Milestone #1:
First off, please join me in congratulating janrinok in posting his 5,400th story! I can attest that it represents a tremendous commitment of time and effort, all freely given to the community. Thanks JR!
Milestone #2:
Secondly, we are a few days away from our team reaching 2.8 billion points towards Folding at Home. Official Team Stats and a more informative summary. As I write this, our team is currently ranked #392 in the world. Please be aware we are up against teams such as AWS, Google, Apple, Facebook, SAP, IBM, Dell, Oracle... you get the idea. Our top contributor is Runaway1956 who has been contributing about 2.5 million points per day. Barring any surprises, he is on track to reach 1 billion points by month's end. Way to go!
Moderation:
Lastly, I need to call the community's attention to some problems with moderations.
For the most part, things have been working out well! Considering the diverse viewpoints — and strong feelings about them — I'd say things are working amazingly well. There are some, however, who are prolific, vocal, strong-willed, and are trying to push their own agenda. They are likely to be unhappy with these changes. Until notified otherwise, feel free to moderate complaints about moderation as "-1 Offtopic" and just move on.
Effective Immediately:
For the benefit of the community who have been acting in good faith all along, staff will commence issuing moderation bans on accounts that have been acting unfairly. Each ban will have been discussed among staff and no unilateral action will be taken. If you receive a ban, it's because a majority of staff are in agreement that unfair moderations have been performed and needed to be dealt with.
Tools:
Staff have been developing tools and procedures for tracking moderation abuse for some time, and we are now reaching the stage where we can take action against offenders. It is necessary for these tools to provide a high degree of confidence to avoid false positives. We now have that confidence.
What's the Point?
Moderation is intended for the community to decrease the visibility of "poor" comments and to improve the visibility of "good" comments. Note the word "comments". The user who posted the comment should have no bearing on your moderation. (If it does, you are doing it wrong.) Express your disagreement either by presenting a counter argument in a new comment, or by using a "-1 Disagree" mod — that's what it's there for. As one staff member noted: "If you find almost everything another user posts objectionable, then moderation is not the solution — simply foe him, and set your preferences for foes to a suitably-low negative value."
Goal:
We have tried to provide the tools for the community to moderate itself. This has worked out well for the most part! Here's a big thank you to those who quietly go along and try to make SoylentNews a better place each day.
Sockpuppet Accounts:
These are hereby forbidden. If staff detects collusion in moderation, that is grounds for an immediate ban on moderation. Acct #1 and acct #2 both moderating acct #3 in lockstep? Ban. Acct #1 upmoding acct #2 and acct #2 upmodding acct #1 to boost karma? Ban.
The guidelines had previously stated that more than 4 downmods per day were forbidden, excess would be reversed. We have seen cases where user "A" has downmodded user "B" exactly 4 times per day for many days in a row. This demonstrates intentional action of one user against another user. Because such actions do have negative consequences on the visibility of user "B"'s posts and journals, they are effectively an act of censorship, and are strongly frowned upon; therefore staff reserves the right to take action up to an including a mod ban, at our sole discretion.
There are more instances; this list is NOT intended to be exhaustive.
Notice:
Think you can get away with something? Just because you have not seen us act so far, does not mean we have not noticed. If you persist, you're doing so at your own risk. Please do not come crying to us or the community when your schemes backfire — you have been warned. As mentioned earlier, complaints about moderation and moderation bans are off-topic and are to be moderated that way.
Summary:
Staff has access to daily reports and ad-hoc queries. We have been holding regular discussions about moderation abuse. We will continue to do so. Cases of perceived abuse are discussed and no action is taken unless there is unassailable evidence about the facts and substantial agreement about the consequences (thus avoiding unilateral action).
For future reference, here are the moderator guidelines at the time of this being written. They are undergoing review right now and will be revised to include the preceding.
This document attempts to explain the moderation system that lies underneath this implementation of Slashcode's vast comment section. It was originally written for Slashcode years ago, so the specifics of this moderation system are outlined here. Keep in mind that as this project grows, some aspects can change to better serve the community and improve the overall experience.
Contents
Purpose
As you might have noticed, a site like this can get a lot of comments. Some are downright terrible; others are truly gems, and hundreds of comments can be hard to sift through.
The moderation system is designed to sort the gems and the crap from the steady stream of information that flows through the pipe. And wherever possible, it tries to make the readers of the site take on the responsibility.
The goal is that each reader will be able to read the the threshold they prefer. Select "-1" and you'll see trolls and possible wrongly-modded comments, try "5" and you'll see only the top-rated comments.
Goals
- Promote Quality, Discourage Crap.
- Make SoylentNews as readable as possible for as many people as possible.
- Do not require a huge amount of time from any single moderator.
- Do not allow any single moderator a 'reign of terror' -- no 'mod bombs'.
Who
We've set up a few simple rules for determining who is eligible to moderate.
- Logged In User If the system can't keep track, it won't work, so you gotta log in. Sorry if you're paranoid, but this system demands a certain level of accountability.
- Positive Contributors Slashcode tracks your "Karma" (see the FAQ). If you have non-negative Karma, this means you have posted more good comments than bad, and are eligible to moderate. This weeds out spam accounts.
- No Sockpuppet Accounts Accounts newer than 1 month are not eligible to moderate. This should keep sockpuppet accounts from immediately being a problem.
So the end result is a pool of eligible users that represent (hopefully) average, positive SoylentNews contributors.
How
Each day every eligible moderator is given
510 mod points to play with. Each comment they moderate deducts a point. When they run out of points, they are done moderating until 00:10 UTC when mod points are regenerated.Moderation takes place by clicking the drop down list that appears next to comments, and selecting one of the adjectives like 'Flamebait' or 'Informative'. In general, bad words will reduce a comment's score by a single point (a 'down mod'), good words increase a comment's score by a single point (an 'up mod'). All comments are scored on an absolute scale from -1 to 5. Logged in users start at 1 (although this can vary from -1 to 2 based on their overall contribution to discussions) and anonymous users start at 0.
Moderators can participate in the same discussion as both a moderator and a poster. You are only prevented from modding your own posts.
