posted by
NCommander
on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:40PM
from the if-we-accidently-implemented-something-we-promised-is-it-still-a-bug? dept.
from the if-we-accidently-implemented-something-we-promised-is-it-still-a-bug? dept.
I'm pleased to announce that moderate then post has now been implemented. In truth, its been implemented since the last major update due to a bug. Before releasing slashcode 14.04, I was experimenting with moderate^post code on dev, and the code was merged in with the basis that it would be enabled as part of the moderation reworks. Theoretically, this code should have been disabled. In actuality, I skewed a variable; the global that controls this functionality was not 100% properly implemented.
mrcoolbp noticed the bug today, and seeing as we needed a code change either way to properly fix it, I decided to roll this bit of the moderation rework out early. I'm not thrilled on squishing two bugs in production on the same day, and I'm going to be working with the dev team to get a rigorous QA plan put together (which will be posted here) before we do any more major updates to the site.
Until then, enjoy the new functionality.
NCommander adds: I'm giving this a one time bump on the main index as it was posted very late for US based users. We *really really* need a featured story feature.
mrcoolbp noticed the bug today, and seeing as we needed a code change either way to properly fix it, I decided to roll this bit of the moderation rework out early. I'm not thrilled on squishing two bugs in production on the same day, and I'm going to be working with the dev team to get a rigorous QA plan put together (which will be posted here) before we do any more major updates to the site.
Until then, enjoy the new functionality.
NCommander adds: I'm giving this a one time bump on the main index as it was posted very late for US based users. We *really really* need a featured story feature.
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Moderate^Post Is Now Moderate Then Post
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(Score: 5, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:57AM
Just to clarify, you should be able to moderate on any discussion you haven't posted on. Posting a reply won't undo you're moderations, but it will prevent you from moderating again on the same story.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:08AM
Now THAT is a very good improvement on how That Other Site did things.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:12AM
The one downside is we don't have moderation previews so there's no way to undo a bad moderation other than to ask for other people to upmod. This feature was supposed to go out with mod previews (which are yet to be implemented). Still, I much prefer this to the other way.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by barrahome on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:29AM
Well you did a great work anyway. Keep moving.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:55AM
What do you mean? Unlike on Slashdot, you don't actually moderate unless and until you press the "moderate" button. So you can preview your moderation as long as you want. Just refrain from pressing that "moderate" button until you're sure.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:59AM
Its easy to misclick and choose the wrong moderation; unless you look through every post makng sure you haven't foobared it, you can mismod. WHat I wanted was a confirmation page showing all the moderations you're going to apply in a single go.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:08AM
I understand. Maybe that has been no issue for me because I tend to press "moderate" after either single or few close together moderations, so it's trivial to review those before submission.
Actually I'd prefer the moderation buttons right to the dropdown menu to refer to the single moderation on the left (the way it happens if you use the Moderatrix Firefox extension on Slashdot). Of course, that will only work well as soon as some Ajax is introduced.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:48PM
This is a limitation on how the moderation script works; if you looked at the HTML of the page when you have modpoints, you'd see that basically the entire thing becomes one giant form, and everything gets fired off at once. Its room for improvement, but not pressing plus to make such a feature work.
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ticho on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:47AM
But you are supposed to do exactly that when moderating - carefully pick the right option, not whirl through them haphazardly. You owe it to other participants when acting as a moderator.
If anything, this should make people to pause and think during moderation even more, because they will know they can't just undo their mods.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rts008 on Thursday April 10 2014, @09:38AM
Unfortunately, a lot of times moderators like to use the mod points as 'clue bats' from their point of view.
I do my best to only use +1 insightful/informative/funny mods unless there is an obvious troll.
I try to stay open minded, and attempt to mod to further the discussion...not everyone does so.(and I fail occasionally, also!)
