymously / post anonymously". Anyone posting pseudonymously will be titled "Pseudonymous Coward #${id}" within that story rather than "Anonymous Coward", where $id is just a counter that increases each time someone new selects pseudonymity in that story. Posts posted identifiably would remain as they are, unconnected to the pseudonymous posts from the same account. Pseudonymous id's in different stories would be completely unrelated to each other, each story just starts handing out ids from 1 when it goes live (or it could be an ever-increasing counter, but that could get ugly over time). This of course forces all your pseudonymous posts in a story to become associated with each other.
This pseudonymity would of course only be a feature offered to logged in members, thus encouraging people to actually have accounts, even if they want "anonymity". (The number of people who who post anon, but log in to moderate is many, so this doesn't change things much, if anything, it might enourage those to stop being quite so anonymous.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 28 2017, @10:35AM
Oh, yeah, I've already floated that idea around #dev more than once. It's slightly more tricky than it sounds though. IPID would necessarily be a component of any stored hash and we purge that info when a story goes into Archive Mode. Which is to say, after two weeks. And we do want quite a lot to make any government agency's job difficult for them if they come to us with a court order, because we can't afford the lawyers to fight one.
Or we could use a cookie, which many of our ACs aren't going to be especially fond of.
I do like the three-option posting idea though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:45AM (31 children)
What happens when your high-minded principles about how a society should work end up not working in reality, and attempting to run the society on them that way ends up destroying the society?
I like what the previous poster said: require everyone to have an account, but allow registered users to post anonymously. Only the site operators would be able to figure out who they are, which isn't much different from now (since the site operators can now just look through their logs and correlate IP addresses to posters). No one really knows who anyone else here is anyway, since we're all using pseudonyms; the only way through that is if someone voluntarily identifies themselves, or if someone puts together a lot of clues from someone's posting history to figure it out (which really constitutes stalking). But if you let registered users post anonymously, they'll be able to hide their identities just about as well as now, but it would make it really difficult for actual spammers and outright trolls to get far.
ACs are, by FAR, the biggest problem here (and also on that other site), so any mechanisms to fix the trolling here really needs to focus on the ACs. And honestly, what is anyone afraid of in registering here? It doesn't ask you for your real name, and you can use any throwaway email address you want. It's just a pseudonym. Are you really worried that the site operators are going to divulge your identity? If so, posting AC still shows them your IP address. So if you're really paranoid, you'll use a VPN, but you can do that when you log in with your pseudonym account too. I'm sorry, I just don't see the advantage of allowing ACs at all; it just lets people post trash-posts easily without going to the trouble of registering an account and then having it banned when they post trolls or spam. And as I said before, with the allowance of posting anonymously after logging in, you still get to retain even more anonymity in case you're worried about some stalker asshole putting together clues from multiple posts you make.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:13AM (19 children)
I more or less agree with you but where the community is, there is my opinion (except on matters of moral principle). And around here the community are mostly anonymous.
To be clear though, we're not looking to fix trolling. Trolling is absolutely allowed. We just want it to continue to be modded down when it isn't up to the quality we expect in our trolls around here. That way you can move a drop-down setting and not see trolls if you want or browse at -1 and play with them if that better suits you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by deimtee on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:37AM (18 children)
I browse at -1 because I don't like reading replies to comments I haven't seen, and people who reply to trolls are often unmodded or modded up.
But, how difficult would it be to have a -2 option for posts that have only been modded troll (or spam), say five times? I would still browse at -1.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:25AM (14 children)
It would break quite a few things that our coding predecessors coded assuming -1 would always be the comment karma floor. I looked a while back just out of curiosity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:51AM (13 children)
1) Multiple data points per post: separate upmods and downmods at least, perhaps more columns for 0-point mods like disagree. Users to leverage these thresholds as they see fit.
2) Moderation is not anonymous: When we mod a post, our ID should be publicly attached to the mod.
The main problem with moderation is, IMHO, that it's anonymous. If you're going to do something to someone, you should own up to it. I am strongly of the opinion that this would result in better mod behavior. Which in turn would result in a more useful mod system overall - more trustworthy use of thresholds, because they'd be higher quality.