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to 'down mod' it. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to 'up mod' it. The goal here is to share ideas. To sift through the haystack and find golden, shiny needles. And to keep the children who like to spam in check.
Mod Bombs
A 'mod bomb' is simply when a user, 'A', uses
all5 or more of their moderation points to 'down mod' comments posted by a single user, 'B'. Would you want someone who has a vendetta to usealla bunch of their mod points on your comments? It works both ways -- don't usealla bunch of your mod points on a single user. When this is detected, the account performing the moderation ('A') is given a 30-day 'time out' on moderating all moderations making up the mod bomb are reversed and the mod points are not returned. We would like to make the code automatically prevent a mod bomb from occurring, but this is not yet in place. The focus is on the quality of the comments on the site, not on who posts them. Remember that there are other users on the site who have mod points. If you have used all that are permitted, do not fret as someone else will likely come along later.Sock Bombs
Much like a 'mod bomb', a 'sock bomb' is when a user, 'A', use 4 or more of their moderation points to 'up mod' comments posted by a single user, 'B'. (The name is taken from the idea of a "sockpuppet" account.) Again, our intention is to update the code to automatically prevent this from happening. We realize that this can happen unintentionally when, say, a subject-matter expert provides supporting information in comments to a story. Excess 'up mods' beyond 4 per day are subject to being reversed. A repeated pattern of user 'A' upmodding user 'B' may be subject to further action. In short, please do not try to 'game' the system.
Spam Mod
The spam moderation (spam mod) is to be used only on comments that genuinely qualify as spam. Spam is unsolicited advertisement, undesired and offtopic filth, or possibly illegal in general. Spam can come in many forms, but it differs from a troll comment in that it will have absolutely no substance, is completely undesired, is detrimental to the site, or worse.
The spam mod is special in that is removes 10 Karma points from the user that posted the comment. This mod is meant to combat spam and not to be used to punish commenters (when in doubt, don't use this mod). Our goal is to put a spammer in Karma Hell and for them to not be able to get out of it easily. As we do not want this used against non-spamers, we monitor all spam mods to make sure moderators are not abusing the spam mod. If we find a moderator that unfairly applied the spam mod, we remove the mod giving the poster back the Karma points, and the modder is banned from modding for one month. Further bans to the same modder add increasing amounts of ban time. If you inadvertently applied a spam mod, mail the admin and we will remove the spam mod without banning you. Even though we have updated the interface to physically separate the spam mod from the other mods, unintentional modding may still be an unfortunate occurrence.
Examples
If you are unsure of whether a comment is spam or not, don't use the spam mod. Here are some examples of spam:
- Proper spam. Anything whose primary purpose is advertisement (unless somehow relevant to the discussion/article).
- HOSTS/GNAA/etc... type posts. Recurring, useless annoyances we're all familiar with.
- Posts so offtopic and lacking value to even be a troll that they can't be called anything else. See here, here or here for example.
- Repeating the same thing over and over. This includes blockquoting entire comments without adding anything substantial to them.
Moderation Issues
If you see moderation abuse (mod bombing or spam mod), please mail the admin any comments (the cid link) showing the abuse. Alternatively, mention it on the main IRC channel. We will investigate and make amends if necessary. This also applies for users who display an atypical pattern of up or down mods against another user. Moderation abuse may result in the loss of ability to moderate for a time, or in some cases, permanently. (If you find almost everything another user posts objectionable, then moderation is not the solution - simply foe them, and set your preferences for foes to a suitably low negative value.
FAQ I just got moderator access, what do I do?
The fact that you are reading this document proves that you are already on the right track.
Why can't I moderate any more?
- Do you still have any moderator points left?
- You can't moderate your own posts.
What is a Good Comment? A Bad Comment?
- Good Comments are insightful. You read them and are better off having read them. They add new information to a discussion. They are clear, hopefully well written, or maybe amusing. These are the gems we're looking for, and they deserve to be promoted. (Score: 2-5)
- Average Comments might be slightly offtopic, but still might be worth reading. They might be redundant. They might be a 'Me Too' comment. They might say something painfully obvious. They don't detract from the discussion, but they don't necessarily significantly add to it. They are the comments that require the most attention from the moderators, and they also represent the bulk of the comments. (Score: 0-1)
- Bad Comments are flamebait, incorrect, or have nothing to do with the article. Other examples: Ad Hominem, ridicule for others with different opinion (without backing it up with anything more tangible than strong words), repeats of something said 15 times already (read previous comments before you post), use of unnecessary foul language, some are hard to read or just don't make any sense. Basically they detract from the article they are attached to. (Score: -1)
What is Karma?
Karma is the sum of all moderation activity done to a user. Karma is used to determine eligibility for moderator status and can affect your comments starting score. Every new user starts with a Karma of 0, and as long as your Karma isn't negative you are eligible to become a moderator.
Why Don't I get my points back after I post in a discussion I moderated?
We've decided to allow a moderator to moderate in a discussion, and then comment afterward without undoing their moderation.
How can I improve my Karma?
10 tips for improving your Karma:
- Post intelligently:
- Interesting, insightful, thought provoking comments are rated higher on a fairly consistent basis.
- Post calmly:
- Nobody likes a flame war. In fact, more times than not the flamer gets burned much more than their target. "Flamebait" is hit quickly and consistently with "-1" by moderators. As the bumper sticker says... "Don't be a dick."
- If you can't be deep, be funny:
- If you don't have something to contribute to the discussion, some humor is welcome. Humor is lacking in our lives and will continue to be promoted. Remember though, what rips your sides out may be completely inane to somebody else.
- Post early:
- If an article has over a certain number of posts on it already, yours is less likely to be moderated. This is less likely both statistically (there are more to choose from) and due to positioning (as a moderator I have to actually find your post way at the end of a long list.)
- Post often:
- If you only post once a month you can expect your karma to remain low. Also, lively discussion in an open forum is what makes SoylentNews really "Rock the Casbah."
- Stay on topic:
- Off topic posts are slapped quickly and consistently with "-1" by moderators.
- Be original:
- Avoid being redundant and just repeating what has already been said. (Did I really just say that?) Yes, being moderated as "redundant" is worth "-1" to your post and your karma. Especially to be avoided are the "what he said" and "me too" posts.