(Score: 1) by ticho on Thursday April 10 2014, @12:24PM
My point was not how you use the points, but that you use them without haste,without having to undo them later due a mistake.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday April 11 2014, @02:05AM
I've never mismodded in haste. I have mismodded (and had to do a kill-mod post) because somewhere between one dropdown and the next, I must have hit an arrow key which changed the selection, and what was supposed to be a mod-up became a mod-down. But it only took once... now I check before I click the Mod button. It's a bit of a nuisance, still.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by el_oscuro on Thursday April 10 2014, @10:40PM
I agree. If we have a preview button for comments (which you just typed and are on your screen), we should have one for moderation as well. You can be moderating a long discussion where an accidental key press can change a random moderation that isn't even on the screen and it is very hard to catch even if you are checking carefully.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:00AM
I just notice whom I answered to ... I'm sure you knew what I just wrote ;-) But I'm still puzzled what you mean with "moderation preview".
(Oh, and removing the waiting period between posts would also be a welcome change. I understand there must be some limit, but it shouldn't already trigger at the second post. Make it two posts in 4 minutes instead of one post in 2, and things would be much better already.)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:56PM
The post button limit I think is 1-2 minutes. Submission queue have a 5 minute cooldown. Due to a varnish bug, the reskey check that implements the cooldown was misfiring, but this SHOULD be fixed. If you're still seeing it, its a bug.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:25PM
Well, my self-correcting self-reply almost certainly was really in the first two minutes of my previous post, so I don't think I triggered a bug. It's also not a pressing issue (I can live with the current delay, although I don't like it), but one which would be very welcome in case it eventually gets changed. It would just be nice if it were somewhere on the list of things to do when there happens to be time left. Whenever that may be.
Anyway, in case I come over too critical, let me stress that I really think you're doing a great job. My comments are just saying how I think the site would become even better.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @08:24PM
I'll poke in the DB for the magic variable that controls this. The rate limiting was accidently broken by varnish (formkeys weren't being saved, which caused other issues), so when we fixed that bug, this functionality returned.
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rts008 on Thursday April 10 2014, @09:29AM
To be fair, I think you and your staff/minions/co-workers have not only revived what drew us to 'that other site', but also improved it.
Regardless of that, you all have been very open about everything, and even if decisions were made that did not please everyone, the majority seem to be pleased. (I, for one, am very pleased!)
You(and all of SN) are doing well, and keep up the good work, and most of all...take pride in what has been accomplished so far, it is deserved IMHO.
Yeah, we will expect the impossible instantly(or faster), flame you and abuse you, but take heart!..it means we love you.(slight sarcasm)
I used to be a special forces team leader(US Army), and I can tell you from experience:
If they are bitching about trivial/mundane crap, then all is well, all is right with the world.
It's when the gripes take a pattern, or things get really quiet that there is a problem.(like being a parent)
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:41PM
Hear, hear.
The human element is by far one of the best aspects of this site. Allowing common users to chat with the engaged leadership (and other users) via IRC, showing that they have soul and personality (often at the risk of them sounding "unprofessional," but fuck being professional, those with sticks up their ass about it can kindly fuck off back to the Green Site).
It's a refreshing change of pace from the arrogant "ivory-tower/fuck you serfs you do what we want" attitude the editors at the Green Site had. Though admittedly I started lurking the Green Site around '03, so maybe the editors there used to be cool before the power and "fame"(ha.) got to their heads. Perhaps somebody old-skool can provide more context.
If you could see NCommander during one of his ranting status announcements, he would most likely look something like this. [imageshack.us]
And fuck yeah to extending the functionality and listening to the crowd, seizing this opportunity by the balls, rather than simply riding on the coattails of Slashdot's funny-smelling corpse. If you're still around when I finish up my CS degree in a couple years, maybe I'll pitch-in and contribute direct manpower to the project. Godspeed, staff!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by chebucto on Thursday April 10 2014, @10:57AM
At some point (this is a long-term kind of 'nice to have' feature), it'd be good to have a 5 or 10 second window in which people can cancel submitting their moderations, or cancel submitting their posts. So, if someone gets a moderation wrong, ir mispells a word, then they can click a button, fix the problem, and re-submit.
