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from the pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain dept.
I've been hinting around about this for a week or two, so here it is. I circulated this proposal around the staff mailing list before Thanksgiving and got nobody telling me it sucks and to die in a fire, so it falls to you lot to do it if necessary. Let's be clear beforehand though. This is not a complete solution; no meta-mod consideration included for instance. Nor is it a permanent change. What it is is an experiment. Unless you lot are overwhelmingly opposed, we'll run it for a month or two and either keep it, keep parts of it, or trash it entirely based on staff and community feedback. We're not the other site and this isn't Beta; what we as a community want is what's going to happen.
So, here's the deal with the bit that's likely to be most controversial right out front. Bad downmods and mod-bombing both suck hardcore but you can't really get rid of them and still have downmods even with meta-moderation because you still have the same ideologically driven few who think Troll/Flamebait/Overrated means Disagree. To that end, I converted all the downmods to +0 mods and added a proper Disagree +0 mod. They affect neither score of the comment nor karma of the commenter but will show up beside the comment score (and be subject to user adjustment from their comments preferences page) if they hold a majority vote. It'll be entirely possible, for instance, to have a +5 Troll comment and equally possible that the same comment will show as -1 Troll to someone who has Troll set to -6 in their preferences.
Underrated and Overrated are also out. For Underrated, I for one would really like to know why you think it's underrated. For Overrated, it was almost exclusively used as Disagree, which we now have.
Second, everyone who's been registered for a month or more gets five mod points a day. We're not getting enough mods on comments to suit the number of comments; this should have been tweaked a while back but we quite frankly just let it slip through the cracks. Also, the zero-mod system will need the extra points to reliably push comments from +5 insightful to +5 Flamebait if they warrant it. We may end up tweaking this number as necessary to find the right balance during The Experiment.
Third, we're introducing a new Spam mod. As of this writing it's a -1 to comment score and a -10 to the commenter's karma; this may very well change. Sounds easily abused, yeah? Not so much. Every comment with this mod applied to it will have a link out beside the score that any staff with editor or above clearance on the main site (this excludes me by the way) can simply click to undo every aspect of the spam moderation and ban the moderator(s) who said it was from moderating. First time for a month, second time for six months; these also are arbitrary numbers that could easily change. So, what qualifies as spam so you don't inadvertently get mod-banned?
- Proper spam. Anything whose primary purpose is advertisement.
- 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 for an example.
Caveats about banning aside, if something is really spam, please use the mod. It will make it much, much easier for us to find spam posts and attempt to block the spammers. One SELECT statement period vs one per post level of easier.
Lastly, if I can find it and change it in time for thorough testing on dev, we'll be doing away with mod-then-post in favor of mod-and-post. Without proper downmods, there's really just no point in limiting you on when you can moderate a comment.
Right, that's pretty much it. Flame or agree as the spirit moves you. Suggestions will all be read and considered but getting them debated, coded, and tested before the January release will be a bit tricky for all but the exceedingly simple ones.
(Score: 3, Informative) by paulej72 on Monday December 08 2014, @10:02PM
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Monday December 08 2014, @11:10PM
5 is good to me.
Frequency is a problem.
Or maybe I get my mod points when I sleep and they all expire.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by UpnAtom on Monday December 08 2014, @11:40PM
Although I was subject to it with my very first comment on here...
1. Comments that were posted within minutes are much more likely to be modded up. If they were mediocre quality compared to later posts, only downmodding can rectify that.
2. Sometimes mediocre comments get bumped up to 5 (at least on /.)
You could make it cost 2 mod points if it's abused too much.
Aside from that, I really like the changes.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday December 09 2014, @02:32AM
Mediocre quality shouldn't be downmodded, just not upmodded as much. Even so, there's really no harm. It's not a game, modding is just intended to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sure it's nice to get a post modded to +5, but if you're reading, you need to read the surrounding context to really appreciate what a +5 post is saying.
The "not a game" thing is probably the best way to look at the whole thing when it comes down to it.
(Score: 1) by UpnAtom on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:10AM
Mediocre quality shouldn't be downmodded, just not upmodded as much.
Except in both of the cases I mentioned.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:26AM
Where are my mod points? I have been registered since July, have good karma. Shouldn't I have 5 mod points?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:36AM
Patience, young Skywalker. It just hit github today and I've still got some commits to add before paulej72 signs off on the pull request and merges it. Then a couple weeks on dev for testing so we don't massively screw up anything on live. Just giving you lot an early heads up and a chance to shoot it down if you don't like it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:16AM
I'm old, with no time for patience ...... OK, I'm exaggerating. See my other reply, in which I acknowledge that the changes wont be implemented for some time.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:34AM
It looks like I jumped the gun. I read the article again and I see that these are changes which won't be implemented for some time.