- Read it before you post:
- Does it say what you really want it to say? Check your own spelling and grammar. Occasionally, a perfectly beneficial post is passed over by moderators because it is completely irrelevant to content feature. This is also a good approach to checking yourself for what you're really saying. Can't tell you the number of times I've stopped myself from saying the opposite of what I meant by checking my own s&g.
- Log in as a registered user:
- I know, this sounds obvious but, "Anonymous Coward" does not have a karma rating. You can't reap the perceived benefits of your own accidental brilliance if you post anonymously. Have pride in your work and take credit for it.
- Read SoylentNews regularly:
- You can't possibly contribute to the discussion if you're not in the room. Come to the party and play.
Related Stories
Rovio has confirmed that 110 people will lose their jobs as the Angry Birds maker also shuts down its game-development studio in Tampere. The layoffs, first announced in October, amount to about 14 percent of the company's workforce.
It had been expected that Rovio would make 130 people redundant but after a round of consultations this number has now been reduced. Rovio said that as a result of the redundancies "several positions" have been opened for internal applications. The actual number of employees out of work will depend on how many new internal positions are filled.
Ars reports on the most recent blogger death in Bangladesh:
Assailants with cleavers and machetes on Tuesday killed another blogger in Bangladesh, the third blogger in that country murdered in as many months, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Another blogger killed in Bangladesh earlier this year used Facebook as his medium, the committee said.
The committee said that Ananta Bijoy Das, who wrote about science and railed against religious fundamentalism, was killed Tuesday by four masked men in the northeastern city of Sylhet in broad daylight.
The death of Das brings to at least 20 the number of writers murdered globally this year, according to CPJ statistics. Bangladesh is ranked 13th globally with at least 16 killed since 1992.
An American blogger (of Bangladeshi origin) was an earlier victim this year.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 list came out this week and it featured a prominent security researcher. Other researchers were pleased to see one of their own getting positive attention, and visited the site in droves to view the list.
On arrival, like a growing number of websites, Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers in order to view the article. After doing so, visitors were immediately served with pop-under malware, primed to infect their computers, and likely silently steal passwords, personal data and banking information. Or, as is popular worldwide with these malware "exploit kits," lock up their hard drives in exchange for Bitcoin ransom. The exploit used was a version of hackenfreude.
Forbes has recently taken some flack from Soylent News readers for its heavy-handed approach to ad blockers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @10:08AM (5 children)
Aristarchus says, well, fuck me. Roll on, Runaway!
(Score: 2) by Anti-aristarchus on Friday August 20 2021, @10:57PM (4 children)
I am not aristarchus, in fact I am anti-aristarchus, and apparently I am a victim of the Ordo Novum.
I have been banned from moderation, for no reason that I can discern. No sock-puppet modding. No spamming. Must have just moderated the "wrong" way. So let the false positives flow!
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anti-aristarchus on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:15AM (3 children)
Sorry to respond to my own post, but I have been given no justification for being banned from moderation, via Private message, or email, or anything. This is just rude. Can I face my accusers, or at least some evidence of what ever I am accused of? Is it just that I chose a user name that has "aristarchus" in it? I am not him, and have never claimed to be. But some admins think that the simularity is enough to ban me from moderation? Or is it that I up-modded Azuma Hazuki? That would be enough to mod-ban anyone, right?
If this situation is not resolved quickly, I will be appealing the SoylentNews decision to the European Court of Human Rights. I hope you all Brexited beforehand. Restore my moderation privileges, or face the consequences.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:38AM (2 children)
Your wish shall be granted.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:56AM (1 child)
You do not know as much as you think you know, janrinok! Aristarchus is some years older than you, and better at strategy, and IP configurations. Perhaps these are not the sockpuppets you are looking for? [Jedi hand-wave]. But seriously, I have seen this before with the paraniod Jesus James Angleton, and The Mighty Buzzard, who were sure they identified moles in MI6, and the CIA. Do you have the chops to ferret out all of Runaway's sockpuppets, running out of his Russian VPN? Do you need some help?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:01AM
True, but he is also dead.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday August 20 2021, @10:15AM
It's almost unbearable.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday August 20 2021, @10:20AM (114 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Friday August 20 2021, @10:37AM (4 children)
https://soylentnews.org/faq.pl?op=moderation [soylentnews.org] is the original. All the links work.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 20 2021, @01:04PM (3 children)
In the original, they work. In the TFS' spoiler, they don't (not even at the moment I'm posting this comment)
I wasn't curious enough to look for the differences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday August 20 2021, @01:09PM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Friday August 20 2021, @02:16PM (1 child)
If I add an & between cid=xxxxx and sid=xxxx then the links work.
eg.
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?cid=123138sid=5164 [soylentnews.org]
should be
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?cid=123138&sid=5164 [soylentnews.org]
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday August 20 2021, @03:37PM
Thank you. The SN software for editing is as old and archaic as the original Slashcode. It has not been updated or improved at all as the main site takes a priority - editors just have to get used to it. As you will know, the & character is sometimes treated differently and when editing a story it has to be escaped. The copy/paste does not recognise this requirement so the editor just 'eats' the character.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:05AM (20 children)
There will be next to no false positives. We only act when the evidence is incontrovertable, and independently done by more than one admin, and if there's general consensus. If you'd have read the bloody article, you'd have noticed that this is already explicitly explained. As you can see - we're more fastidious than you, and one step ahead.
And of course there's recourse, what made you think otherwise? There's IRC for real-time questions, and of course always email as a fallback. Any action that's done can be undone. If the argument is compelling. Sometimes the argument is utterly risible, and we are compelled only to laugh.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @01:19PM
Hey, that's just what Apple says about their CSAM scanning. Maybe we should client side scan phones too to check for troll and spam comments before they get uploaded! Or maybe use machine learning to blur the point of a troll post?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday August 20 2021, @01:31PM (17 children)
Pinky-promise? Because I'm seeing
and
with just a wee too scarce details of what that "automatical prevention" entails.
Maybe if you'd add the those details to TFA...?
Read the title of my comment - it's intended to be a "Review of the spoiler".