For me, I often only realize my mistake _after_ I've submitted something. So personally, I would find this kind of feature useful, even knowing that the Preview button is already there.
That kind of feature would go some way to addressing the bad-moderation issue you mentioned.
(Even better, though more difficult, would be doing this without javascript; something along the lines of having a timer in the database that submits a post or mods a mod as long as an Undo request is not received within X seconds)
(Score: 1) by urza9814 on Thursday April 10 2014, @02:06PM
Yeah, I have problems with that too. Took a sec to think about this and have a couple of my own ideas that I think are kinda interesting:
1) Obviously the idea is we don't want people editing or deleting posts after someone replies. So perhaps add a 'locked' field to the DB for every post, and as soon as someone clicks to reply, your post gets locked and you can't edit anymore. That could get messy though...ie if someone tries to reply WHILE you are editing.
2) One of my most common mistakes is putting 'quote' instead of 'blockquote' as a tag. So perhaps an 'edit markup only' feature that would only allow you to change content within tags. So you could fix links or formatting, but not content. More complicated to code, but much simpler to understand.
3) Finally, perhaps just a setting to enable logged-in users to force themselves to preview just like ACs do. So IF you enable that option, the submit button disappears until after you preview. Seems stupid, I know, but I for one would turn it on to force myself to preview -- as it is, I rarely do.
(Score: 4, Funny) by mrcoolbp on Thursday April 10 2014, @02:49PM
Sometimes I don't need to preview. Learn the hard way and look stoopid fro mispselling soem stufu, or just use the preview button.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 1) by paulej72 on Thursday April 10 2014, @07:46PM
slash supports the quote tag. It should work, but is broken in some part of the code. My guess it is being stripped out by the html sanitizing engine before getting rewritten to what it is supposed to be. It is on my todo list to look at and and debug.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 1) by urza9814 on Thursday April 10 2014, @08:11PM
Awesome, thanks!
I'm already getting used to just using blockquote now though...been a slow week at the office ;)
(Score: 1, Redundant) by quadrox on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:48AM
I think this is a great improvement, although it does make me wonder why you cannot moderate after after having posted. If this is because users could upvote their own posts, a simple check in the code should prevent that.
Yes, then you could post as AC and upvote that, but you wouldn't get any higher score than if you had logged in in the first place, so who cares? Also, you could just prevent moderation on all posts coming from the same IP - not it isn't perfect, but I doubt it would do any real harm.
(Score: 3, Informative) by b on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:53AM
>it does make me wonder why you cannot moderate after after having posted.
I suppose it's because you could upvote the comments of others that support you?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jimshatt on Thursday April 10 2014, @08:49AM
(Score: 2) by elf on Thursday April 10 2014, @12:48PM
I like this idea, I up vote this for a future release
(Score: 1) by urza9814 on Thursday April 10 2014, @02:17PM
Yeah, this was discussed as one of the options in the original threads about moderate^post, and I *think* they may have said that there may be some future revisions along those lines (I'm not an admin or anything though so I could be way off there). Obviously that code would be much more complicated.
Really, you need to lock the entire thread not just below but also all the way to the top if you're going to do moderate AND post. Obviously you don't want people up-voting their own posts...and you don't want them up-voting replies either, because that still raises the visibility of their own post. But even up-voting the posts they replied to could do the same. Want easy karma? Reply to a troll then up-mod the troll. Some mods may vote the troll back down, but others may see your reply and prefer to up-vote that instead. Only way to prevent people from trying to abuse moderation to guide others to their own posts is to lock them from moderating the entire thread from the top once they post.
