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Journal by wjwlsn
I'm seeing a lot of unwarranted (IMO) down-moderation lately, mostly on posts that express a minority opinion or that question a majority opinion (judging minority/majority based on discussion context). As a result, there are many posts ranked -1 or 0 that probably deserve higher scores.
I'd like to remind moderators that you're supposed to "Concentrate more on promoting than demoting". In the meantime, I'm going to spend all my mod points on posts that I think have been modded down unfairly. I encourage others to consider spending some mod points in this fashion as well.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
He keeps differentiating, flying off on a tangent.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Sunday March 30 2014, @07:02PM
I do not see the problem with this. Could it be that your "idea" that comments deserve a +5 are perhaps derived from an alternative site? There are not often more than 20 posts. If you browse at -1 you see all. Perhaps that +4 comment is really just worth a little bit less compared to another +5 comment. In this, I actually feel this site is much more balanced compared to some others (somebody should do an analysis on this).
That said, I am not sure the current moderation system is perfect. Sometimes I have no clue what to do with my mod points. And sometimes I feel I have not enough (which is why I think that limiting them to 5 is also not a perfect solution. It depends on the amount of stories, and even more on the amount of stories that I find interesting enough to read the comments for, but not interesting enough to comment on). So if the amount is going to be changed, it should be scaled with nr. of stories and/or nr. of posts. (perhaps this is already done but the scaling is with nr. of people that get modpoints?)
Modding on (dis)agreement:
Actually, the problem is that it is not somewhat blurry. I think it is impossible to be objective. I try to mod up things that I find interesting or insightful, but if I disagree with something (and I may have good arguments) I will probably not find it insightful as I see an error in the arguments made. So I will not mod it up. I try not to mod it down when I just disagree, but if it also happens to be off-topic, perhaps I will be more inclined to mod it down.
Metamodding is not going to help much as it is prone to the same type of problem.
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Monday March 31 2014, @05:05AM
I never said that more comments deserve a +5... in fact, there seem to be too many +5 comments IMO. Modding a comment down to +4 from +5 isn't really "overzealous". With regards to being objective, I believe that a choice has to be made by the moderator: if you question your own objectivity in response to a particular comment, then just don't moderate it. The strategy you described in your post (i.e., don't mod up if you can't be objective, try not to mod down unless the post is clearly off-topic) seems like a good one. However, when I see more than a few reasonably lucid and on-topic comments modded down to 0 or -1, I start to think that something funny's going on.
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Wednesday April 02 2014, @11:55PM
Couldn't you mod it as +1 Interesting instead? If a comment contains arguments that are made by your 'opponents' on that particular topic, it's good to air it. Other people who agree with you can then pick the holes in it.
But yes, what you say about the "Insightful" rating is
I then immediately think what other rating options could be added or removed. But then I tell myself: no! That's a whole can of worms! Just open the can, remove 1 worm, and shut the can again!
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Thursday April 03 2014, @08:39AM
>Couldn't you mod it as +1 Interesting instead?
I guess I am still somewhat flawed :) I will attempt to experiment with this however!