As a consequence, if "the bloody article" is meant to provide extra explanations for the "spoiler" maybe it would be a good idea to tell janrinok [soylentnews.org] to fucken include those explanations too where they belong [soylentnews.org]. I don't know, maybe it will help the future soylenters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Friday August 20 2021, @02:28PM (8 children)
You can tell me what you want. I simply told you why the links hadn't transferred.
As Martyb clearly states, the contents of the spoiler are as it is today but he also pointed out that it is being rewritten. We do not agree with automatic bans or software taking action without admins being in the loop. There are numerous problems with the existing guidelines, including that they can never address every eventuality.
The fact that software might identify unusual activity does not automatically imply that somebody is abusing the system. We would prefer that software flags up potential problems and the admins investigate the causes. If necessary and only with the agreement of multiple parties, we will take any necessary punitive action. We are hoping that the latter will never, or at least rarely, be necessary as the few in the community who do try to abuse the system begin to use the site as it was originally intended to be used.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday August 20 2021, @02:56PM (7 children)
My intention was to point things that caught my eye while reading them and provide whatever I thought as feedback.
The brief of my points:
1. the guideline as is it now does not contain everything one needs to know about the "rules of the modding game", especially the newly introduced "modbombing" and "sockbombing". Missing: what happens if genuinely one gets over the "more than 4 mods to the same user" limit, just because it just happen to be about good quality comments or bad enough comments, irrespective of the author.
2. dangling links - no longer a concern
3. I suggest to rephrase "Post calmly: Nobody likes a flame war.". If we don't accept flamewars as a way of life or just frown of them, say directly so.
I hope that helps, I started to grow tired of the thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @09:10PM (1 child)
Ya, I think the 4/user rule is bad. Maybe in combination with multiple days of the same targeting and a staff member reviewing the posts to see if it is unwarranted. If a post can be argued as downmod worthy then it shouldn't matter, and besides as they say it is up to the community to fix bad mods. Sock puppets are the only real problem.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:44PM
Trouble is, if a post is downmodded, fewer readers will even see it to consider upmodding it.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by FatPhil on Saturday August 21 2021, @05:49AM (4 children)
Thank you for demonstrating that you're too stupid to understand the problem. You can line up alongside worthies such as The Mighty Buzzard there, you're not alone. Learn some fucking game theory before opening your mouth next time, it'll help you avoid making such trivial mistakes again.
And read the fucking article. Everything you need to know is already there.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Troll) by c0lo on Saturday August 21 2021, @06:40AM (3 children)
Go to sleep, FatPhil, your behaviour is unbecoming of you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @06:54AM (2 children)
I think, FatPhil has favorites. Not a first for admins, or editores. There is abundant bias and sepsis on SoylentNews, and it would be a good thing if some of it was aired out, or cauterized, or possibly just lobotomized. We have seen the first wave of false positives. How about a list of Runaway's sock puppets? Or Azumi's? Do we have data on such things, or are we just prosecuting Soylentils for "wrongthink"?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday August 21 2021, @07:13AM
Nobody's perfect, yes. And no matter how much data one will have, one won't make another perfect (so why bother? Not like there's a better one to volunteer for an editor)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday August 21 2021, @08:09AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday August 21 2021, @06:47AM (7 children)
Well, if they were one step behind, they would be looking *at* your ass.
It is hard enough to get volunteers to admin this site now... if they were forced to look at that all the time it would be impossible. ;)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday August 21 2021, @06:58AM (6 children)
Clarification: «"one step ahead" my ass» was meant as a dismissal of the invitation to a
pissingfastidiousness contest.I realized that I should have been more explicit, my apologies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday August 21 2021, @08:11AM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday August 21 2021, @08:41AM (4 children)
And so...?
No clear answer was offered, no specific mistake was been pointed out, just a contest of fastidiousness has been tabled.
Even your post now is an exercise in futility, and I admit I don't understand your reason to engage in it.
I lost nothing (maybe just a bit a bit of time) but as sure as hell the questioner won nothing even if s/he may think so.
Last I checked, nobody here was offering medals in pissing contests and I did not engage in one with my first comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:02AM (3 children)
Why are you referring to yourself in the third person? Are you so unable to keep track of things that you forget what you're posting?
> I lost nothing
Except reputation. And the pissing contest of who can actually work things out.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:27AM
FatPhil,
this is a courtesy message informing you I don't see any sense of continuing this banter. You can rest assured my reputation has nothing to gain or lose on S/N.
Phil free to assume whatever you like and draw whatever conclusion you see fat, at the end of this conversation I find no reason to even (grin).
Until next time we'll have some better topic, with all due respect, yours
c0lo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday August 21 2021, @01:14PM (1 child)
That was pretty weak, Phil. Even if we adopt the viewpoint that C0lo has a reputation to risk, why would C0lo's reputation be at risk here? You're not challenging him. Playground taunting doesn't have the effect it once had. And one who has lived through many projects with many glowing promises has run into the problem of reality not meeting expectations.
Really what are the criticisms of C0lo in this subthread? 1) He likely doesn't have an inspirational ass for the purposes of inspiring the SN troops, 2) somehow that was interpreted by you as "your ability to read and process information was being called into question", and 3) some pointless quips that are beneath even your limited intellect (since when have you referred to yourself in the second person?! *shock*).
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @03:11PM
An incel with autism defending an incel with autism against a fat euro white trash. Dum dum dum dum duuuuuuumb.
>inspirational ass
This is the type of typo that happens when an incel optimizes his time by just letting the porn play in the background all day, instead of starting and stopping it every two hours.
>inspirational ass
And this is what happens when one has been exposed to so much porn, only weird shit gets you off, like trannies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:10PM
Yeah, right, sure!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday August 20 2021, @11:18AM (84 children)
So am I supposed to pander to the majority of Soylentils' tastes to be upmodded?
The thing that always gets me with moderators is, they may not like the opinions in my posts, but I would expect them to at least appreciate that I'm trying to put forward a valid point of view or articulate an argument. But more often than not, I end up modded as troll, overrated or flamebait simply because the guys with the mod points disagree.