I recall NCommander (I think) saying that the database layout currently makes it rather difficult to find the top of the thread from a specific post, so that would take some significant redesign.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:39PM
The problem is there's no internal concept of a thread. Instead every post has a parent ID, and when threads are pulled, several loops are executed to assemble the threaded view. Thats fine for just discussions, but to work out if a post is in a thread, you need to walk the entire tree. The easy solution is just to generate a thread id, top-level posts create one automatically, and then the thread ID is inherited for each post going down the line.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by FakeBeldin on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:47PM
"Obviously you don't want people up-voting their own posts...and you don't want them up-voting replies either"
Alternatively, we could just try to act grown up.
I realise there are (very) good reasons for why the original code handles this the way it does. The likely direct reason: something went wrong, and this version of the moderation system mitigates the problem. Back then. For another site.
I'm not saying we should ignore the past, but when I moved to this site (and stopped lurking, but registered), it was not because I expected all the self-aggrandising trolls of the Internet to congregate here. As far as I am concerned, you are all a bunch of excellent people that I don't mind entrusting with modpoints. Of course, if there were a more lenient mod system, we'd likely eventually discover some disadvantage of that one, and come up with our own solution for that. But it'll probably be different, and we'll collectively understand it to be superior to the old code ;-)
(Score: 1) by urza9814 on Thursday April 10 2014, @07:37PM
I'd say that's exactly what's going on, we're just further into that process than you think.
My interpretation of the situation has been that:
We're starting with an existing code base. And much of the community here seems to agree that the existing system doesn't work for this site -- that there aren't enough users and that it was hindering our ability to contribute as much as we'd like. So the question is how to improve that system without throwing away the things that it *does* get right. I also think a lot of people (myself included) feel that the moderation system is one of the key things that made Slashdot what it was, and we're therefore reluctant to make any massive changes to that, or to throw it away entirely.
(Score: 1) by LoRdTAW on Thursday April 10 2014, @11:50AM
Or downvote people who disagree with you.
The idea is pretty sound and I think it makes modding more attractive for people who would prefer to participate in a discussion. I rarely mod on the other site (TOS) because of this.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:41PM
Right now, moderate then post helps with this as there's no penalty for jumping into a conversation after you've moderated. Its not as broad as I would have like (I would have prefered moderate and post, excluding moderation on a thread), but this was the low hanging fruit solution.
Still always moving
(Score: 5, Informative) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:58AM
Actually, the prevent IP check has been there from day one (its per subnet actually, you can't moderate anything on the same /24 as you). I'm willing to loosen moderate/post restrictions further, but this is one of those baby step things.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by J053 on Friday April 11 2014, @02:18AM
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday April 11 2014, @04:52AM
No one from your organization can mod your specific post; they can still mod in general. This is behavior we inhertied, and as will all things, requires thought.
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Interesting) by captain normal on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:52AM
Now we can Mod and comment. Now if only we had more Moderators.
One other bug now. How come every time I come to SN from a different IP, do I have to log in? There is one SN cookie in my main browser labeled "user". Shouldn't that keep me logged in for a definite period? I do use several networks, so several IP addresses. Which really shouldn't matter. I have UIDs at several sites and stay logged in as I move around. Only on SN do I run into this.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:57AM
Security feature in slashcode, you CAN disable it (though the option is buried on the Set Password screen, here's a link: http://soylentnews.org/my/password [soylentnews.org]).
We've discussed changing this default but as this feature needs a rework for IPv6ification, its somewhat moot at the moment.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Adrian Harvey on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:18AM
Thanks for explaining that, I hadn't worked out why my phone kept having to re-authenticate. Now I know it was every time there was a wifi/mobile data switch! And even better I can fix it myself in preferences.
By the way, in your great bug hunt, I presume from this version of Slashcode sends a proper auth cookie of some sort, as opposed to the old version which used to send you a cookie with a base-64 encoded copy of your own password...
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:49PM
I don't know on the cookie front, but we haven't changed anything in this regard.
We could fix this, or we could just go SSL by default as the quick fix. I'm liking that second one more :-)
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by egcagrac0 on Thursday April 10 2014, @07:02PM
Please don't go for the quick fix for the sake of expedience.