I have no problem with anonymous posts. I read at -1 myself, and the specific reason for that is because moderation isn't trustworthy. It's better here than over on... that other place... because we have a higher moderator ratio. But it's still often obviously a matter of "I disagree" imposed as some kind of -1 mod, rather than the (very good idea of) the actual 0 point Disagree mod.
Anyway; anonymous posts have a good rationale for existing IMHO: unpopular POV or opinion does not map to bad speech. But mods should not be about opinion or POV, they should be about quality. The rationale for allowing anonymous posts doesn't fit well with moderation. Moderation is a hammer; if you're going to use a hammer, you should be willing to own up to it.
FWIW, I think the ten point change is a very good idea. I'd be in favor of going higher yet. There's nothing good about seeing good posts and not be able to mod them up; likewise, nothing good about seeing a pure troll or spam and not being able to mod them down.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:10AM (7 children)
It's quite possible you're correct but currently it's a solution in search of a problem. The extreme majority of moderators upmod four times or more often than they downmod. To the point that looking at the numbers only five people on the entire site who regularly moderate had a downmod percentage of >25%.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by fyngyrz on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:24AM
If I intentionally punch you in the face, but only do it once, is it any less reprehensible than if I do it twice?
Downmod percentages don't address the fact that many downmods are ill-motivated. They just filter for those who are consistent about it.
Also, I wasn't just talking about downmods. Upmods deserve accountability as well, in my view.
You get some right-wing crazy or left-wing crazy or just a general purpose crazy modded up, that's just another form of trolling. In my opinion. :)
And hey... we have a 0-point "disagree", why don't we have a 0-point "agree" mod? Lots of posts I agree with around here. Sometimes. :)))
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:27AM (5 children)
My right column stuff currently reads:
Should that not now say "You get 10 points per day"?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday August 26 2017, @05:38PM (4 children)
Refresh browser?
Mine shows 10.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday August 26 2017, @06:00PM (3 children)
I'm outa mod points now. Shows nothing to me till later. :)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday August 27 2017, @01:35AM (2 children)
Actually, i now show only 5 points per day.
Glitchy!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Monday September 11 2017, @09:32PM (1 child)
Very belated reply (and it's fixed now), but this is caused by the fact that message is in an HTML template. Templates are cached considerably more than almost anything else, so in the rare occasions we change them, it can sometimes take awhile for the rest of the site to catch up to reality.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 11 2017, @09:52PM
I wasn't worried: I feel this site is in better hands (ie: not mine, lol) than most.
Thanks for what you allll do!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:39PM (1 child)
I think anonymous mods have the same rationale as anonymous posting: You're allowed to have your opinion without having negative consequences (such as doxxing and stalking). Modding is really just an opinion sans reply. So Mod-IDing sounds good, but I think would lead to dogpiling on a scale we've never seen -- frex, someone would be seen upvoting Buzzard regularly and would find themselves downmodded into oblivion by Buzzard's detractors.
Besides, do you want to be outed as the guy who always mods up EF? :)
(This same discussion went around on Gab, and eventually Gab decided to keep anonymous mods.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:35PM
It's not just that, but it saves a ton of time not having to deal with frauds like aristarchus jumping on idioms and figures of speech that he's too stupid to understand and then whining about people down modding his shit posts.
Being just an AC means that the post itself gets more attention rather than the poster.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday August 26 2017, @09:24PM (1 child)
You like something on Facebook, everyone sees it's you liking it. There's no secret likes. And the Like button is a huge part of their brand. 👍 You see a thumb sticking up, you think Facebook, am I right? I'm right. No thumbs down. They accentuate the positive. Do you like that expression? Because I just thought of it. You can go haha, wow, love, angry or sad. Simple! I'll tell you, Facebook is one of the biggest sites. The CEO is a problem. Mentally, big problems there. But I have to say, very successful site. 🇺🇸
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday August 27 2017, @01:38AM
Except facebook is shit, man.