I mean I don't really care at the end of the day. It's just a forum. But it always saddens me to see moderators confuse their personal opinion and the post's moderation value.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Friday August 20 2021, @11:39AM (54 children)
We sympathise with you - and we discuss this very point in TFA.
Moderations should reflect the comment's content, not the moderator's views of the user making the comment.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday August 20 2021, @11:49AM (5 children)
Slashdot-style moderation has been a well-understood process for over 2 decades, yet people with mod points still can't resist the temptation. I know you discuss this issue in TFA but I can tell you right here and now that it won't change a damn thing.
Having said that, I must say it occurs less on SN than on ./ and that's refreshing.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:53PM (4 children)
Green site does not let you moderate in a discussion in which you've posted a comment. I haven't fully understood the pros and cons of each, but I can see merit either way. Perhaps that's one of many factors in the different outcomes?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday August 22 2021, @12:21AM (3 children)
I have to say, rightly or wrongly, I don't like that green site rule. I'm much more likely to post comments in a discussion I'm interested in and so I'm consequently more likely to spend time reading other people's comments in that same discussion, so they may be worth modding. If I don't read a comment or I'm not interested in the subject matter then it doesn't make much sense to moderate it.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday August 22 2021, @01:14AM (2 children)
I certainly agree with you. Playing Devil's advocate: perhaps moderation is better done by people who have less passion about a topic? You know, impartial judges and all of that sort of thing.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday August 22 2021, @05:05PM (1 child)
In theory, yes. In practice, we're talking about volunteers so I rather suspect many just wouldn't bother moderating as much. An impartial judge may be very fair or they may turn out to be unduly harsh and callous due to simply not caring about the consequences of their decisions.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday August 22 2021, @06:20PM
Yes, absolutely agree. I'll add that some people (seem to) have grudges, "chip on shoulder"- some kind of angst and are often "triggered" by something they don't like or don't agree with and do a downmod.
Over the past couple of years we've had several discussions about the mod system. Frankly I didn't feel that it was a truly open discussion, and I think I raised several important points that were pretty much ignored. But such is the nature of this type of system. I come here wishing for a more open "think-tank" discussion atmosphere. For example, if I was an admin, I'd start a special discussion about the mod system, but no moderation would function would exist in that discussion, except maybe "spam" or something to identify the very obvious garbage. In other words, a more fair open poll.
I'm not sure why a downmod bothers me so much- it would take a lot of psychological analysis to fully understand, but it certainly reminds me of getting a bad grade when I understood the material but made a small mistake. Or getting punished for something I didn't do. Or just that I'm trying to contribute to a brainshare, which I otherwise find very helpful and at times inspiring. But the risk of a downmod, just because I voice an opinion, very often keeps me from contributing.
One scenario that bugs me here- it happens to me and others- is when someone writes something, and someone else attacks the person- heavily, personally, as if the original statement was meant as absolutely authoritative. I read everything with a "grain of salt" - it might be someone's opinion, maybe they read / heard something they're passing on. IMHO, nothing in our world is authoritative. It seems that things once considered foundations and pillars of society are being completely torn down and rebuilt, such that everything is being questioned as to validity.
Sorry to soapbox- lucky you and others I'm out of time. We'll keep doing our best, and I'm always hoping for a kinder friendlier community here (or somewhere else...)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @02:01PM (46 children)
Indeed, but "content" should likely be better defined, and how to properly mod based on "the comment's content" explained. There are very many mod-abusers on here who do "mod on the content" -- but the problem is they mod based upon whether "the content" agrees or disagrees with their own viewpoint. But they most certainly do not mod based upon whether "the content" furthers the discussion.
Post an otherwise dry empty comment devoid of value but also in agreement with their opinion, they upmod.
Post a coherent, thoughtful, expressive comment, including with links to support material, that advances the discussion in a meaningful way, but it happens to disagree with their opinion, they mod as troll or flamebait, even if the article is not a troll nor a flamebait in any way.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Friday August 20 2021, @02:53PM (45 children)
Good point - I will have to give that some thought.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @03:31PM (43 children)
For an example of what the GP is referencing, see this comment [soylentnews.org] by one of the mod-abusers:
Now, in what sane world is modding "an actual interesting, germane, and relevant point" as flamebait considered reasonable?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Friday August 20 2021, @03:44PM (29 children)
It isn't - but don't go away. We are only just starting to address the moderation problem with new techniques and procedure, but it will take time.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 20 2021, @03:58PM (22 children)
Whoot! See sig.
(Score: 5, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 20 2021, @05:23PM (21 children)
Why don't you try quoting the entire thing instead of one sentence shorn of all its context? :)
Oh wait, I know why, because if you did, it would completely destroy the point you think you're making. You're a dishonest sack of shit and I hope you get all your sockpuppet accounts balled up and stuffed down your wheezing geriatric old throat.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 20 2021, @05:35PM (16 children)
Context? WTF is context? You certainly don't understand context. _every_fucking_thing_is_racisssss_ with you and your fellow travelers. Context? Tell us all about context.
As for my sig - explain the context your way.
My take on the context is, you had private talks with an administrator, and came away feeling that you were justified to moderate a whole new class of posts as spam. You posted a special journal entry to announce to the world that you have license to abuse the spam moderation. In the context of the ensuing discussion, you posted exactly what I copy/pasted into my sig.
The ball is in your court.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 20 2021, @05:44PM (11 children)
Quote the entire post. I double-dog dare you. No, I triple-dog dare you. And with not one, not two, not even three, but EIGHT cherries on top.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 20 2021, @05:55PM (10 children)
I don't want anything from your kitchen. WTF does an instant pot do to cherries? I'm not even a cherry lover.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 20 2021, @05:57PM (9 children)
Quote the entire post. I dare you with the canine contents of the entire local shelter and a whole orchard of cherries. If it makes the point you want it to you should have no fear of doing so. The fact that you won't is proof it doesn't, and proof of what a slimy little liar you are.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 20 2021, @06:18PM (8 children)
*yawn*
You should know by now that you can't bully or browbeat me into doing anything. This has gotten booooring.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @06:42PM (6 children)
It's bullshit anyway, you know. The post in question was linked above. If she had a cogent point to make she'd have given the supposedly-relevant context.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @08:16PM (5 children)
Yes indeed. The post is linked, and the relevant text is quoted up thread.
