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posted by Blackmoore on Monday December 08 2014, @09:00PM   Printer-friendly
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.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday December 10 2014, @05:54AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday December 10 2014, @05:54AM (#124526) Journal

    And what?

    You think that the rare case of unfair mod is more important than SN's members' public image.
    You think that presenting our worst face front and center for the general public to see, is a good thing.

    I disagree. I guess that's about all there is to say.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:31PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:31PM (#124697)

    NO, I've explicitly explained that it is in fact IMPOSSIBLE to present a face that isn't offensive without draconian censorship, and that we therefore shouldn't try.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:42PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:42PM (#124708) Journal

      downmodding GNAA is hardly draconian censorship. It's more like flushing the toilet after taking a dump.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:01PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:01PM (#124722)

        I'm not arguing against downmodding. Downmodding is what we ALREADY HAVE. You were talking about removing comments like that completely.

        Rereading your initial post, I'm not sure if that's what you're saying, but if it isn't I don't know what you're trying to:

        Sometimes, there's dirt you DO want to sweep under the rug so that guests and visitors don't see it

        without actual downmods, trolls will...

        We already have a Troll mod. If you're not logged in, don't you browse at 0? In which case, the worst posts will be collapsed anyway.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday December 10 2014, @08:05PM

          by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday December 10 2014, @08:05PM (#124837) Journal

          I was not talking about removing them, I was talking about hiding them unless you go looking. That's what downmodding does. It sweeps them under the rug -- somebody can peek under the rug. Deleting them would be doing a real cleanup and throwing them out.

          As items swept under the rug, and not displayed without a person taking an effort, it improves our public image without draconian (delete it) censorship. Leaving that garbage on the default display level however, is a mistake from a public perception point of view.

          • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 10 2014, @09:44PM

            by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday December 10 2014, @09:44PM (#124876)

            I guess it depends on whether you consider "collapsed but still present" to be "displayed" or not. The argument could be made that a first-time reader may not know how the moderation scheme works, yes.

            --
            "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"