- 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
Related Stories
Normally, when I make a post on SoylentNews, it's to talk about some exciting new feature, our future, or something similar.
Unfortunately though, on rare occasions, I have to make announcements like this one. Sometime between May 12-13th, one of our email accounts was breached. The account ("test1") was left over from go live, over a year and half ago, and had a very weak password protecting it. We believe that an automated password guesser was able to find and access the account. Once breached, the account was used to send a significant amount of spam until we deleted the affected account on the 14th May 2015.
As a result of the compromise, several spam services have blacklisted our mail server; we're currently working to try and get ourselves cleared whenever we become aware of one of these blocks. We do not believe any user information or sensitive data was compromised; the account in question was simply a virtual dovecot account with no corresponding UNIX account attached to it.
mechanicjay was primarily responsible for handling this and cleaning up the mess, and I wish to personally thank him and the rest of the sysops team for their handling of this issue. We are looking at taking steps to prevent a reoccurence such as using fail2ban and the like. Unfortunately, most IDS systems like fail2ban are incompatible with IPv6 which we use extensively internally within our network.
A sysops meeting is being scheduled to discuss this and other changes we're making to the infrastructure.
I will update this article (or post a new one) with additional information should it become available,
NCommander
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:12AM
Really, seriously, I don't see a problem, other than a specific AC complaining. Some posts get modded one way, or another, but it all rounds out in the end. I do think that some, hell, even myself at some points, wish for the ability to mod posters off the site, forever, with double secret probation. But realistically that is not going to work. So I suggest that we do not change anything until, and if, there is actual evidence of abuse, and not just hurt feefees. Did I mention that I was spam modded once? Totally without justification? It was so wrong. I cried. But admin did the right thing. Can we get stats on corrections or bans by admin? Maybe there is a problem the average poster does not see.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:47AM
Well it means that the modbomber we've had here of late will only need to mod down 11 times to drop someone to plus 1, I would say that is a problem.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:02PM
huh? I do not think you can reduce someone's karma by downmodding, unless you use the spam mod.
Care to explain?
And what is the evidence for a modbomber?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:18PM
On Slashdot, you certainly lost Karma on downmods. I'm not aware of any change of that for SoylentNews, but I may have missed the change announcement.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:40PM
You do lose karma on downmods here on SN. My account usually sits at 50, but I noticed a new Troll moderation briefly coincided with a displayed karma value of 49.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:18PM
We've all seen your allegations before...
From the article: but please post examples *with* links to any cases of suspected mod abuse.
Time for you to put up, or shut up, friend.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Thursday May 21 2015, @01:13AM
If you will explain how someone without admin access is supposed to show moderation history for posts? I'll be more than happy to oblige. I can sit there and watch posts yo-yo between +5 and -1 multiple times but if I were to provide you a link all it would show is the mod at that moment and not the moderation history.
So if you wanna give me access to the DB containing moderation history? I have ZERO doubt it would take even five fucking minutes to show a pattern. if you see the same IP address consistently modding down the same user across multiple posts or the same post multiple times? Well there ya go. And I'm not the only one its been happening to, I've heard from at least 4 other posters here who say the same thing is happening to them, any post they have that is modded up will be modbombed the day it goes off the front page. Again anybody can write a script in less than 5 minutes to show when there is a pattern, as the same IP address shouldn't be targeting the same poster or post multiple times normally, nor should a post that is rated +5 suddenly go to -1 as the majority will generally agree within a point or two so there is no way the majority would agree something is insightful and then within less than a day suddenly decide the exact same post now constitutes flamebait.
But if you are an admin? Fell free to check my moderation history, I've had no less than 4 posts in the last 2 weeks bouncing between +5 and -1 and there is no way that would be normal, you aren't gonna have THAT many people THAT divided, especially when the post isn't even on a topic that is incendiary. If you are an admin go look at the post where I simply said "You can't judge the age of a PC by whether it came with XP as XP was sold on new PCs until late 09" and even THAT post went from +5 informative to -1 troll no less than 4 times over the period of a week.
Now YOU TELL ME...does that sound like "normal moderation" to you?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mrcoolbp on Thursday May 21 2015, @02:48AM
I think NCommander meant if you have a "suspected case" (a comment you think was subject to abuse), show us an example and we (the admins) can look into it. Side-note: You mentioned IPs; IPs can't moderate, only accounts can moderate, so we would know which accounts are performing the moderations. IPIDs (Hased IPs) are more useful to track ACs (who can't moderate) in case they are spamming advertisements or something (IPIDs are legacy code, and yes people can avert this, but we do find them useful to at least help combat some of the spamming).
For what it's worth, I've been involved in the (very few) potential mod-bombing investigations we have conducted. One or two seemed to have some semblance of merit, however, in every case the community corrected any mods that (we, in our opinions) were not appropriate. I strongly feel that simply making a post that says "really? that mod seems inappropriate because of X and Y" is much preferable then calling on the admins to police the comments section (something we prefer not to do because A. we'd rather be improving and running the site B. we feel this should be handled by the community anyway). I'm of course open to suggestions on how we might empower the community to more effectively do this, but the current system (where everyone has a few points a day) seems to be working well for that.
Another side-note: though I feel the moderation guidelines are pretty well-written, not everyone will read them or follow them. Also people's opinions will always differ (which is a good thing), so comments will sometimes swing, some comments will be modded in a way I may not agree with, and so on. I truly believe that in general the vast majority of comments get modded appropriately in the end. Some may not, but can a system like this really be perfect?
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday May 21 2015, @04:22AM
Um, Hairyfeet, you just click on the #number of the post, and it will show you all the mods. The ones marking you down will probably be me and my horde of modbombers, or it could just be that posts like yours tend, for some inexplicable reason, to attract negative reactions. I myself can't see that, since you are such a warm and cuddly soylentil. Sounds like normal moderation to me. And no thank you, I do not want to take the "Hairyfeet Challenge", and this time I am serious.
(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.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mhajicek on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:06PM
I would like to be able to mod submissions.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:13PM
I'm pleased that we can't. The editors can often make a story out of something that doesn't look up-to-snuff when sitting in the submissions queue. Its our job, it's what we do. We don't always get it right, but at least let us try.
Can you imagine what fun people would have silencing those with whom they do not agree, simply by making sure their stories do not get out of the sub queue? What better way to ensure group think here at SN. Think how discouraging it would be to new submitters to see their early attempts at submissions being pulled apart by (perhaps) well-intentioned soylentils who have forgotten that they were once in the same boat. All they need is a bit of encouragement and direction but no - lets mod them away and ignore their efforts.
The best way of making sure that poor quality stories never make the front page is by providing better quality stories for the editors to work with. That is the only 'moderation' I want to see in the submissions queue.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SlimmPickens on Wednesday May 20 2015, @09:16PM
What about commenting on submissions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:56AM
you can already, just create a journal entry of your own, link to the submission (or cut and paste the whole thing in), and have at it.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:49AM
Easy - when it appears on the front page you can comment all you want. The time to discuss the content is not when a sub is waiting in the queue and has been seen by only a small number of people, but after it has appeared on the front page and has been read by many more.
Sorry, that might seem a bit flippant. More seriously though, what is the benefit of commenting on stories that are not necessarily ready for the front page? We get into the same problems of influencing what will eventually be published, which can enforce groupthink, or at least be used for casting in a poor light those stories with which the commenter might not agree. And, as with moderation of submissions, it could easily deter some submitters who don't write as well as, say, yourself.