Zumi could have explained how the surrounding context changes the plain meaning of what she typed and Runaway quoted (an exact quote I might add).
Zumi's continual "go on, I dare you, post the whole thing" is just her common way to obscure the fact that she was caught out, and now is unhappy that some are calling her out on her inappropriate moderation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @07:02AM (4 children)
Use her proper username, you knave! And you may be able to tell, from all the upmods of Azuma Hazuki, that you are in the minority. Her downmods are justice raining down from the heavens upon your racist asses. So there is no inappropriate moderation on her part, only on the part of the Hemo-inspired butt-hurt snowflake conservative assholes, looking for a home on the internets. Sorry, this is not it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @05:53PM (3 children)
Oh, I see. 'Zumi is popular, therefore she is right. Got it.
Did your classmates call you a douche often? Like, every fucking day?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @07:01PM
Actually, Runaway is only upset because he can't figure out how to "make an actual interesting, germane, and relevant point".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:13PM (1 child)
Popular? You know what your father said popular meant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @10:53PM
Gay.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @07:02PM
As usual you make accusations without context, the famous conservative tactic of deception to gain support. #SAD #LowEnergy
(Score: 3, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Friday August 20 2021, @08:27PM (2 children)
Quoting out of text is extremely dishonest.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @08:45PM (1 child)
No, not necessarily. It might be a good-faith highlighting of a particular passage, especially where the content is readily available in the medium - which, in this case, it is.
In other words, there's no inherent dishonesty at work here, and the quote is exact and relevant, so I don't see any dishonesty otherwise defined either.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:09PM
What? The quote is absolutely out of context! It's clearly predicated on "if you're engaging in trolling, BUT manage to sneak a valid point in, you at best warrant a flamebait mod" and that logic is true, and is what all moderators should do, completely independent of authorship/attribution.
...did... you read the original context? I did... and you're either trolling, dishonest, extremely low in reading comprehension, or intellectually incompetent.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday August 20 2021, @11:08PM
Heh. I do love how you complained about her not understanding context then you proceeded to badly describe said context. For the record: You wouldn't be frustrated by everything actually being called racist, you'd be bored with that. Your frustration instead comes when the callout is correct.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @07:00PM
The comment you were replying to is necessary for context. Your comment on its own is:
That does sound bad, like you're persecuting someone because you simply don't like them bad.
But when we include the comment you replied to it makes more sense:
So you're talkign to the anti-semitic racist spammer and the probability of someone using "jew" in a non-prejudiced manner is very low. Hence why the AC throws accusations that any comment with the word "jew" in it will be modded down, they just want to pretend they are martyrs instead of not posting racist garbage.
Every group of humans has members that suck, racism is a stupid generalization that tries to increase hatred across the planet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @08:33PM (2 children)
The entire comment is quoted, exactly as you typed it, in the comment that is also linked upthread.
So the entire comment is already present here.
How about you explaining how the "surrounding context" explains the part quoted as Runaway's sig has a different meaning.
Even reading every word of the full comment, the part quoted by Runaway's sig means exactly the same as it means from reading the part quoted in the sig.
I.e., the surrounding context does not help you in your attempt to hand-wave away your admission of moderation abuse.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @09:13PM
See the comment directly above. In full context her quote is fine, though slightly ambiguous enough to let you dream up a worse interpretation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday August 20 2021, @09:52PM
"Moderation abuse" is an oxymoron. Not a Hydroxychloroquininemoron, but a meaningless phrase. Remember, moderation is in the eye of the beholder. Just because it appears to be abuse to you, does not mean it is not useful information to others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @06:36PM (3 children)
Let me help you. What you have here is a problem that is pretty clearly delineable in information theoretical terms, intersecting with psychology.
You're asking for information as metadata from a set of sources (moderators) contingent on a set of data (posts) with the intention of addressing a requirement to filter the data by the results of the metadata.
The problem is that the analysis of the filtration quality does not rest with the moderators, but the readers, whose views are strongly varied, and manifestly often out of step with those of the most strident and politically-motivated moderators. (Just look at the number of people declaring that they read at -1; a number that you could probably verify with a quick search of the logs.) The moderators who have power over metadata (ab)use that power to serve their own ends, and you're trying to set up rules that are doomed to fail, not least because with so many moderations canceling each other out it's a cinch that high quality but controversial posts aren't getting the promotion that they merit. In other words, by misaligning power and motivation, you're measuring (i.e. deriving moderations) the wrong thing with respect to driving your (ostensible) quality measure.
More importantly: there is no way out of this by handing power to moderators with any political leaning, and given that you have no means of preclearing moderators by their ability and commitment to soberly and honestly judge content you're fighting a never-ending rearguard action against raw partisanship. There is no victory condition in sight for you. People moderating on behalf of others will inevitably lead to attempts at ideologically-based promotion and censorship because that is precisely the power/incentive dynamic that you have created and maintained.
Any moderation regime intended to succeed must necessarily be based on the views of the readers consuming the material, with possibly some ability, after the fact, to measure whose posts are highly regarded by readers. This means that moderation should be more akin to automatic reporting on filtration on the part of readers ignoring or promoting what they deem valuable, rather than what some moderator tells them that they should value.
And if this means that nobody wants to read what khallow writes? That's tragic ... for nobody but him. Because they're not seeing what they're not inclined to spend their time on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @07:15PM
It's all agenda-driven, driving out or burying opposing views. From a political perspective, the moderation system is intentionally upside down. It's interesting to do a change-sign on the posts as you read.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday August 21 2021, @03:43AM (1 child)
Hi.
Fortunately for my personal sense of tragedy, people do want to read what I write, making this conditional statement unnecessary. And I have a couple of measures of that interest other than modding (such as replies and people echoing my words not necessarily in agreement).
Contrary to the previous post, I think moderation serves a couple of useful roles. It filters out a lot of crap and it provides a small positive feedback to people who contribute to discussions. And really how do we improve that?