Strive to apply the Right fix to either the quick-to-fix problems, or the Important problems.
I'm not above picking low-hanging fruit, but doing it the Right Way is a Good Thing. ("Fix it once, properly, and be done.")
It may well be that your quick fix is the Right fix, but it should be done because it's Right, not because it's quick.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @08:23PM
I generally agree with this, but the amount of work to architect in thread ids should not be under-estimated, and I'm not completely convinced that this is a good idea. Moderate then post was what was discussed, and it solves the primary problem of creating a chilling effect on comments.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by paulej72 on Thursday April 10 2014, @07:51PM
I have noticed that I have to re log in after we we restart apache and kick varinsh. So the cookie may be getting invalidated as well by these server side changes.
Not 100% sure on this, but it is possibly a factor.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 1) by iWantToKeepAnon on Thursday April 10 2014, @02:43PM
While we're on this topic ... I read the headlines via RSS and click on interesting subjects; I always have to log in too. This isn't b/c I have a different IP, I assume it is because the referral address isn't soylentnews. If I reload the page it shows me as logged in.
Is there a setting to display my page as logged in the first time?
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:14PM
Odd, what are you using for your RSS reader?
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by iWantToKeepAnon on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:33PM
My own tt-rss instance running on a vps from kazilla. Like I said, I can just click in the address line and hit enter (reload) the site and my id pops-in instead of the login form. If I hit refresh I think it says logged out (... original referrer address given on a refresh?).
BTW, this all happens on "the other site" as well. :/
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @08:23PM
Very odd. Are you using HTTP or HTTPS?
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by iWantToKeepAnon on Thursday April 10 2014, @08:51PM
HTTP for both tt-rss and soylentnews.org.
I just started firefox with a new vanilla profile and the behavior is working as expected. It must be a combination of my noscript/greasemonkey/adblock/flashblock/ghostery/ paranoid settings/etc... that is doing it.
Strange thing is while "debugging" this I found I can open a new tab, browse to soylentnews.org and get a login form; even though I am logged in. And then just reload and find my id there. So this isn't a rss-website 2 soylent-website issue. I was surprised that opening a new tab and going to soylentnews.org failed to find my user cookie.(??)
Thanks for following up, but this is obviously on my end.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @09:07PM
The odds are the user cookie is getting lost due to the redirect. I recommend you start your search there.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by iWantToKeepAnon on Thursday April 10 2014, @09:27PM
Culprit found, it is the add-on CsFire. If I disable it everything works as expected; it fixes the other site too. CsFire has been installed forever, I don't even remember when/why I got it.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 1) by iWantToKeepAnon on Thursday April 10 2014, @09:37PM
I see in the logs where it strips the cookie because the From address is "about" and the Destination is soylentnews.org. I added a rule for From (blank) To soylentnews.org Decision ACCEPT. That seems to make it happy and accept all cookies, even the first/initial one. The follow up reloads were ok because they were From soylentnews.org To soylentnews.org.
CsFire claims to protect you from Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. Websites that make requests to other sites can be used to track the user and CsFire claims to stop that too.
Just FYI, thanks for your time!
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 5, Funny) by dotdotdot on Thursday April 10 2014, @01:06PM
I just got mod points so I can start ... oh ... never mind.
(Score: 5, Funny) by lhsi on Thursday April 10 2014, @07:10AM
The slashbox that tells me I have moderation points also tells me I can't moderate and post in the same discussion.
(Score: 2) by bugamn on Thursday April 10 2014, @02:59PM
I feel dirty posting in a discussion that I have just modded, but I think it is worth to make give this topic more attention. The notification box must be modified, new users won't know about this topic.
(Score: 1) by paulej72 on Thursday April 10 2014, @07:55PM
As this fix was not supposed to go live yet the documentation was not updated to match the new situation. We will be updating this at our next scheduled slash release. We really do not like pushing out updates to production without testing them fully on our other servers first. And even when we test them we still miss stuff. :(
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday April 11 2014, @02:12AM
Your thoroughness is appreciated.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by bugamn on Friday April 11 2014, @02:25PM
Don't worry too much, I am sure you are doing a great work. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:28PM
I, Ben Goren (aka TrumpetPower!) have mod points at the moment. I'm posting this anonymously. I'm then going to try moderating it up, and replying to it.
Not that I don't trust NCommander, even if I *am* looking to verify....
b&
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:30PM
Well, I wasn't able to moderate that anonymous comment, which is probably a good thing. I was able to moderate NCommander's post up above, and it looks like I'm going to be able to post....
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 4, Informative) by TrumpetPower! on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:33PM
Yup, and now I can't moderate at all in this thread. Seems to work as advertised. Thanks for the improvement!
b&
P.S. The "Slow Down Cowboy!" message is annoying.... b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MrGuy on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:28PM
I know I've seen a few moderators (including myself once) use the Post^Moderate as a kind of "undo" for moderation mistakes. Oops - I modded that Flambebait (-1) when I meant to do Interesting (+1). Rather than spend 2 additional modpoints undoing the damage, I could just post an "oops!" and have the moderation roll back. A hack, sure, but a WORKING hack (mostly - I still couldn't go an add my +1 Interesting, but at least I didn't waste mod points making things actively WORSE).
I think the change here is a very positive one, but I wonder if we could potentially combine with some kind of "Unmoderate" function, turning what was once a "useful unintentional behavior" into an actual feature - let me "undo" my moderation if it's in error (with a time limit, say, to prevent people from reclaiming modpoints after a discussion rolls off the first page).
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:44PM
You can only moderate a comment once; the box still shows up but the moderation is silently discarded. (this isn't true for those with unlimited mod points, but that was one of the first things I disabled; the code still exists so if we ever need to mass moderate a discussion (i.e., millions of spams posts), we can temporarily re-enable it). There's also the security page, and the "bitchslap" script for mass moderations should we ever need them. Aside from testing though, these functions have never been used.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday April 11 2014, @02:18AM
Here's a thought about the unmodding-a-mistake thing, since post-to-unmod will no longer work:
For any post we've moderated, leave a dropdown visible (kinda the inverse of how the modbox disappears after it's been used) and have the sole option be "unmoderate" (or "undo moderation" if you prefer English :) That way we can undo a bad mod, and not only that, undoing just one won't undo them all (as was the case with the post-to-unmod method).
BTW for on /. for several months I found myself with unlimited mod points (at least, every time I got down to zero, 15 more instantly appeared), but I still could not multi-mod a post.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:50PM
As for unmoderate, perhaps, but I'd have to think about it.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:15PM
I have no problem with "un-moderate" but you should *not* get your modpoints back. If you made a mistake and would like to undo your moderation, you don't get a chance to re-do. This should discourage/prevent abuse, and encourage people to take care when clicking "moderate."
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:52PM
Well, the unmoderation by posting didn't give you your mod points back, and I don't think an explicit undo should. But otherwise, I think it's a good idea to be able to undo wrong moderations. If you don't get mod points back, I also see no need to limit the time frame.
An additional advantage of the requested explicit undo-moderation feature against the undo-by-post accidental feature is that undo-by-post always undid all moderations you did on a story, which is usually not what you want.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by codemachine on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:34PM
I have to disagree with the need to keep stories about Soylent News at the top of Soylent News.
Frankly, like the old site, I come here for the tech news and discussion. I know the people behind the site are really interested in Slashcode issues and creating over-engineered electronic voting systems just to choose a domain name, but I don't believe those things should be mainstays of the Soylent News frontpage.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by mbadolato on Thursday April 10 2014, @09:07PM
They wouldn't have to be part of the main page per-se, but there's nothing wrong with a slashbox devoted to Soylent Goings-Ons or whatever.
(Score: 1) by Azmodan on Tuesday April 15 2014, @04:16PM