I'm not scotching the suggestion out of hand, but I would have to be convinced of the benefits before I could support it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SlimmPickens on Thursday May 21 2015, @08:28AM
Just to chip in with a bit of re-writing, add missing links, provide updates etc. AFAIK it worked pretty well at the green site.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday May 21 2015, @09:01AM
I appreciate that the suggestion is well intentioned - but to be honest that is the editor's role. In addition, we have to check that we are not leaving ourselves open to litigation, that the format follows our own documented standards, submissions do not contain an unfair political bias etc. One thing that we have to do is check that links actually point to what the submission suggests that they point to. We have had attempts to abuse links by pointing to political, LGBT and other sites while purporting to be links to tech sites. Without significant controls on edits being carried out by the community and records of each change made, it looks like it could be really easy to abuse the system by changing someone else's submission which would, ultimately, increase the editor's workload and not ease it. Plus, it doesn't avoid the problems that I have already highlighted in previous posts. None of the editor's tasks will be eased by allowing others to change submissions. Our internal procedures provide a record of who edited what and ensures the safeguards that we think are necessary.
This needs to be discussed by the ed staff in more detail - I can see the potential but the controls that would be necessary would be quite burdensome at first glance. We - and I think that I can speak for the majority of the eds - would prefer to see the community effort devoted to more submissions rather than tinkering with the one's that we have.
And an easier solution for those who want to help shape our stories is to join the editorial team. We recently took on new staff and are finding that the workload is much easier now that it can be shared more widely. But there is always room for more to join the staff - there is no formal commitment requiring you to do a specific number of stories or work when you wouldn't want to. Editing just a handful of stories each week makes the whole task easier for everyone concerned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marneus68 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:14AM
While I wait for any evidence of the contrary, I think the way the moderation is handled on the site is working fine now. I really the way it works.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:53AM
> I really the way it works.
I also the way it works.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:42PM
Having the button next to the mod dropdown makes it a lot harder to accidentally the wrong moderation, too.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday May 21 2015, @01:55AM
Yeah, but it's still possible to accidentally the whole internet though...
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday May 20 2015, @02:36PM
I agree. I could foresee problems in the future if the site gains orders of magnitude more traffic, but then the conversation could be reopened then.
Currently the largest issue I see is a lack of moderation, for each article very few comments make it beyond +2. Which is fine, given that the discussion is typically 30~50 comments long, and rarely degrades to the point that I am disappointed with the community.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:49PM
While I wait for any evidence of the contrary, I think the way the moderation is handled on the site is working fine now. I really the way it works.
I just wanted to add that the last couple of months on Soylent have been particularly hospitable. I'm quite happy with the moderation of late. I'm also familiar with the whining AC. He reminds me of a customer I had when I worked in retail that would go from store to store, try to return something he had obviously shrinkwrapped, then act all enraged like we had somehow wronged him. He'd try to use that rage to try to get us to kiss his butt and make the illegal return go through. Despite several attempts over the course of a year he never, to my knowledge, succeeded. That's the image I have in my head when I read these posts by the AC. In fact, just like the AC posing as multiple people, he'd send his wife in a little later to try it again!
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Thursday May 21 2015, @02:51AM
Agreed, those people will always be around. I have hospitality and retail background, so for me it's tough, I want to please everyone. But you just can't. = )
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:58AM
>I just wanted to add that the last couple of months on Soylent have been particularly hospitable.
yeah i aint seen much of the buzzard either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @12:39PM
you're happiest when you and your socialist windbag fuck buddies are sucking each other off
(Score: 5, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:16AM
I believe I have previously asked the moderation with a citation (s) might be a useful addition that I have not seen on other sites.
E.g. If I mod a comment -1 disagree, it might help to give a hint why?
(Score: 3, Informative) by pnkwarhall on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:52AM
From my current understanding of the mod system, nothing keeps you from commenting in a thread you've moderated. It doesn't un-do your moderation if you comment. So mod 'disagree', then leave the comment explaining why.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 4, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:04AM
is this the preferred method? Fair enough, but I try not to comment on threads I moderate - it seems self serving. A citation would be a passive guidance that "this document is informative", rather than "this comment is disagreeing".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:51PM
In which sense? You can't moderate your own comments, and moderating others appears to be a good reason to provide some additional comment. Also, by modding parent down you are reducing the visibility of the thread you are posting in, so it's not self-serving. Voting parent up might be, but not much, since he might outshine your own comment :-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:15PM
Occasionally I mod up the comment I'm replying to, so it doesn't look like I'm talking to myself. :) I figure if a comment is worth replying to, it's worth having more people see it, and if it's at zero it's hidden from a lot of folks.
So I find this to be a really useful feature of our current moderation scheme.
Seriously, I really like how it's working now, and have no complaints.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:58PM
However, one tweak that I like the idea of is a karma buffer. You can go over 50, but each night you lose floor(karma/5)-9 points if you're over 50. So if you can post a lot of good stuff and get to 70, next day you'll be 65, the day after you'll be 61, then 57, then 55, 53, 52, 51, and finally steady state at 50. This protects you better against abusive downmods, and encourages regular topping up of the buffer.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @08:44PM
I did this once. A point by point list of rationales for a down-mod. It was not well received.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by engblom on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:57AM
Personally, I find everything having to do with "disagree" modding to be wrong. If the original poster is not a troll, let the original post be and make an own post refuting his arguments! If you have good arguments, you get modded up, if the original poster had good argument, he gets modded up. I find it plainly wrong to mod down things because of disagreements.
Everybody should be able to see both comments and determine themselves what was better.
If the original poster is a pure troll and not just a person with a disagreeing opinion, then some admin action would be good. If we get too much trolls for admins to handle, we maybe could have some kind of reputation system making giving our users rights to take actions against trolls. For example, if somebody has been a good and active member for more than one year, he could get the right to take actions against trolls. However, the smaller the anti-troll group is the better.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by wantkitteh on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:22AM
Disagree modding is going to lead to a lot of tension simply because any situation where one person is saying another person is wrong is by it's very nature confrontational. Nothing we can do about that, I prefer using replies myself and think that encouraging debate is probably a better direction to take.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:00PM
This is the Internet. I post as an AC. Some of my posts get modded up. Some get modded down. I've had posts that get modded up to five points from zero. I've also had posts that get modded disagree or troll even. Up, down, agree, disagree, troll, I make various arguments to consider. I may also consider and have very many counter arguments to my arguments. But I don't take modding personally. Usually when entering a thread I change the settings to show almost all of the responses because I also find many of the ones with fewer mod points interesting as well. No one should take some posts or mods on the Internet personally. It's the Internet. It's no big deal. The point is that I consider what others think and I express what I think for others to consider. Worrying that someone else will disagree with me will negatively limit the discussion. Not everyone is going to agree with me on everything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @01:25PM
so you must be a karma whore
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:03PM
A "+0 Agree" could be implemented to counteract the negative bias obtained by being able to disagree, but not to agree. Note that this is different from upmoding, since you might agree with a post that you don't consider particularly interesting, informative or insightful.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DECbot on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:17PM
An interesting implementation would be to make comment scores a sum of vectors. Let agree/disagree be a value of (m,0) and traditional moderation be a value of (0,n) where m is the magnitude of agrees (negative values denote disagrees) and n is the magnitude of the traditional scoring. Initially I would keep the method of moderating the same, 5 moderation points a day and scoring only one point per person per comment. I would also keep the agree/disagree mods independent from karma. This method allows the community to see not just the comment score (+5 interesting) but also see community reaction (+5 disagree).
Of course the use of agree/disagree might just reinforce the echo chamber.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Friday May 22 2015, @07:52AM
To whomever modded this "Disagree":
Touché
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:33AM
I think the point of disagree is to offer people a way to let off steam, when they see a post they virulently disagree with. It's a better option than "Troll", which is what they might otherwise choose.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:56PM
That and giving a democratic hint when someone else has already posted your preferred rebuttal.