So how do we fix that problem you describe above? I notice that so much of this criticism never bothers to describe a better route or worse suggests going to moderators.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @04:53PM
I included you purely as an example because I thought that you'd be a recognisable name, and relatively thick-skinned. Could have mentioned half-a-dozen others. And the proposal was in the post: give users individual moderation capability (i.e. for their comment/story/journal view only), and if you want an aggregate, then derive it from that. That aligns motivations and authority, rather than the misalignment that we presently have.
If you want a more detailed feature proposal, then start with the idea of friends/foes as a basis, and enable logged-in users to determine who's too low-information for them to bother with (e.g. aristarchus), and whose value is substantial (e.g. khallow) so that the logged-in user then sees an automatically curated feed based on the voices that they deem worthy of consideration. Enable that on a sloppy-match basis for ACs, and pretty soon raising the perceived quality of discussion becomes a substantial reason to log in. But nobody ends up censoring anybody else's view of the discussion, and one could do all sorts of interesting analytics on relative valuation of participants by each other.
The main criticism that I've seen leveled at this idea is the creation of echo chambers, but besides them being very sloppily defined echo chambers, that ship has sailed anyway so it is, at best, a wash on that front.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:51AM (1 child)
Huh. Your invitation has all the panache of the Gov. of Montana inviting professionals and tech people to come back to Montana, while he is body-slamming journalists, and his AG is having charges dropped against right wing nut jobs who brandish weapons and punch people in the genitals. I feel as safe on SoylentNews now as I do in a night-spot in Helena!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:00AM
The community have asked us to act - that is what we are trying to do. There is nothing underhand about any of this.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @04:44PM (3 children)
If you post an actual, interesting, germane and relevant point as one paragraph surrounded by a white supremacist rant, it will be downmodded. If you post it in the middle of an ad-hominem attack it will be downmodded. If it's an actual, interesting, germane and relevant point in reply to a comment that is off-topic, it will be downmodded.
In other words, stick to the main story under discussion without wandering too far afield and be civil in your comments and it's all good. Resorting to name-calling, racial slurs or attempting to derail the conversion with off-topic commentary will get you downmodded.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @06:15PM (2 children)
That's not what I get from that paragraph. What I get is: post something opposed to the Revealed Gospel according to Azuma, and prepare for Spammod - unless Azuma feels that something in it redeems it (by her standards) in which case maybe just Flamebaitmod.
This is blatant partisan modding, justified by a claim of official backing. There's nothing in there about the whole post having to be otherwise reprehensible, by any particular standard, and given her abundant, loudly stated track record we can reasonably deduce that anything that questions her herd of sacred cattle would fall foul of that standard.
I haven't seen this actually put into action much, so I'm wondering whether some of the staff quietly took her aside to tell her to stop saying the quiet part loud, because it makes them all look bad.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @07:05PM
Piss off whiny little bitch, take your racist nonsense somewhere else or grow thicker skin and take the heat for your despicable views.
(Score: 2) by helel on Sunday August 22 2021, @01:51PM
If you consider "slur-streaked drivel" to be your partisan side maybe you should reconsider your views. At a bare minimum maybe you should try rephrasing your position without the use of slurs and see if it still sounds right.
(Score: 4, Informative) by LabRat on Friday August 20 2021, @07:25PM (7 children)
Ah, a Troll AC with a reading comprehension problem. I read the comments on that journal. I will insert the implied context that you and others are willfully ignoring into the quote below:
Racists will likely be moderated -1 by somebody, as Flamebait or Offtopic at least. I'm new-ish, so I'm not down-modding people. I intend to spend more time reading articles and submitting formatted posts than commenting or moderating, but some things are pretty clear-cut.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @09:18PM (3 children)
Ah, but we are not willfully ignoring anything. The problem with "implied context" is that it is "implied" -- which means adding any in is often based upon nothing more than assumption.
Zumi's "implied context" is just as validly interpreted as:
(Score: 2, Informative) by LabRat on Friday August 20 2021, @09:49PM (2 children)
Validly? No. I added no interpretation. Read it again.
This thread in the comments of the journal entry [soylentnews.org] was about racism in comments, which is where the "slur-streaked" in the quote comes from, which is in the sentence before it for a reason. I repeated it for you, but you would prefer to insert your own beliefs into someone else's mouth. Thus, I say willfully ignoring.
Oh, well. I'm done feeding this particular troll (we? sockpuppeting?). I would rather go back to work than talk to a brick wall on my break.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @10:28PM (1 child)
Ah, but you indeed did add an interpretation. You added the interpretation of what you think was the thought in Azuma's head when she wrote the second sentence. But you have no way to know what thought was in her head when she wrote the second sentence. So you are adding your 'interpretation' (i.e., you have "insert[ed] your own beliefs into someone else's mouth.").
Plus the context you believe should be read in to the sentence has already been taken out of the running by her first sentence. She said, in clear language, in that first sentence, that "anything" ("anything" is her word) containing "contentless slur-streaked drivel" would get a spam mod. Therefore, "an actual interesting, germane, and relevant point {that contains contentless, slur-streaked drivel}" would receive a spam mod (see first sentence of her comment), not flame bait, due to the presence of the "contentless, slur-streaked drivel". The flame bait sentence must therefore be referencing comments which do not "contain[s] contentless, slur-streaked drivel" because those have been fully covered by the first sentence.
(Score: 2, Touché) by LabRat on Friday August 20 2021, @11:16PM
Troll AC, while I do personally appreciate your pedantry (and it is the sole reason I'm replying again), I wholeheartedly disagree with your conclusion.
To clarify what I mean by inserting beliefs (and implying), I used Azuma's own words from earlier in the same post to further clarify its meaning, whereas you used both your own words and your own opinion of Azuma to color your interpretation.
Secondarily, you are skipping a contraction, "that's" in the quote, which provides additional meaning. "Anything {that is} contentless slur-streaked drivel..." is one point, whereas "an actual interesting, germane, and relevant point {that contains contentless, slur-streaked drivel}..." is a comparative, slight differentiation from the point in sentence 1, which is why it receives a different moderation.
Please, do try to keep up. Am I explaining it slowly and pedantically enough for you?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:13PM (2 children)
Hey LabRat! I'm one of the ACs and I'd like to welcome you warmly. I appreciate your outlook and that you have hitherto refrained from downmods generally. I hope you continue to engage in good faith discussions, and am very pleased to see you express moderateness (moderation, but, you know, overloaded meaning here). Thanks for raising the level of the discussions!
