Slashdot, a user-generated news, analysis, peer question and professional insight community. Tech professionals moderate the site which averages more than 5,300 comments daily and 3.7 million unique visitors each month.
As I said before, we don't have a really good idea on the number of unique IPIDs visiting the site, but we do have solid numbers for our daily comment counts. Here's the graph as generated by slashcode for a biweekly period:
(due to a quirk in slashcode, the graphs don't update until 48 hours later; our comment count for 04/01 was 712 comments total).
Taking in account averages, we're roughly getting a little less than 10% of Slashdot's comment counts, with a considerably smaller user base. As I said, the OkCupid story made me take notice. Here's the comment counts at various scores between the two sites
| SoylentNews | Slashdot.org | --------------------------------------- Score -1 | 130 | 1017 | Score 0 | 130 | 1005 | Score 1 | 109 | 696 | Score 2 | 74 | 586 | Score 3 | 12 | 96 | Score 4 | 4 | 64 | Score 5 | 1 | 46 | ---------------------------------------Furthermore, I took a look at UIDs on the other site, the vast majority of comments came from 6/7 digit UID posters. Looking at CmdrTaco's Retirement Post as well as posts detailing the history of the other site most of the low UIDs are still around, and are simply in perma-lurk mode.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by moondrake on Wednesday April 02 2014, @04:43PM
I think its a misconception that ACs are trolls. I lurked (without account) for over 13 years on /. And regularly (perhaps once a week occasionally, but perhaps less on other times) commented. I cannot remember that I ever have been modded troll or flamebait. Though sometimes my highly intelligent (feeling particularly modest today) comment was missed because it started at 0.
In general, my internet behaviour is this: if I see something on some place that I could comment on (most recently a question about some bug in a linux driver that I fixed locally but had not yet bothered to send upstream), I will not comment and help the person out if I have to go through the trouble of registering. I believe I am not alone in that behaviour. Even here on soylent there are some regular ACs (gweg (sp?) for example) that I appreciate. And I think it is a particular bad idea to downmod an AC before you even read what he has to say. So far, there have been plenty of modpoints so if it is not contributing to the discussion, somebody will be happy to pass judgment (IMHO most people like doing this).
As you point out, it takes little effort to register, so I do not think this should somehow guarantee that people with an account post better comments.
There is an even more important reason to value AC posts: it allows people in the know about internal affairs to post something very informative. These people may have accounts, or may not and have been referred by others or have stumbled on the site because an issue was discussed there that they know more about. I do not want to see such whistle-blowing or otherwise very informative comments hidden at -1 and feel 0 makes a good compromise.
Oh, and the claim that places with no ACs have less paid shills sounds unlikely to me, got any evidence for that?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:37PM
I think you are missing the point friend, which is that its easy to spot patterns when a person has an account but if they can post as AC? they can shill to their heart's content, no way to know if the AC that just posted that loveletter to corp A is the same AC who just posted that second loveletter to corp A or not.
Believe me I wish it weren't so but we have more than enough evidence to be reasonably certain that all the major corps are paying for "spin control posting" on pretty much any site that crosses their radar. just look at the crapflood of "I heart Windows 8!" AC bombs that hit Slashdot right before the Win 8 release, they even used classic marketing terms like "vertical integration" and "product synergy" that no non marketing drone uses IRL so it was pretty damned obvious yet because they could just crapflood the AC channel there was no way to say who was shilling and who wasn't.
And I think the other poster nailed it, we need a "no AC" button so that those that believe in the AC system can have it and the rest won't ever have to see it...more choice is of the good, yes?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:59PM
I guess it would be possible to hash the IP and add it as a AC "id". Not sure how I feel about such an identifier.
As for the button, yes, I would not object to it, though I would just feel sorry for the people that use it!
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:45PM
Why is that? Look at what ACs have become on the other site, you get such "useful" posts as "You must be a nigger" or like my stalker "die you fat fucker die".
With ACs you are completely killing the point of places like this which is dialogs and conversations. if all you want to do is just throw something on the screen and never see it again? That is what yahoo news is for, but with a site like Soylent the appeal, at least for me, is that you can have an actual discussion of the topic at hand. Since the AC will never see a response its a "throw shit and run" post by design.
Now if that is what appeals to you? I have no problem with that but it would be nice for those of us who care about conversations not to see ACs.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Thursday April 03 2014, @08:36AM
I just accept some crap together with very interesting posts. With ACs, we would never have known the details about Operating Thetan Level Three, for example.
And as Ethanol-Fuelled has pointed out quite literally elsewhere, you get the crap with logged in users as well.
But I am just rehashing my argument. I fully understand your argument, I just like to point out that not everybody has such an opinion.
Furthermore, I would be against such a "hide AC" button for anyone with modpoints.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 03 2014, @11:54AM
Why is that? I can already state I would never waste modpoints on an AC post as there would b ZERO point in doing so. karma exists so that the posters that post thoughtful and considerate posts float to the top while Ethanol and his "you must be a jew" crap sink to the bottom. Again by the very nature of the AC post it does neither, the AC poster gets no karma and can crapflood all the racist or shilling they want and get no penalty for doing so. in fact if you think about it the AC post is almost by design a troll's wet dream, hell go to the other site and pick ANY article and see the signal to noise ratio when it comes to ACs, you are looking at best a 3-4 to 1 crap versus useful.
But at the end of the day choice is always of the good and I see no reason those that like AC posting can't have it and those that hate AC posting can't have it blocked, after all we aren't owned by Dice and aren't trying to force shit on the users, are we?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Saturday April 05 2014, @11:22AM
This actually isn't 100% true. In addition to user accounts, slash tracks karma on a IPID and SUBID level, so ACs from specific subnets and such actually do have a karma count, its just not used anywhere. I've been debating if we should modify slash to allow IPID karma for an AC to allow ACs to get a +1 modifier as well (allowing their posts to start at +1)
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday April 05 2014, @02:27PM
Well if there was a way for the AC poster to have their past history in some way traceable, so we could spot the shills and trolls? Well that would frankly remove every objection i have to AC posts honestly.
This is what I personally have against ACs...it allows shills and trolls to actively derail threads with ZERO risk or way to trace that "yes it is this particular AC" that is doing the damage. Again for a good example look at what happened in the run up to the Win 8 release, Slash was crapflodded by ACs which were ALL staying "on message" and pushing the same bullet points over and over AND OVER and doing everything they could to derail any criticism of Windows 8. Again it was pretty obvious that this wasn't the usual fanboi bullshit as not only were they too on message but the language they used was too scripted and marketing heavy, words like "vertical integration" and "product synergy" and "enhanced user experience" which lets be honest nobody outside an ad agency ever uses in conversation.
But if there was a way to look at an AC's history, so we could say "lets see...posts only on articles about X, stays on message pumping up X, tries to derail criticism of X...yep we have a shill here!" and the same thing when it comes to trolls, like the lovely stalker i had for over a year? I would have ZERO problem with ACs. As i pointed out its not like there is any checking of the info a particular user puts in their profile and Ethanol is a perfect example of how accounts don't mean they don't troll, but at least if we could connect a person to their posts, be it account or IP or whatever? at least we would be able to spot those that are actively trying to be disruptive and derail conversations or push an agenda.
If you want to see why having some sort of way to connect a user to a post is important you might try seeing if the "I was a professional troll" article is still floating around the net, as it was written by a guy working for a shilling post company. it details how he was sent in to actively derail conversation and to incite a "left versus right" mentality in articles that weren't in the best interests of his clients. Its sad that such things are a serious issue now but they are and having a way to at least try to keep every thread from becoming propaganda would be of the good IMHO.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:20PM
there are some regular ACs (gweg (sp?) for example) that I appreciate
{Deep theatrical bow} 8-)
(sp?)
That's gewg_ (phonetically "goog").
When I first used it online, it was almost uniquely googleable (aside from 2 obscure Working Groups).
Years ago, I had 2 submissions accepted at the other site and, again, years ago, would occasionally post, sometimes even getting modded up. [google.com]
-- gewg_