You can understand why someone posted what they did, but they're still wrong and highlighting that context(without penalizing them) for the conversation is handy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:46PM
I find the "disagree" option also a bit pointless, but since it's actually "0 disagree" and not "-1 disagree", I consider it harmless. Receiving a "disagree" moderation is something I actually perceive as a flattery, as it shows I had something non-obvious to say that hit a nerve somehow, and yet others seemingly are not able to provide a counter-argument :-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @07:52PM
Agree with this comment.
The times I've posted obvious replies and got "+5, Informative" etc, I felt ashamed.
For me a "-1, Troll" is important. There are too many people here who blow Google, and God's chosen are always on the lookout to down-mod anyone who mentions them.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:32PM
It mostly exists because of long standing complaints that it didn't exist, and (hopefully) prevents abusive downmods looking for another option. Each disagree mod *is* tracked, so if 10 people mark it disagree, and then it gets modded up, it would +3, Disagree, vs +3, Interesting. Kinda like the controversial tag on arstechnica.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday May 20 2015, @02:58PM
well Ars has "controversial"..I consider disagree to be "disagrees with known facts". Hence, I think in citations...
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:07PM
That may be what you consider "disagree" to mean, but there is nothing to suggest that.
It means what it says: The person modding simply disagrees with the post.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:36PM
Wouldn't "controversial" and "flamebait" be fairly similar? Since it's rather hard to judge intent over the Internet.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @02:38PM
I wouldn't think so. "Flamebait" for me is not so much about the content, but about how it is expressed. So I'd consider a statement like "Linux is not a good operating system" as wrong, but not flamebait. But "Linux is shit, and only morons use it" would be flamebait.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Zinho on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:10PM
I thought we had that handled by restricting "wrong" mods to people who have actually commented in the thread? For example, as I post this I don't have the option to mod you incorrect.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:13PM
Oops. Actually, I did have "disagree" before my post. Please mark my previous one "disagree" :P
Wasn't that a proposed solution at some point, though?
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2, Disagree) by engblom on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:16AM
I want to be able to form an own opinion rather than getting just one side. For getting just "one side", the article is enough, or any blog linking to an article. My opinion is that visitors should learn as much as possible by reading the comments.
Currently, an interesting post might get several times both up and down modded, ending up too low to be visible while an half offtopic post might get higher if it got one single up-mod.
My propose is to not allow down-modding, only up-modding. This means those comments (made by trolls) that nobody found interesting will remain low in points as nobody mods them up and can be easily filtered out. The comments supported by the majority get highest points and can be easily found.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Marneus68 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:27AM
While I see where you're coming from, I'm not sure this is a viable proposal. It looks good on paper, but it doesn't take time in consideration.
A better, more researched and in-depth comment, taking much more time to be written, will inevitably end up lower on the scale your propose since the article itself will be further in the site history. As the conversation goes by and better arguments and comments are brought up, less and less people will still be active in the thread, thus making your system a bad way to promote the best comment. It will only end up promoting the first few interesting ones on top of the last best.
(Score: 2) by engblom on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:40AM
Isn't what you describe a problem existing already now? I mean if discussions have begun on a topic, the almost only way to get your response visible is to reply to another comment rather than posting a new comment. I have several times seen comments being offtopic to comment threads.
My proposal does not solve this particular problem, but it does not make it worse. It however helps in getting more of the interesting juice visible.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:25AM
People who get the earlier comments in will naturally receive more moderation simply because more people will see what they say with less competition for the reader's mod points. That's perfectly natural and I wouldn't say it was a "problem", more a "home truth".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:33AM
I disagree. That way, any post with just 4 proponents will get highest rating, even if it is offensive,racist,brainless shit only supported by these 5 people and no-one else
Even without these extreme cases, I think there are enough cases where a comment is halfway ok, marked hyper-clever by a minority having a lower perspective, and can't be corrected anymore.
I agree that the focus should be on promotion rather than demotion, but with our system of awarding 5 mod-points to each user every night there are really enough mod points going around to compensate for some down-mods.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:07PM
promotion rather than demotion
How about promotion costs 1 mod point and demotion costs 2 mod points?
Instead of someone subtracting five points from a side they disagree with, they can either subtract only two or add five points to "their side".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:15PM
There is a mod for that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by moondrake on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:54AM
There should not be "sides" at all in down-modding. The comment is either troll/flamebait or you mod disagree, which does not lower the score.
Of course, some posts make a flamebait remark and then say something insightful, which makes it hard to evaluate and causes conflicting mods. And everyone is susceptible to let personal opinion cloud judgment. But these things are not solved by only allowing upmodding.
What you propose might work, but only if one increases the max number of points to 20 or so, and sets a threshold at 10. However, this means that topics that attract little interest have no posts above 10, which I find unsatisfactory compared to a 6 pt system that we have now. When we leave the scale as it is now and disallow downmods, it means that 2 or 3 people with very extreme opinions and modpoints (everybody has those) can dominate most discussions (high-modded post amplify themselves by initiating more discussion, so a racist +5 comment easily turns into a flame/troll fest. With the current system, such problems are only visible when there is a significant minority opinion, e.g. AGW). Increasing the amount of such post is not something that I believe you want to see.
(Score: 2) by GeminiDomino on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:00PM
There should not be "sides" at all in down-modding. The comment is either troll/flamebait or you mod disagree, which does not lower the score.
Counterpoint: political hand-grenades. Any political faction has its own dogma that *someone* will always post at least once, regardless of how old, irrelevant, or debunked it may be. Suddenly, you have "sides"
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:02PM
Correct. For example, "[Niggers/Mooslums/Bitches/SJWs/Fags/etc] aren't human" is a common one. It may be factually invalid and inflammatory, but its still a widely-held opinion.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Friday May 29 2015, @11:42AM
It does not matter if the opinion is widely held. Even if you hold that opinion, you need to be an utter moron to not realize they are inflammatory. Therefore its still flamebait.
There might be dogmas or stupid statements that are not inflammatory though. Perhaps in addition to disagree we need a "Silly" mod. I do think btw that Mods such as "disagree" should require at least one reply to point out why you disagree.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 20 2015, @02:12PM
In theory, I could see how downmodding could be used to kinda censor a particular opinion. In practice, what I've been seeing on SoylentNews is that "-1 Troll", "-1 Flamebait", and "-1 Overrated" are in fact being used the way they were intended, and the stuff getting modded into oblivion are those posts that truly deserve it.
You are of course welcome to browse the comments with a threshold of -1 to see exactly what you might be missing if only "one side" is presented.
Also, sometimes there really isn't another side of the issue. For example, if the question was whether astronauts had landed on the moon, the nutjobs who say they didn't should not be given equal time or equal standing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by albert on Thursday May 21 2015, @04:52AM
The solution is non-linear mod points. Count the up mods and down mods separately. Before subtracting to find the result, apply non-linear functions such that the strength of up mods grows faster than the strength of down mods. Problem solved!
There are numerous functions that can do the job. Examples:
* Take the square of the up mods.
* Take the inverse tangent of the down mods.
* Take the log of the down mods.
* Take the factorial of the up mods.
Apply any one or two of those and the problem goes away. Choosing the easy one for example:
score = up*up-down
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:21AM
I'll find the current moderation system to be fine. But that doesn't exclude anyone else from having a problem. Just my personal experience.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:23AM
If you see unfairly modded post, mod it.