Welcome!
(Score: 1) by LabRat on Friday August 20 2021, @11:24PM (1 child)
Thank you, kind AC. The reason I say that I am new-ish is that I was also a no-account, AC-submitting lurker AC for >1yr before I made this account to comment tracably (in the past couple weeks). We'll see whether I comment much or not, but when I do, I will only use AC for comments with personally-identifying information; will try to submit articles more when I can.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:18PM
Ah! You mean you listened and peripherally participated before elbowing in? If only in real life, people were so thoughtful.
If you wish, you can submit articles as AC also, when for some reason admitting that LabRat knows would be leaking info.
And I completely believe that you're in good faith; bad faith actors smear and insert noise to corrupt signal, and don't bother coming back to reply as you have here.
I'm IRL smiling because of you, stranger. Silly! Still true. Nice when friendly folks move in next door. :)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:05PM
When the point is framed in a troll or flame manner, or couched in otherwise bad-actor phrasing.
If I make a good point but I insist on using Hitler and Goebbels as the names of hypothetical people, it's flamebait even if germane.
Is that clear now?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday August 21 2021, @05:52AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Friday August 20 2021, @10:56PM
We can pretend credibility doesn't matter, but as long as moderation in the hands of fellow users DOES something then motivation is a factor. There's no getting around that.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 20 2021, @01:01PM
Maybe I'm TGIF-dense at the moment, but... ummm... is this in any relation with my doubt on the accuracy of the "Nobody likes a flame war"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Friday August 20 2021, @01:15PM (24 children)
I really don't understand the downmods on some of your posts. I can only guess that you've offended somebody in the past and they're looking for the slightest reason to take revenge.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @04:54PM (22 children)
That is what is happening right now. Individuals are waging moderation wars against other individuals via their main and other accounts (sock puppets) because reasons. They are trying to rules lawyer their moderations from each account by going right up to the limit of allowed moderations of another user per day and think the staff won't notice or will put up with that sort of BS.
The staff has realized that allowing this to continue will end up destroying SoylentNews completely. The moderation system was an intent to keep discourse civilized but it has been too easy to abuse and is failing. That is going to change.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Friday August 20 2021, @04:58PM (21 children)
Thanks, I get that it's happening. It was just news to me that Rosco P. Coltrane might have made some enemies. His name doesn't spring to mind when remembering the typical flame wars on this site.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 20 2021, @05:13PM (20 children)
From my perspective, I do get some respite from the moderation sock army from time to time. Seems that the socks have to stamp out little fires here and there sometimes, before coming back to abuse the higher profile members. Rosco is one of the names I've noticed being abused.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @07:37PM (19 children)
You are not being attacked by sock puppets from what I can tell, but you do go through stages of normal comments and then repeating Fox propaganda comments. It is a weird jekyl/hyde thing with you, and I suspect that has more to do with it than being targeted by a sock puppeteer.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 20 2021, @07:46PM (18 children)
Read my lips: No Fox News.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @08:16PM
Sure. Just like George H.W. Bush said about taxes.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Friday August 20 2021, @08:30PM
Because Fox News is too mainstream for you?
I've seen what you call sources, and it's not a pretty picture.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:00PM (13 children)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:04PM
It's called independent thought.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 20 2021, @11:15PM (11 children)
OK, you found the biggest broadcast group that is pretty definitely not leftist. Let's suppose that I got all of my news from them, by whatever channel. How does that differ from all the progressives who constantly parrot CNN talking points?
But, no, I also read a lot of foreign news sources. Canada, UK, 'Straya, India, SCMP, and so much more.
That's a funny point right there. Most progressives seem to believe that all the world agrees with them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:50PM (2 children)
If you're saying have seen people spout propaganda'ish soundbites from CNN, and that debating with them is shallow because they run out of script so quickly they can't actually defend it yet still mindlessly cling to it, and that you need someone to point out the difference between that and what you're doing... then what exactly is the defense you're trying to mount, here? That your like-minded comrades will grade you on a curve?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:08AM (1 child)
You apparently missed the "Let's suppose" bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:39AM
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:10AM (7 children)
Little evidence of that in your comments and the sources you cite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:59AM (6 children)
Perception is in the eye of the beholder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @01:17AM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @01:48AM (3 children)
I know you are, but what am I?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @04:55AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @08:56PM (1 child)
That was so funny I forgot to laugh!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 22 2021, @07:32PM
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:57AM
No, that's an anti-magic cone.
(Bah, reading too much OotS lately.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:15PM (1 child)
I mean, repeating their talking points doesn't mean you got it straight from the fox's mouth.
Perhaps you've heard of networks and information flow?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 21 2021, @10:08AM
Runaway1956 is an ignorant moron. There is not more to say about him.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Saturday August 21 2021, @05:54AM
Yup, he was one of the victims of one of the fucknuts whose antisocial behaviour forced us to act.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Friday August 20 2021, @04:06PM (2 children)
I've been known to upmod both sides of an argument when they both cited facts and had sound reasoning, and to upmod people who were arguing with me.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 20 2021, @09:42PM (1 child)
That is the honorable way to moderate. Wish we could build that into the ethos of the site.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:03AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @04:21PM (2 children)
If that's your personal taste, then fuck off somewhere else like 4chan or something. The point seems to be that such activity will no longer be tolerated here.
The intent was for the soylentnews community to be able to decide via the moderation system. Unfortunately there are too many trolls with too many sock puppet accounts and other ways of abusing the system to make it a functional method any more. As a result people are getting disgusted and are leaving the site to the trolls and going elsewhere. SoylentNews is supposed to be about the people and meaningful discussion. Without that it's just another news aggregator site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @07:07PM
We recently had an exodus when it was decided that racist comments could be spam modded. Make of that what you will.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:17AM
Me: there exist soylenters with a taste for flamebiting
AC: if you like it, fuck off you immature creature
Ummm... sounds to me like that particular AC likes the spice of flamebiting in his comments, thanks for making my point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford