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posted by
NCommander
on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:40PM
from the if-we-accidently-implemented-something-we-promised-is-it-still-a-bug? dept.
from the if-we-accidently-implemented-something-we-promised-is-it-still-a-bug? dept.
I'm pleased to announce that moderate then post has now been implemented. In truth, its been implemented since the last major update due to a bug. Before releasing slashcode 14.04, I was experimenting with moderate^post code on dev, and the code was merged in with the basis that it would be enabled as part of the moderation reworks. Theoretically, this code should have been disabled. In actuality, I skewed a variable; the global that controls this functionality was not 100% properly implemented.
mrcoolbp noticed the bug today, and seeing as we needed a code change either way to properly fix it, I decided to roll this bit of the moderation rework out early. I'm not thrilled on squishing two bugs in production on the same day, and I'm going to be working with the dev team to get a rigorous QA plan put together (which will be posted here) before we do any more major updates to the site.
Until then, enjoy the new functionality.
NCommander adds: I'm giving this a one time bump on the main index as it was posted very late for US based users. We *really really* need a featured story feature.
mrcoolbp noticed the bug today, and seeing as we needed a code change either way to properly fix it, I decided to roll this bit of the moderation rework out early. I'm not thrilled on squishing two bugs in production on the same day, and I'm going to be working with the dev team to get a rigorous QA plan put together (which will be posted here) before we do any more major updates to the site.
Until then, enjoy the new functionality.
NCommander adds: I'm giving this a one time bump on the main index as it was posted very late for US based users. We *really really* need a featured story feature.
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Moderate^Post Is Now Moderate Then Post
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(Score: 1, Redundant) by quadrox on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:48AM
I think this is a great improvement, although it does make me wonder why you cannot moderate after after having posted. If this is because users could upvote their own posts, a simple check in the code should prevent that.
Yes, then you could post as AC and upvote that, but you wouldn't get any higher score than if you had logged in in the first place, so who cares? Also, you could just prevent moderation on all posts coming from the same IP - not it isn't perfect, but I doubt it would do any real harm.
(Score: 3, Informative) by b on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:53AM
>it does make me wonder why you cannot moderate after after having posted.
I suppose it's because you could upvote the comments of others that support you?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jimshatt on Thursday April 10 2014, @08:49AM
(Score: 2) by elf on Thursday April 10 2014, @12:48PM
I like this idea, I up vote this for a future release
(Score: 1) by urza9814 on Thursday April 10 2014, @02:17PM
Yeah, this was discussed as one of the options in the original threads about moderate^post, and I *think* they may have said that there may be some future revisions along those lines (I'm not an admin or anything though so I could be way off there). Obviously that code would be much more complicated.
Really, you need to lock the entire thread not just below but also all the way to the top if you're going to do moderate AND post. Obviously you don't want people up-voting their own posts...and you don't want them up-voting replies either, because that still raises the visibility of their own post. But even up-voting the posts they replied to could do the same. Want easy karma? Reply to a troll then up-mod the troll. Some mods may vote the troll back down, but others may see your reply and prefer to up-vote that instead. Only way to prevent people from trying to abuse moderation to guide others to their own posts is to lock them from moderating the entire thread from the top once they post.
I recall NCommander (I think) saying that the database layout currently makes it rather difficult to find the top of the thread from a specific post, so that would take some significant redesign.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:39PM
The problem is there's no internal concept of a thread. Instead every post has a parent ID, and when threads are pulled, several loops are executed to assemble the threaded view. Thats fine for just discussions, but to work out if a post is in a thread, you need to walk the entire tree. The easy solution is just to generate a thread id, top-level posts create one automatically, and then the thread ID is inherited for each post going down the line.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by FakeBeldin on Thursday April 10 2014, @06:47PM
"Obviously you don't want people up-voting their own posts...and you don't want them up-voting replies either"
Alternatively, we could just try to act grown up.
I realise there are (very) good reasons for why the original code handles this the way it does. The likely direct reason: something went wrong, and this version of the moderation system mitigates the problem. Back then. For another site.
I'm not saying we should ignore the past, but when I moved to this site (and stopped lurking, but registered), it was not because I expected all the self-aggrandising trolls of the Internet to congregate here. As far as I am concerned, you are all a bunch of excellent people that I don't mind entrusting with modpoints. Of course, if there were a more lenient mod system, we'd likely eventually discover some disadvantage of that one, and come up with our own solution for that. But it'll probably be different, and we'll collectively understand it to be superior to the old code ;-)
(Score: 1) by urza9814 on Thursday April 10 2014, @07:37PM
I'd say that's exactly what's going on, we're just further into that process than you think.
My interpretation of the situation has been that:
We're starting with an existing code base. And much of the community here seems to agree that the existing system doesn't work for this site -- that there aren't enough users and that it was hindering our ability to contribute as much as we'd like. So the question is how to improve that system without throwing away the things that it *does* get right. I also think a lot of people (myself included) feel that the moderation system is one of the key things that made Slashdot what it was, and we're therefore reluctant to make any massive changes to that, or to throw it away entirely.
(Score: 1) by LoRdTAW on Thursday April 10 2014, @11:50AM
Or downvote people who disagree with you.
The idea is pretty sound and I think it makes modding more attractive for people who would prefer to participate in a discussion. I rarely mod on the other site (TOS) because of this.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:41PM
Right now, moderate then post helps with this as there's no penalty for jumping into a conversation after you've moderated. Its not as broad as I would have like (I would have prefered moderate and post, excluding moderation on a thread), but this was the low hanging fruit solution.
Still always moving
(Score: 5, Informative) by NCommander on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:58AM
Actually, the prevent IP check has been there from day one (its per subnet actually, you can't moderate anything on the same /24 as you). I'm willing to loosen moderate/post restrictions further, but this is one of those baby step things.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by J053 on Friday April 11 2014, @02:18AM
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday April 11 2014, @04:52AM
No one from your organization can mod your specific post; they can still mod in general. This is behavior we inhertied, and as will all things, requires thought.
Still always moving