If you see AC whine about moderation, remember these:
http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=4502&cid=109163 [soylentnews.org]
http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=7195&cid=175480 [soylentnews.org]
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(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:35AM
Which means Anonymous Coward may have something interesting to say but on messing around the big club should be used right away. Kind of like whack-a-mole for the bad AC posts.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:39AM
Thanks for the memories! Those are some hilarious comments. And only half of them are mine!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @12:44PM
there was some awesome comments in that list. some people either don't have a sense of humor or don't get sarcastic irony
(Score: 5, Informative) by Marand on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:16PM
Know what's more important than futzing with the moderation system more? Fixing the busted-ass "read more" feature.
AC posted a 142 line comment and it got truncated at 140 lines, but then added "Read the rest of this comment..." for a net savings of one line. About the only way it could be more useless is if it made the post longer than it started.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:28PM
I fully agree. I think there should be two values: A minimum amount of text always shown, and a minimum amount of additional text before the "read more" mechanism kicks in. Both could be user configurable, but need sane defaults.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:52PM
Alternatively after the "read more" text tell me how much more text there is in the comment. If I see a value that is really low I can assume there is nothing more of value.
(Score: 2) by TK on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:55PM
Since you're already at +5 I'm just going to reply to show my agreement.
Something like: do not truncate 141-150 lines; truncate 151 lines to 140.
That at in-page expansion of comments, but I think I remember the devs talking about that being a fairly complicated feature to implement (or with, gasp! javascript).
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:01PM
I would also like to see the "read the rest of this comment" line include the number of additional lines to help me decide if I really want to click it. For example, "read the rest of this comment (50 more lines)"
(Score: 5, Informative) by paulej72 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:58PM
I tried to fix this once, and I could not figure out how the code worked. There is some serious voodoo code at work with this system. Even more so than the typical slash code. If anyone wants to figure it out and post a fix, I am willing to merge it in.
I figured it would be a few lines of code to make the read more only come up if the end would be long enough to justify it, but my code tracing skills were not up to the task of finding out where the truncation was happening.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:34PM
I took a stab at this myself, and my mind melted. My best guess it was dependent on a behavior in old MySQL versions that changed. When we first setup the site, excessive edits were required since the codebase assumed it was running on a version of MySQL from 2008 (MySQL 3.xx something). I need to take a second look at it and try and fix it now that I've gotten more familiar with the code internals.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday May 21 2015, @09:01AM
There is some serious voodoo code at work with this system. Even more so than the typical slash code.
You're definitely right about that. I took a cursory glance and it's...um...something. I don't know the codebase so I was just searching around, and I saw that it's checking a database value for length and max length (which defaults to 4096 in the sql schema), which seemed like a good start, but that lead dead-ended when I tried actually figuring out where the truncation actually happens. Or is supposed to be happening.
Seems like it'd be easy to set up new truncation rules if you could actually figure out where the magic is happening, but goddamn. Some useful fucking comments would have been great, but the original authors were too pro for that shit I guess. You have my condolences for having to deal with this stuff, it looks like a nightmare. Too much "look at me, I'm clever!" and not enough "# this is what my clever code does".
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Sunday May 24 2015, @04:14PM
Well with some help from FatPhil, I tracked down the error. The code already had some fuzzy logic for the end, but there was a bug in saving the data to Memcache. The full text version was getting saved to the truncated version location, when ever the full text of the comment was loaded. So after the first time the full text was loaded all users would see the full text instead of the truncated version.
This code has been added to the new rehash code, which should be going live soonish.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 4, Disagree) by Leebert on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:41AM
My only real issue is the correction of bad downmods. Specifically, it offends my OCD to moderate something "Insightful", "Informative", etc. when in reality I think it's not particularly insightful or informative; rather, I think it was unfairly downmodded. "Underrated" bugs me too, since then you get things like "Score: 2 (Troll)".
I've asked for it before and I don't want to sound like a broken record. But since you asked, I would really like an option to just plain undo a previous downmod, returning the post to the correct unmoderated state instead of artificially upmodding it.
But honestly, that's just a nitpick.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Marand on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:59AM
My only real issue is the correction of bad downmods. Specifically, it offends my OCD to moderate something "Insightful", "Informative", etc. when in reality I think it's not particularly insightful or informative; rather, I think it was unfairly downmodded. "Underrated" bugs me too, since then you get things like "Score: 2 (Troll)".
I use "Interesting" for that. It obliterates the Spam or Troll label and it's generic enough that it works as a catch-all for any post that isn't specifically insightful or informative.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:46PM
So... what exactly is wrong with that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:31PM
Well, the implication is that the original moderation is incorrect and the post is NOT a troll. As such, aside from the OCD issue of having something labeled incorrectly, and the general impoliteness of it, it messes with users who may have a "Reason Modifer" set on their comments preferences.
There may be other subtle issues I'm not aware of.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday May 20 2015, @09:09PM
On the contrary, to me it signifies "An excellent troll, hat tip for it" (a subtle troll, still inflammatory, but not due to language or offensive position towards others, most probably a very controversial view of a slice of life).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:10PM
Pardon my use of my last mod point of the day for an object lesson, but it was the best way I could think of to make the clear point that ANYTHING can be moderated Troll, even if it isn't.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 21 2015, @01:08AM
So what? I would agree this would be a problem if it would happen on very frequent basis - but then, this is the last problem one needs to address (as such a behaviour would show a dysfunctional community).
But as it happens occasionally, what's so important? The "5 mod points daily" ensure that in most of the cases the bad/vengeful Troll modding is corrected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Thursday May 21 2015, @01:32AM
*shrug* I see it is a problem. You don't.
I only said something because they asked. I'm not out to convince you, I was just responding to your original "so what?" question.
If you don't understand why I think it matters now, then I can't really explain it any better. If you DO understand, then it's just a matter of opinion, which I was keeping to myself until someone specifically asked for opinions.
Best to just leave it at that. Fair enough? :)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 21 2015, @01:47AM
Yeap - agreed. Anyway, thanks for the opinion exchange
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday May 21 2015, @06:44AM
Well, some trolls are *really* good! [soylentnews.org]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:44AM
Old, pungent, and surrounded by filthy rats.
I like my cheese like I like my snack cake filling: white, creamy, and fresh out of the penis.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:52AM
I'd like to chime in with the others and say that I think the current moderation system is just fine.
I highly suspect the AC who has been whining about moderation is a certain known troll elsewhere who for whatever reason thought s/he'd get their warped posts upmodded here, and I'm fairly certian s/he does not actually hold the views s/he posts about. In order words, they trolled (badly—wrong bait and it was rotten to boot), got (correctly) modded to oblivion (and yet as another AC above me pointed out with many links, is not actually “censored!”), and now is doing further rabble rousing.
Also, thank you for continuing to be so responsive to potential issues with the site, but I don't think there's anything to see here.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:55AM
Correction. Haven't had my coffee yet. Not all of the links above are the personality I'm suspecting.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:01AM
What is your opinion on the practice of feeding kosher coffee to young girls?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:09PM
This AC does not care one way or another. Up or down it. My opinion is my own. I am not looking for praise or disdain.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @02:33PM
I agree I think there is a certain AC around here that is pissed that hes getting rightfully down modded and has bitched enough that this subject has come up for consideration. I also suspect that this AC is running a regular account as well and is upmodding his own posts.
The mod system is working rather well IMHO. I think the only change I would recommend is to not allow someone from one IP modding up another post from the same IP.