"My chef baked too many cookies, so i'm sending you some!"
"I just had a shit!"
"My job sucks"
Yup. Facebook sucks.
Was on there for about 3 months and almost died from the level of shit.
Yeah.
shit.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 28 2017, @09:57PM
Gab does separate counts for up and down and it's a nice feature. But we already have that here, if not conveniently -- click on the post number and get to see the list of mods. (I think it's complete... I don't check often enough to be sure.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @09:35AM (2 children)
If I may interject, although I am a true AC, why not hide complete subtree of discussion initiated by a -1 post? Anyone bothered to open that post should see all the replies, but generally the good replies to a bad initial post are just drawing attention to the bad one. Meaning well, doing the opposite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @02:32PM (1 child)
Or just let people ignore users that they choose and hide those posts behind a click to reveal. I've seen that done on other sites and it makes the whole thing rather pleasant. I don't generally use it very much, but when somebody's on my nerves, I can easily ignore them until I'm in a better mood.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @05:11PM
Make them a Foe, set Foes to -6, Bob's your uncle.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Foobar Bazbot on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:23AM (2 children)
You know, sometimes I'll run across something on some random website where I feel (rightly or not, Dunning-Kruger being what it is...) that I have something of value to add, and I'll try to post a comment.
If the site demands I create an account in order to post comments, I do not go to the account creation page, to find out if they ask for my real name, or whether they attempt to forbid throwaway emails; I just GTFO and take whatever value I might add with me. My first contact with a site, I'm not typically thinking "I want to be a member, hope they don't demand too much information", but more like "I want to say something, not jump through hoops." So while it's great that our account creation is nonintrusive, it's beside the point.
So I'm telling you that requiring an account has stopped me, and will more than likely stop others, from posting real, good-faith comments. What's worse, I see no reason to think it would prevent spam -- spammers are only too happy to make accounts, in fact we've had several create accounts just so they can post spam in journal entries. It doesn't prevent trolls -- trolls are also happy to make accounts. And since you're not proposing any extra user verification processes or probation periods, spammers and trolls can just keep creating new accounts to get around any bans.
It sure doesn't look like a good idea from here.
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:13PM (1 child)
Thus we must make it crystal clear, at each anonymous posting, exactly what hoops need to be jumped through. If it's quick, simple and anonymous (throwaway email is allowed, right?) then let's make this known.
Many is the time I have wanted to participate in a discussion (Dunning-Kruger be damned!) and I have baulked at the onerous or opaque requirements. We don't do that here, we just need to advertise that fact a little better.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Monday August 28 2017, @12:44PM
That's still questionable.
For example, the first time they come, they create some throwaway account, and post their comment. Then a week/month/year later they come back, want to comment again, and...nope, the account handle is already taken. And they don't remember the password. And they don't know which throwaway email address they used, and might not have access to it anymore since that's kinda the point of such accounts. And then they get frustrated and leave. That's happened to me numerous times.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:25AM (4 children)
When I post anonymously, I don't do so because I want to hide from the readers that this post is from Soylent News user maxwell demon, but because the computer I'm posting from is not my own, and I don't want the owner of that computer (who knows my real world identity) to know that I'm maxwell demon on Soylent News, let alone get my password. Therefore the anon posting option while logged in won't help me the slightest bit.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @02:46PM (3 children)
but because the computer I'm posting from is not my own, and I don't want the owner of that computer (who knows my real world identity) to know that I'm maxwell demon on Soylent News, let alone get my password.
If you're talking about your employer, how would they not know this? My understanding of HTTPS is that it's trivially easy to see all the encrypted traffic when you (the employer/institution) control the PC, the browser, and the gateways the traffic is going through. The only thing https is good for is preventing eavesdroppers elsewhere.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 28 2017, @07:31PM (2 children)
Because I don't log in as maxwell demon from that computer, even a complete surveillance of any click and keypress would only reveal that I'm posting as AC here (and what I'm posting from there), not that I'm also posting as maxwell demon from elsewhere.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @07:59PM (1 child)
Ok, but then why not just have two identities/accounts, one you use from work (assuming that's what you're talking about) and another you use from elsewhere?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 28 2017, @08:34PM
While AC posts can only be traced while they are written, the full posting history of a logged-in account can be recovered after the fact, even if there has been no local surveillance at the time of posting.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:49AM (1 child)
I'm not seeing much of that and I always read at -1. Sure, there are a handful of mindless comments but it's nothing like the crap flooding that used to plague the green site back in the day.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @02:47PM
It's not as bad as the green site today, that's true, but it's relative. The real crap is still all coming from the ACs. The fact that there's an order of magnitude less of it doesn't mean it's inconsequential. We also have an order of magnitude fewer comments of all types here after all: this is a much, much smaller site than the green one, even now.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 28 2017, @09:37AM
Actual IP addresses aren't stored. A hash of the IP address (short enough for collisions to be quite possible) is briefly stored.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:33AM (1 child)
> let registered people have a "submit anonymously" option.
I'm always signed into the site. Every now and then I post with my username, but mostly AC.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:41AM
Up modded an AC, because I do the same (but the opposite...ish...what?)
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:19AM (1 child)
We should keep AC. It comes at a price of course, but it helps keep the comments section from becoming a tiny club of regulars who are never challenged. The instances of the thoughful AC may be fewer in number, but more valuable in individual magnitude because they keep a diversity of opinion alive.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:53AM
It's not like it isn't possible to filter out the ac comments. Most of the just changing the threshold gets rid of the ones people whine about.
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:55AM
Fair question.
My answer is: Fuck yeah, it's unacceptable. Even beta (Fuck Beta!) didn't do that.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday August 26 2017, @06:38AM (5 children)
The problem is that that leaves more of an evidence trail than the current approach. Under current system, via a proxy, I can post anonymously in a way that is very hard to trace to me either my account or my IP address. With the submit anonymously option, the server would be able to link poster to account much more easily. You can still get around that with dummy accounts, but it's not lightweight.
A possible alternative here is to create a temporary AC account for each anonymous post (say AC#@story id). So for this story (SID 21277), we might have AC1@21277, AC2@21277, etc (and just hide the "@" part to get AC1, AC2, etc). The poster can choose to keep a cookie around so that they can continue to post under the same AC account.
For me, the real problem of AC posting is that I don't know who is who. Get three or four AC postings in a row and its hopeless. You'll never be able to piece together the chain of discussion as an outsider, sometimes not even if you're one of the ACs involved. But if I can see that there's an AC1, AC2, and AC5 posting in the thread, then we can maintain some sense of continuity and coherence.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:04AM
What?? You want me to keep a cookie for each of my AC sockpuppets who reply to each other??!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:27PM (3 children)
I made a similar suggestion. But above, maxwell demon points out why that is not an acceptable alternative to true anonymity -- unless it's new for every story, in which case it might work, provided no one else happens to use that computer that day, nor has access to its logs. Scratch that...
Idea: let the AC decide if they want to be known as AC1, AC2, etc. for a given story's discussion. That would require adding an alternative to the "Post Anonymously" -- "Post as numbered AC".
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:59PM (2 children)
That's what I was thinking - new for every story. As to the last stuff, I consider it the responsibility of the user to practice basic hygiene. A machine like that would be easy to compromise with keyloggers or worse.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 26 2017, @05:35PM (1 child)
The biggest anonymity problem is likely people posting from work, using an employer's machine. Yeah, it could still be traced (keyloggers and such, as you say) but at least having true anonymity shields them from casual reprisals.
Too bad there isn't a popup manager for temporary cookies, maybe something portable that sits outside the browser. Of course that doesn't do you any good in a locked down environment (if you're not locked down, why not just use a portable browser or even a whole OS on a USB stick?)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @11:30PM
Also, some folks here have their own trolls and getting rid of or curtailing the AC option would make them have to choose whether to put up with the trolling or go elsewhere. In some cases that might not be such a bad thing, but people with their own trolls aren't always the folks we want to be getting rid of. Those are often times the folks that are stirring the pot and spurring interesting debate rather than spewing out the usual talking points.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:36AM (1 child)
I thought it was just me. I had felt the shift, faint echoes of ./
I am glad to see the admins taking a proactive step. While not perfect, I agree it is a step in the right direction.
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:46AM
Does this mean fame and fortune for SN?
Is FuckBeta next?
Stay tuned, fellow Soyled Pants... Same Soyled Pants, same eaten people.
Oooh oooh... Maybe we could track down trolls by IP and make some green shakes!
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:46AM (9 children)
With 5 pts I can't mod posts up later in the day if I waste them too early. This move gives some breathing room.
Increasing the mod points by so much may actually validate an approach like Reddit or Voat, where you can vote many more times in a day.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:48AM (8 children)
Agreed: I used to mod carefully, not wanting to waste. Now I'll try to mod more.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:05AM (7 children)
How about getting 1 mod point per hour up to a limit of 10? That would incentivize repeat visits rather then dumping all the mod points and leaving.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:28AM (6 children)
Interesting idea. Have to think on it some.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday August 27 2017, @12:54AM (5 children)
I can tell you it would cut WAY back on my use of mod points, probably to no more than one used per day (and only 3-4 times a week) because I'm rarely here more than once a day; I have other things to do besides visit the same site over and over just in case someone posted something I want to mod up. Normally I visit when a story attracts my notice or I get notices of mods on my own posts -- not randomly all day long.
So, IMO bad idea for busy people.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 27 2017, @01:11AM
Fair point there as well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Monday August 28 2017, @12:50PM (3 children)
The suggestion was to accumulate one per hour up to a maximum of 10. So I'd expect that to mean that if you visit once per day, you'd have 10 mod points each time you visit. If you spend 'em all and come back two hours later, you'd have two more points; otherwise if you come back in 10 hours or in 40 hours, you'd have a full ten points again.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 28 2017, @01:27PM (2 children)
Ah, I missed the 'accumulate' part, but that might be more workable.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday August 28 2017, @01:42PM (1 child)
Yeah looking at it again it doesn't actually say 'accumulate', but that's how I read it...I could perhaps be the one who's wrong, but I'd agree with you that if it was expiring them every hour that probably wouldn't work too well...I kinda doubt there are many people spending ten hours a day on this site :)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 28 2017, @09:48PM
Yeah, it's not like when the green site was new and we all had it up 24 hours a day :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 26 2017, @01:03AM (7 children)
I never have enough left over for all the +1s I want to give after giving out the -1s to them as richly deserve it. This will be a lot more useful.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 26 2017, @02:17AM (1 child)
And yet your downmods percentage isn't at all bad. I don't remember it exactly but there were only five who needed smacked in the back of the head and you weren't among them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 26 2017, @04:59AM
There's about 6 people who get the majority of them, all well-deserved, and you are one of them. If you'd just stick to stuff like this and quit trolling the site--horrendously unprofessional!--you'd get fewer of them from me -_-
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @08:12AM (4 children)
That's rich, as they say, coming from you. You've motivated me to log in on more than one occasion and "modbomb" your pointless, flaming ad hominem streaks more than once, due to your copious excretion of such posts and not to any diligent searching on my part. Bravo, tho, on keeping it mostly in check recently. Having differing viewpoints around (even if some are demonstrably incorrect) is quite useful.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 27 2017, @07:05AM (3 children)
And top of the morning to you too, ya yellow bastid. Say that without the mask on if you've got balls 1/10th the notional size of my ovaries. Oh wait, you won't and you can't, because you know very well you've got nothing but unearned condescension. Sod off.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:15AM (2 children)
Touchy, touchy! With a panicked attack into the dark like that, it's almost as if you're afraid of something. Don't worry. I'll still be around, to compost your insanity and downmod your invective.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @12:07AM (1 child)
Is this seriously how you plan to do it? Step up your game, boy. In the main I get squidloads more upvotes than downvotes, and for good reason.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 28 2017, @01:50AM
That's not brag-worthy. So does Ethanol-Fueled.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.