While that would not prevent someone from using multiple connections, vpns, etc to abuse the system, it would make it a hassle for them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by martyb on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:48PM
IP address != person
There are still occasions where a single IP address could rightfully be shared by multiple users. Consider using a shared home or library computer. Then, too, DHCP may re-assign to you an IP previously used by someone else. I suspect that NAT (Network Address Translation) might be problematic, too.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zinho on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:56PM
I suspect that NAT (Network Address Translation) might be problematic, too.
This is why we need IPv6. The rumors I've heard about ISP-level NAT give me the willies, such a scheme would be a huge problem for our fellow lentils suffering in the ISP backwaters.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 3, Insightful) by martyb on Friday May 22 2015, @05:48PM
Yes ISP-level NAT is 'willy-inducing' — no argument there.
I seem to recall that the IPv6 address space is so large that everyone/everything could have a large block of addresses assigned. No need for DHCP, NAT, etc. That sure seems like static IP addresses to me which would offer its own tracking opportunities. If that were indeed the case, I cannot imagine I'm the first to see that possibility as being a problem, so I suspect I've got something confused there.
Is this really a possibility? Can someone please explain what I'm missing? Thanks!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Friday May 22 2015, @06:44PM
Potential for tracking, yes. There would be no need to change address for any host on the network anytime soon (obligatory XKCD). [xkcd.com] I anticipate that marketing companies will use that for data mining, and there will be little we can do to stop it.
On the other hand, there's still no guarantee of a 1-person to 1-address mapping; a single person would conceivably operate several networked devices, and many people would still be able to use a single device. Hopping to different addresses within your assigned block would still be an option if desired, so the advantages of DHCP are not lost. NAT could even be implemented in IPv6 if desired (oh, $DIETY, why???), although the advantages to doing so are dubious at best. The situation after IPv6 rollout would essentially be the same as now, including the cat-and-mouse game we're playing with Big Data.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by martyb on Friday May 22 2015, @09:32PM
Thanks for confirming my suspicions, and explaining things so clearly and succinctly!
There's something that has always befuddled me about IPv6: Why did they not make all IPv4 addresses a proper subset of IPv6? I would think the transition would have been greatly simplified if there were a 'prefix' under IPv6 which one could use to seamlessly access all historical IPv4 addresses. Any ideas or explanations would be greatly appreciated!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Saturday May 23 2015, @04:25PM
Why did they not make all IPv4 addresses a proper subset of IPv6?
They did.
Check out Oracle's page on how the transition affect their clients. [oracle.com] For the most part an IPv6 server can see an IPv4 client just fine. For the client to talk back, though, the server needs to be available in the IPv4 namespace (i.e. in the portion of the IPv6 namespace that maps 1:1 with IPv4). As a result, none of the benefits of the larger namespace are really available until all of the clients are aware of IPv6 and can talk on it (at least through a 4-to-6 bridge).
Fortunately, most modern clients are fine. Windows has been IPv6 native since version 7, most Unix distributions (including MacOS/iOS and Android, excluding some embedded builds) have been fine for a long time. The big obstacle is the network operators who haven't upgraded their hardware yet. There are too many switches at the ISPs that have hardwired IPv4 processing (think ASICs [wikipedia.org]) and have to be replaced before the transition is successful.
Do your part, call your ISP and ask what their transition plan is. Let them know you're interested in enabling IPv6 on your computers as soon as possible. The more interest and demand they see for the service the more motivated they'll be to make it right.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday May 24 2015, @05:09PM
Thanks for the feedback! If I understand correctly, that means that all the upstream providers could have rolled out full IPv6 support and the IPv4 stuff would have still worked. Is that correct? The reluctance to do so, of course, is based on the cost of replacing stuff that 'still works' and will be less expensive to replace the longer they wait (Moore's Law) as well as learning a whole new way of doing things with all the attendant mistakes inherent in learning the ropes of doing so.
That makes me wonder if Google's gigabit fiber roll out is IPv4 or IPv6. Especially since they are installing new equipment all over, it would strike me as terribly short-sighted to roll out non-IPv6 capable equipment.
Thanks again for the reply; it's something that had me wondering for quite a while!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Sunday May 24 2015, @08:21PM
Yep, you've pretty much got it. An ISP that supports IPv6 supports IPv4-only clients just fine. A web host that runs dual stack can serve both IPv4 and IPv6 clients with no problem. It's the poor folks on backwards ISP networks (like me, on Verison FIOS) who can't participate on the IPv6 web. And, yes, you've also correctly identified the motivations (or lack thereof) for the ISPs to stay on IPv4 as long as possible.
For what it's worth, google fiber is running IPv6 switches for all of its new gear, [google.com] so their customers have the choice to go IPv6 native it they like.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 1) by martyb on Monday May 25 2015, @02:31AM
I really appreciate your replies! You have cleared up a world of confusion for me — thank you!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by paulej72 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:16PM
Actually all of the Tor users have the same IP addrss as they come from our one server running the Tor stuff. As for IP address = person, we currently do not check if the moderator and modee are using the same IP, but this could be added if necessary. We would probably whitelist the Tor IP so things would work somewhat normal for those users.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:27PM
Should you be modding a post by someone who shares your computer?
I can see a husband and wife both reading SN. Wouldn't they have a bias for each others posts? The same thing with brothers, or roommates. It kinda makes it unfair if you have a personal cheerleader modding your posts up and anything critical of you down.
The only possibility is people posting from a internet cafe, and frankly I just think it would be a rare occurrence that two random people in the same internet cafe would want to mod each others post.
If someone does exist with a need to mod a post from the same IP then it is trivial to bypass the block. Load it up on your phone, find another hot spot, borrow a friends phone, whatever. Seriously its trivial. It would just slow down someone who routinely mods their own posts. If it really is that important that is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @02:25PM
IP != computer.
Behind a single IP, there could be an entire corporate network. OTOH, it would be no problem to have two different IPs for the same computer by simply using a VPN (and actually, just disconnecting/reconnecting your DSL is already likely to give you a different IP).
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:36PM
The question had to be asked. Since this has been live for quite a few hours, I personally didn't see the abuse offhand. THe link collection brought up seems to mostly be an AC upset that they get downmodded at all. Downmodding exists for a reason, to prevent spam and trash from clogging up the works. We could be like other sites and delete it, but we don't.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:55AM
In my experience on the site, I don't see a problem with the current modding approach. It's working well enough. Remember that best is the enemy of good.
However, I do appreciate other people may see things differently, so if I have missed something, I apologise.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:26AM
Could someone tell us how many points up or down these moderation ratings produce?
Normal
Insightful
Interesting
Informative
Funny
Touché
Underrated
Overrated
Disagree
Offtopic
Redundant
Flamebait
Troll
Spam
(a side note, "Offtopic" and "Flamebait" should probably have a space in them)
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:31PM
Last I checked, the points were:
0 - Normal, Disagree
+1 - Insightful, Interesting, Informative, Funny, Touche, Underrated
-1 - Overrated, Offtopic, Redundant, Flamebait, Troll, Spam
At times in the past, Funny has given the post a +1 but not given +1 to karma, I'm not sure if that's still true.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:19PM
Funny is how you stated still, and spam gives the modee -10 karma hit. Also Underrated and Overrated do not change the modee's karma and are only allowed to a post that has already been moderated.
All other mods give the same karma as the points.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:29AM
The current set of tweaks to the mod system seem to work fine. Giving everybody points daily takes away some of the "MUST USE POINTS" pressure, which makes moderation more enjoyable, especially combined with the post-and-mod system. Moderation is something you can do while reading, if something is interesting, rather than feeling like something you have to weigh the pros and cons of before you can act. The area that needs improvement is user mindset when moderating, I think.
Not because of abuses -- I'm not seeing much down mod abuse, really -- but because I think there aren't enough people using their modpoints to fix the occasional bad mod. Maybe they used their points already, or maybe they commented and don't realise they can still mod, I don't know. I also think there aren't enough people browsing at 0 to downmod the bad posts and upmod the good AC comments that deserve it. I understand that people don't want to dig through the crap, but when everybody browses at 1+ expecting someone else to deal with the downmodding, there aren't enough modpoints among the remaining people to fix everything.
Oh! That actually gave me an idea for an improvement: maybe the system could be tweaked to give people extra mod points that can only be used to moderate 0/-1 posts. Gives the people fighting in the trenches (in a manner of speaking) extra ammunition without having any real effect on most of the users.
The only other thing I can think of is making the differences in the mod system here clearer for casual readers. I still see occasional comments from people that think posting undoes moderation, for example.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:58PM
Giving more mod points out per account gives dedicated trolls more karma-manipulating firepower. If your idea is limited to previously unmoderated posts only (so, 0-point posts only), then I agree that you seem to have a good idea there.
I always browse at zero, and usually browse at -1, nested. My display laziness is conflicting with my login laziness.
It is already stated in the moderation FAQ [soylentnews.org] that "Moderators can participate in the same discussion as both a moderator and a poster. You are only prevented from modding your own posts." If potential mods don't bother to read the FAQ, then maybe it's better their ignorance keeps them from participating.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by wantkitteh on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:32AM
Would it be feasible to allow the poster of a comment a special ability to mod immediate replies to that comment something like "fair point" or "accepted", giving a clear way for everyone to see that a criticism, correction or argument has been graciously accepted? The aim is to make it immediately evident that something in a comment has been accepted as incorrect by the post author without having to go through the entire comment tree.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:56PM
What I particularly like about this comment is not so much its content (I have no strong opinion on that topic although its at least somewhat interesting) but the idea that we've had about 10 posts all summarizing to "moderation doesn't seem broke so admins please don't waste your time by prioritize fixing it" and the above post actually ranks the moderation problem in a spectrum, even if it only ranks it as somewhat beneath one specific feature wishlist.
I could list things for awhile I'd worry about before worrying about moderation. Could moderation be improved, well, theoretically yes, but its pretty good and without considerable care will probably get messed up accidentally rather than improved. (oh great, an 11th post along the same theme)
As for the spectrum of to do lists, aka things to worry about before moderation tweaking:
more articles better articles faster articles (not that they're awful now, just saying you'd get more results for your time by tweaking that system rather than moderation)
the current poll is from last month; just sayin. more people might participate in the polls if they were updated frequently? so lack of interest in a month old poll doesn't necessarily mean nobody is interested in polls in general. Speaking of poles (insert stereotypical ethic joke here, no just kidding) this whole article probably should have been a poll not an article. I suspect the percentage of "eh its OK ish" would have been pretty overwhelming without the noise of 11 people posting a prose comment, or rephrased whatever good ideas might be commented wouldn't be buried in the signal to noise ratio.
things that are probably less important than mod system tweaking
the candy bar logo is technically nice, and aesthetically is a very nice candy bar, and on a candy bar discussion web site would be perfectly awesome, but it doesn't exactly scream "soylent news" Of course many logos aren't a good fit to their org but ...
the red color scheme is about one shade too dark
the finances right side bar are depressing. either find some dough by selling blood plasma or cut expenses or stop making it look depressing. Like PBS fund drive.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:38PM
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:47PM
I've used a debt card with paypal with no issues before, but almost all US debt cards can be run as credit (and this is true when I've used my debt card in the Eurozone). As we're United States based, we're somewhat limited to payment processors in the United States; otherwise we could be subject to taxes in foreign countries. It is, unfortunately, a cost we simply can't afford at this moment. If we were flush with money, opening a European equivalent of the PBC might be an option, but thats not the case.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:29AM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:44AM
Sometimes I feel it would be useful to have the rating separated from the verdict. Trolling is not always a bad thing, there are some intellectually really appealing troll posts sometimes which I would really like to mod "+1 Troll" or "+1 Flaimbait". This is a minority of troll posts, of course.
Also I think the Offtopic should not always be -1. Sometimes a thread drifts off topic but leads to very interesting side-topics, and it is annoying to see these posts all modded down by some "guardians". Users can always set extra-modifiers in my/comments [soylentnews.org] if they want to filter off-topic comments. (Of course this goes both ways, and I can add +1 for off-topic to compensate for the default value of -1.)
I would appreciate to have additional options "+1 Troll" or "0 Offtopic".
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:54PM
For trolling to be sometimes considered a 'good thing' means defining what you mean by trolling.
If someone says something that is counter to everyone else's viewpoint but is worth further consideration - then it is surely 'Interesting'. If they have identified something that others have missed, then perhaps it could be thought of as being 'Insightful'. If they have made a point that has clarified the topic under discussion, then perhaps it is 'Informative'.
Trolling remains, in my view, a negative moderation. There are plenty of existing moderations that cover the example that you used and which you described as 'intellectually really appealing troll posts'. I don't want to see troll posts - but if you give them a +1 how do I get rid of them?
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:52PM
Isn't there an option to hide posts moderated as whatever in the user settings?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:44PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:12PM
So far so good. I get mod points every day and I spend a few here and there. Though, one thing that Slashdot did right was meta modding.
Suggestion:
As another poster mentioned, a method to undo a bad mod or tag a bad mod. Tagged mods go into a meta list for the article itself. This way a mod can dive into a list of tagged mods for each individual article at their leisure. In addition to individual article meta modding, every article would feed into a master meta list for the day/front page/etc.
A meta that is tagged unfair is voted on by moderators as fair/unfair. Only registered users with good karma or some other requirement can tag mods fair/unfair with or without mod points. Mata modding itself should follow the same rules and either burn mod points or have some sort of limit.
Moderators who have a high unfair mod count against them simply get their mod privileges taken away. Then, enact some type of exponential punishment system that does not perma ban people but just punishes them more and more. The harder they mod troll the more time they have to wait for mod points until it's pointless.
What this wont fix? Trolls jumping from one registered name to another. But that can be fixed by a number of things (and I believe most are in place): need a certain level of karma, have to be a member for x days before mod points are given, mod points given out increases with karma.
(NOTE: Some/most of this might be in place but I am ignorant of it.)
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:41PM
Sounds like this scheme has the possibility for organised groups to effectively silence opponents using the metamodding system. You'd need a metametamod system to handle that....
(Score: 2) by BK on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:25PM
Both moderation and meta-moderation are / can be tools to silence dissenting voices. Meta-moderation amplifies this effect by blocking unpopular but good moderators and letting past popular but bad moderators. Just because it worked for the green site doesn't mean it is needed here.
There should be a way for the admins to temp-ban or even perm-ban moderators who massively abuse... I have seen (and taken part in) threads where I am almost certain viewpoint based moderation was going on for multiple viewpoints... This is _always_ harmful. But foxing it requires meta-mods who are prepared to sometimes -- even often -- punish those they strongly agree with and to reward those who they strongly disagree with. It's not easy to do that well.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by paulej72 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:27PM
We do have a way to temp ban and almost perma ban moderators. It is simple date in the database. If that date in in the past you can mod, if not you are banned. We have done this to some moderators that improperly used the spam mod, and we have it available for people who mod bomb. This system requires admins to look at the info and manually decide to ban a user.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:08PM
I have seen (and taken part in) threads where I am almost certain viewpoint based moderation was going on for multiple viewpoints... This is _always_ harmful.
Oh, really? Citation needed, as per the FA.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hubie on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:38PM
I think this is pretty important. If you're not browsing at -1 to see all comments, then I don't think your moderation drop-down boxes should be visible. You can't correct abusive mods if you don't see them, and you can't promote good AC comments if you don't see them. You otherwise introduce selection bias whereby only comments that break a certain mod threshold get promoted. I think this elevates "popular" opinions quickly and leads to groupthink.
I'm not a web programmer nor do I have insight into how Slashcode works so I don't know how feasible this is, but for the lazy maybe have a "I want to moderate" button you hit that sets a default browse condition (e.g., -1, nested, oldest first), and a "I'm done moderating" button to set it back to their default values.
(Score: 3, Touché) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:39PM
I see your forced threshhold browsing and raise you a custom GreaseMonkey filter.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:20PM
A counterexample is when something is incorectly positively modded informative when it is actually wrong. In that case, you don't have to see every comment in the thread to moderate the comment fairly.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:58PM
I don't see that as much of a counter-example as it doesn't do anything to help you see -1 comments.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:06PM
My own view is that the moderation system is working OK as it is. Unless someone comes up with a really smart idea in the comments here, then I would be content to leave the mod system alone.
There is a problem with ACs occasionally running amok but nothing I have seen suggested will correct that problem.
We are in danger of trying to tweak the system one way and then another depending on changing personal whims and, unless a clear benefit can be seen, I believe that we should leave the current system 'as is' for the time being.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday May 20 2015, @02:39PM
There is a problem with ACs occasionally running amok but nothing I have seen suggested will correct that problem.
I actually did [soylentnews.org] suggest something that could help in my earlier comment about moderation: give people extra mod points that can only be used to moderate 0/-1 posts. Basically extra "free" points that are only there to upvote the good ACs (or registered users that got modbombed) and bury the bad ones. Still relies on people being willing to read at 0, but I think it would work better than automated measures.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @02:46PM
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday May 20 2015, @02:55PM
None taken, I just assumed it got lost in the pile so I was trying to bring attention to it. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:52PM
I pretty much agree with this. There is one thing I would suggest, not as a change to the moderation system, but rather as a sort of "gentlemen's agreement" when moderating a comment as something like Disagree. When someone does this but adds no comment of their own, it doesn't really add anything to the discussion. So, if anyone does add a moderation of Disagree could they please tell us why they disagree? That would give those of us following the discussion at least some idea of what specifically they objected to. Otherwise it can look as if someone is using their karma to settle some old scores after getting butt hurt in a previous discussion. Also, I've noticed on at least one occasion someone post some pretty obvious flame bait then get upmodded as Insightful. At the time I strongly suspected this poster as using a sock puppet to do that. I should think that those in charge should come down pretty hard on anyone caught doing that as it damages the credibility of the entire site.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by danomac on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:25PM
There's only one way to fix that, and that's to not allow AC posting.
Alternatively, I wonder if there could be a mechanism that monitors AC posts and their moderation. If lots of AC comments are being downmodded over a set time, once it hits a threshold AC posts are banned for a short time. To extend that, maybe it could even monitor the IP of the AC, and ban only it or its subnet.
This way if the AC community wants to be a bunch of arseholes the rest of the community doesn't have to suffer.
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:34PM
There is a method that already exists for this, but there is an issue with the system that calculates the karma of an IP or subnet (the only way to track AC's). The problem is that an IP or subnet karma can be over the current 50 point karma limit. This means that it really hard for downmods to bring an AC user into karma trouble if they are good about getting at least a few upvoted comments.
This issue is on on my todo list to look into and see why the karma limit is not set for IPs and subnets. The recent bout of AC trolls and the newish spam mod brought this discrepancy to light just recently.
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 2) by danomac on Thursday May 21 2015, @12:35AM
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @09:17PM
While I understand your concerns with the occasional AC running amok, I would strenuously object to banning AC posting. I do not have an account. I always post as AC. This is a deliberate choice on my part. And, in case you were wondering, many of my posts do end up getting upmodded, so I do think I contribute responsibly to the discussion. (So far since I started posting comments here several months ago, only one of my posts has been downmodded.) I have noticed this occasional call for eliminating AC posting as a means of stripping away the veil, as it were, so that various shit-stirrers will be exposed. While this is true, I think elimination of AC posting could have it's own set of problems. I have noticed on more than one occasion that someone's response to a comment was just as much an ad hominem reaction to the person as to what they had actually said. On the other side, when I post as AC it forces people to actually respond to what I have said. For these reasons, I think that AC postings have their place here on SN.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VanessaE on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:37AM
Then how about only disallowing AC-without-login posting? By that I mean you could post as AC if you want, but to do so, you have to create an account and/or login and then tick the "Post Anonymously" checkbox (i.e. the one right below this edit box) just before you submit your post.
One could even have a setting in their account preferences to tick that box by default.
The system would then track posts by originating user account (as though those users weren't posting as AC), and those posts and any mod actions taken against them would affect the posters' karma accordingly, but it would still hide the posters' identities from the rest of the readers.
The whole point of AC was to hide one's identity, wasn't it? Using that to avoid the fallout from moderation is not a legit use of the feature, and is a big part of why there are so many spammers and trolls on the green site (as well as the few we get here).
In any case, it's not like it takes much effort to create an account, and it's not as if you have to supply money or your real name to do so (ironic I should say this, since this IS my real name :-P ).
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday May 21 2015, @11:28AM
There are people who simply do not want to create an account on principle. Moderation seems to do fairly well at keeping the crud buried, and if necessary, sysops have access to the "bitchslap" script which can mass mod an entire IPID or subnet ID to oblivion (we've fortunately never had to use this). Some of the best comments I've read come from ACs who simply do not want to register. There are benefits to having an account such as persistent preferences, but I'm fairly happy with allowing ACs to comment. If it ever became a true issue, we can block AC posting on a per-story basis (functionality we inherited).
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:46PM
I've only seen issues with posts being incorrectly modded offtopic, but rarely. I do think we could use some more moderation options, or a "write-in" option.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:57PM
> I do think we could use some more moderation options, or a "write-in" option.
I hereby moderate this post "+1, Penis"
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:07PM
Only so long as I can do a "-1 Vagina"
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @07:30PM
"+0 Genderqueer"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kbahey on Wednesday May 20 2015, @01:52PM
I said this before, and I will repeat it again.
This is not to belittle the efforts that have been made so far. The site is awesome. It fixed long standing issues that Slashdot has been suffering from for over 15 years. Think unicode or having the summary display when clicking a link to a single comment.
But, I feel that sometimes there is an urge to change things just because we can, without it being a pressing need or an urgent problem to be fixed.
If it works don't fix it. The site works. Leave the code alone. Think of ways to increase readership, most importantly by recruiting new readers and contributors, rather than changing the code.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:16PM
As far as I understand, this thread is basically because there were a few posters who complained in their comments that the moderation system were broken (IMHO they were wrong). So this one does not appear to be about change for the sake of change.
Anyway, there's no harm is discussing it. It's certainly better then either acting without asking whether action is welcome (aka Beta), but it is also better than just assuming everyone is OK with the current situation (because, well, how do you know if you don't ask?)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by mechanicjay on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:24PM
You make a fair point, however, constantly examining what we do to see if it's meeting the needs of the community and looking for things we can do better is how we can keep the site relevant and growing. Stagnation leads to death.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kbahey on Wednesday May 20 2015, @03:28PM
I hear ya.
While stagnation and stability are close, they not the same.
Stability in the technology underlining the site is a good thing. Too many changes too quickly is not good.
I'd rather that the efforts be focused on attracting more users for more comments and more moderation.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday May 21 2015, @11:23AM
There are no plans to overhaul moderation. The thread feedback has convienced me the system is largely fine as is. But we (the staff) sometimes just need to flat out ask what the community feels. At our largest, I think we're about 10-15 people active at any given time. We need to check on occasion that we're still in touch with reality and the community. I've (famously) managed to bug crap up by misreading intent, and while I took steps to correct that, it could have been avoided in the first place.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by kbahey on Wednesday May 27 2015, @02:36AM
Thanks for the reply, and thanks for noting the feedback from the community.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:07PM
I'd like to mod inline, without warping back to the top of the page. I often hit back and refresh to get back to where I was faster, but that's not ideal.
The rest of the mod system is pretty decent, though it would be nicer to display every mod a post got, rather than just the last one. Since that could mean way to much text, it would require little icons with numbers. This way, if I see a funny+insightful+flamebait post, I'd mod it whichever category is missing, rather than have to just chose one.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:08PM
Overall I think it's fine. There might be changes I would like but I could totally live without them. I'm not really sure what is doable change wise, I have never looked at the code. But since you are asking there are things I would like to change such as ...
Limiting the amount of AC posts; I assume the system knows who the AC is so limiting the amount of AC posts should be doable. There really isn't that much use for them, people are just using them to hide. I do it from time to time to, but I'd be willing to give that up. Sometimes I don't even know why I AC the posts. But I do believe it's rare on my part. Sometimes there is a valid reason to AC post but most of the time it just seems to be for people to flame others, people they don't agree with or they are pissed off with for some other reason.
Why is modification anonymous? Why can't we see who thought some post was insightful or interesting? That shouldn't really be such a great secret. I think this might also lower the amount of troll and flamebait modification if it was associated with people by name instead of just becoming a pseudo-anonymous negative click. I don't think or suggest this as some kind of name-and-shame feature but I think it would have overall beneficial effects.
Also for fun, remove the 50 karma cap. It's just a value really. Does it really serve a purpose to limit it? Why not let it grow, gathering points is "fun". OK I can imagine someone gathering lots of point and then going on a mad-spam-spree but beyond that.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:39PM
When I post as AC the system does not know who I am. I post AC without login when posting from my employer's computer. I post with my account at home from my own computer.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:56PM
Because it leads to modding wars based on usernames rather than what is being said. The staff can see who mods what, and we do try to keep an eye on things to prevent moderation abuse. If you think that we have missed one, flag it up and we can review it.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:19PM
In the frist post, I asked if we could have some stats on this:
The staff can see who mods what, and we do try to keep an eye on things to prevent moderation abuse.
How many actions have staff had to take, say, in the last month? Is the current mod regime causing too much work for the staff, or is it manageable?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday May 21 2015, @08:24AM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday May 21 2015, @08:46AM
No definitive stats necessary, just a rough assessment from an ed?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday May 21 2015, @09:13AM
I've only been involved/aware of 3 or 4 instances in the past few months where action had to be taken but, being a European, I miss a significant chunk of our busiest periods due to timezone differences. Therefore that figure could be very misleading and shouldn't really be taken as a measure of how big a problem it is. If I am not on IRC when it happens I could easily remain unaware of what others have been doing.
Is it a daily occurrence - No, I would say not. Does it happen enough to be worth considering - I would have to say Yes. But in the best traditions of anecdotal evidence and WAGs (Wild-Assed Guesses), that is as good as I, personally, can give you.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:33PM
Thanks, Janrinok! I see that once again it is your fault! WAGs will have to be good enough, I guess.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:44PM
We have to remember we still have a relatively small pool of users compared to what Slashdot at least used to be. There are bound to be some statistical aberrations in modding results. As the user base grows most of these should disappear. As it is, I have yet to see anything that could be called modding abuse here that was not eventually corrected by others.
I also think that there would be less down modding if people who posted opinions tried to do so a little more civilly. If you start a post off with insults you are going to immediately cause negative feelings in those reading it and there are too many sub-threads I've seen that have degenerated into juvenile name calling and insults.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:32PM
1. Add a +0 Agree mod.
2. Let users use +0 Agree and +0 Disagree more times a day (for example -0.1 mod points per Agree/Disagree mod).
3. Give users the ability to set a score threshold. If the threshold is -5, they don't see a post with 10 Disagree and 4 Agree mods.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:40AM
I like that. I would even go as far as an unlimited amount of agree/disagree mods which only shows up when one looks at the moderation stats for a particular post. No karma is involved, so there would be little incentive to abuse it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by chucky on Wednesday May 20 2015, @09:33PM
I didn't read all comments here, but I'd suggest losing moderation points equally to moderation: I get 5 points a day, mod something +2 Funny, I'd expect losing two points. I just did that, but I still have 4 points left for the day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @02:11PM
Wait, you can moderate the same post twice? Are you sure the second +1 wasn't from someone else who happened to moderate at the same time?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SlimmPickens on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:06PM
I still think that the spread of moderation is more interesting than the final score. It better reflects the views of the community.
1. Be able to mouse over the comment to show the spread, or some other method that prevents you from having to click on the comment and force a page load.
2. In one way or another allow the modding to be more granular. I think a lot of potential modding doesn't happen because one mod point is often too large.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:03PM
Second to mousing over the score to see the spread. Could be done using JavaScript with a title attribute fallback.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:59PM
The one thing that really irks me about the moderation system is that every time I moderate, I am sent back to the top of the page and have to scroll/find my way back to where I was. Surely it can't be that hard just to code the page reload to return to the anchor for the comment that was moderated? That or allow JS/ajax moderating to be enabled? Or both depending on user preferences?
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday May 21 2015, @10:12AM
I think we might want to increase the supported range for comment scores. Currently, most regulars post at +2. If they are modded +1 by only three people, it is indistinguishable from a post uprated by 10 people. Especially the use of extra modifiers becomes virtually pointless.
I also saw several AC posts unjustly modded down to -1, becoming invisible to most readers. If the range went down to -2 or -3 it would imply a review-process before a post hits the bottom.
At least the top should be adjusted from time to time, depending on how many comments are committed per day, and how many mod-points are used.
That said, the current system is not broken to me; I don't have strong feelings about these proposals. But if you want to tinker anyway, this might be a parameter to adjust.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 21 2015, @10:36PM
One improvement would be if downmodding trolls, spam, junk etc. Didn't cost moderator points. A separate "troll" account for that would be beneficial for the willingness to take action and not just save the mod points for good posts.
Btw, when viewing a reply page from the inbox. It would make things more efficient if one had the parent post included. Otherwise one is forced to do a whole thread load and lookup the post which taxes the processor and i/o way more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @02:08PM
I think that would be an invitation to abuse. The whole idea of moderation points is that a single malign person cannot do too much damage.
Also, with downmodding free, but upmodding not, it would create a bias for downmodding and against upmodding. Quite the opposite of what we want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @02:01PM
What about making the cost of moderating the larger, the higher the comment already is? A comment that's at +4 Interesting should only be moderated up to +5 interesting if it is a really outstanding post. That is, the score should not so much reflect how many people came around to moderate the post, but actually how good the post is. Making it more expensive to moderate up already high posts would encourage one to think about whether it is worth to further moderate up that already quite visible post, or if it wouldn't be more reasonable to spend the mod points on unmoderated or only slightly moderated posts.
The cost should, of course, be symmetric for up and down moderating (that is, the cost of brining a comment from +3 to +4 should be the same as the cost of bringing it from +4 to +3), to avoid bias (also, if several others have moderated it up, then maybe you should also think twice if it is really not that good).
As compensation to the increased moderation cost, the daily mod points could be increased.
A possible scale could be: