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Ok, I meant to have an open forum about moderation *way* before this point. I did read the various feedback and comments left on my journal and the last moderation, and have made some changes to the moderation system.
First, mod points now expire after eight hours. I'm willing to extend this to 12 or 16 hours after I'm sure comments will still reach +5 fairly regularly. With luck, we'll get to the point we can extend mod-points to last a full 24 hours which I suspect will end most of the complaining on them vanishing too soon.
Second, I'd like to open the floor to making a more fundamental change to the moderation system. Specifically, allowing people to post AND moderate in the same discussion. We've seen plenty of posts get up to +5, which means 3-4 people gave up their right to post to keep our comments high quality. This was brought up during our last plea for stories, and I wanted to solicit more feedback before unleashing this upon the site.
I've floated the idea on IRC, and it seems there's a fair bit of support for removing the post/moderate split, though we'd need to make some changes to prevent rampant abuse. Here's what was suggested to keep things sane:
Ok, I meant to have an open forum about moderation *way* before this point. I did read the various feedback and comments left on my journal and the last moderation, and have made some changes to the moderation system.
First, mod points now expire after eight hours. I'm willing to extend this to 12 or 16 hours after I'm sure comments will still reach +5 fairly regularly. With luck, we'll get to the point we can extend mod-points to last a full 24 hours which I suspect will end most of the complaining on them vanishing too soon.
Second, I'd like to open the floor to making a more fundamental change to the moderation system. Specifically, allowing people to post AND moderate in the same discussion. We've seen plenty of posts get up to +5, which means 3-4 people gave up their right to post to keep our comments high quality. This was brought up during our last plea for stories, and I wanted to solicit more feedback before unleashing this upon the site.
I've floated the idea on IRC, and it seems there's a fair bit of support for removing the post/moderate split, though we'd need to make some changes to prevent rampant abuse. Here's what was suggested to keep things sane:
- Mod points won't roll back after a post
- Moderators can post in the same discussion (either before or after moderating), but can not moderate replies to their posts.
I've heard various ideas such as limiting it only after mods have expended their points (this will require implementing a cooldown to prevent a user from getting points again too soon). I want to hear your feedback, and I'll roll together something for the next major update of the site. Leave your comments
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Moderation: Discussing !(post^moderate)
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Any woman is a volume if one knows how to read her.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by lhsi on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:16AM
Would it be possible to allow the mod-and-post in the same discussion only to users with a higher karma than is required for just moderating?
Also, maybe the number of mod points given out could be tied to the level of karma (so just positive gets 5-10, a higher amount gets 10-15 for example)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:28AM
Very doable, and a good idea. Perhaps allow unrestricted mod/post to people who have capped? (I figure if you've been upmodded 100 times, you can be trusted not to abuse the privilege)
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:37AM
(I figure if you've been upmodded 100 times, you can be trusted not to abuse the privilege)
This is why you fail! Never underestimate the malice of trusted users. Not me, of course, I would never do such a thing. Seriously, and for real! Wait! . . . . . Carrier Lost. . . ###
(Score: 1) by Leebert on Tuesday April 01 2014, @11:32AM
Don't trust ANYONE who isn't old enough to properly remember "NO CARRIER".
+++ATH0
(Score: 3, Funny) by mcgrew on Tuesday April 01 2014, @05:06PM
Were you one of those guys who said "don't trust anyone over thirty" back in the '60s?
I still say don't trust anyone over thirty. Also, don't trust anyone under 31, either.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:42AM
Is the cap 50? I think you also get Karma for submitting stories so can presumably get it high just on that (but then I suppose that getting stories accepted is sort of like modding from editors).
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:57AM
Karma is capped at 50 (it also bottoms out at -25). I actually have wanted to semi-gut the karma system and redo it so we can use for more things. Right now, once you hit cap, you've unlikely to ever go down. Implementing a karma-aging, and perks for high karma will probably keep people posting more frequently (I hope?)
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:25AM
I hit 50 and stayed there for a while. Then someone disagreed with a comment I wrote on something and it went to 49, before going to to 50 again within a day or so, so I think you're right in practice.
Is it possible to tweak how the over/underrated mods are used? I have seen a comment get "Overrated" before any other mods on it, which is effectively saying "This comment disagrees with my world view and I don't like it, even if it is correct". Maybe you could limit downmodding (either to only those with a certain level of Karma, or only one or two out of the ten can be used for downmodding - and only if you have already spent 5 of them or something).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:41AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:45AM
Looking at Comments.pm, that is indeed the case, but its such a minor edge case I suspect it was completely overlooked as the other site hides karma values (I incidentally found that this code is in the public release of slashcode. Incidentally, I found this code in our tree, and will post the cheatsheet of what karma values on the other site mean in raw numerical terms).
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:30AM
I did not know this, and thought my Karma of 47 was poor.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:35AM
Karma aging and perks sound like interesting concepts though. I think the rate and method of expiry could prove contentious, and it might lead to a lot of people posting mediocre stuff just to get a +1 to avoid the aging. In addition to perks, what about penalties; perhaps people with negative karma don't get to see (or just post in) stories until some time has elapsed? That should remove some of the "value" in troll accounts like the GNAA and so on since they wouldn't be able get first posts and so on except on new/anonymous accounts.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:52AM
Unless they've changed it from 2009, the systems are identical. The only reason we show numeric values as we don't set the hide karma flag in the database. As defined by Slashcode, these are the values:
-10=Terrible
-1=Bad
0=Neutral
12=Positive
25=Good
99999=Excellent (I suspect this is a placeholder for when capped, but I need to check)
Every moderation is worth 0.5 karma, and submissions are worth 3. Different moderations can give/take away different amounts of karma; this is defined as a database in the database. Incidently, its also possible to make some types of moderations cost multiple mod points to do (i.e., marking someone troll might cost two modpoints instead of one).
Still always moving
(Score: 2, Informative) by Alphatool on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:29AM
Please don't stop giving a numerical karma score. It's nice to have a clear number rather than a named category that could mean almost anything. One of the things I really like here is that details aren't hidden just to look good.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:42AM
On my (very long and growing) TODO list is to have a Transparency mod. Slash collects an absurd amount of information. Its on the list to try and decouple Stats.pm from the admin interface and allow anyone to look through our raw numbers, as well as having a user specific page where they can see various information about themselves, or if they've been banned/etc.
On the other site, you could be marked "-1 posting" or such and you'll never know it short by checking each of your posts. Staff on the other site for instance are marked +5, so their posts *always* show up no matter what. We leave it as the default for staff, though when we re-add the subscriber module, all staff will get subscriptions, so they'll get the +1 subscriber bonus right out of the gate.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by Alphatool on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:43PM
Sounds fantastic, it's great that we'll be getting more information about what's going on rather than having it dumbed down like on many other sites.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @02:24AM
Firstoff, a small bug that seems new since 30 Mar, when last I was here (I was on the road, it's not my fault! :)
I click Reply (actually RClick & Open in new tab) and instead of being at the same font size as the page I came from, it's two sizes smaller.
I noticed immediately cuz I need the font set at 120%, and here it was back to default. SeaMonkey sets font on a per-site basis, so it's not a per-page-SM issue, far as I can tell. It had worked normally here until today (or some day since last Sat. anyway).
======
In "stuff we can see", I like being able to see all the mods done to any of my comments.
I'm not sure what I think of karma aging... I think another reply has the right of it, that it's liable to encourage a certain type of karma-troll rather than make the rest of us 'work harder'. Good posters post because they have something to say; for good posters, karma is merely a nice byproduct, not the goal.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 03 2014, @02:33PM
Can you file this as a bug with screenshots on our github repo? https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode [github.com]
I don't know enough abotu CSS to describe the problem in technical terms :-/
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @04:08PM
I don't see where the bug report thing is...??
Yep, appears it is indeed in the CSS, as I do NOT get the issue when I turn CSS off. (Which I can do with PrefBar.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 03 2014, @04:16PM
https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode/issues?mi lestone=2&state=open [github.com] - direct link :-)
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @04:49PM
I don't see it on the list yet, but it should be at
https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode/issues/12 8 [github.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:45AM
My Karma on /. shows as "Excellent", however I don't know what the numerical value is.
(Score: 2) by TheloniousToady on Tuesday April 01 2014, @12:30PM
That one actually sounds like a very good idea. I think Troll is used too many times when Overrated would do the job (and is fairer - I've had things marked as Troll many times when I was just expressing my honest opinion), so it would be nice if the moderator paid an extra cost to use Troll, which, frankly is a bit offensive to those who receive it.
(Score: 1) by VanessaE on Tuesday April 01 2014, @05:18PM
I'd upvote this with the caveat that moderators be given more than the bare minimum of 5 points, on a regular basis. If and when this site becomes popular enough, there will be far too many shit posts that will need modded into oblivion, just as a matter of course, making it too easy to run out of points that other good posts would otherwise be deserving of.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @02:28AM
And confirming the new reduced-font-size bug noted before. (Font returns to normal when the "Comment Submitted" page comes up.)
Anyway: I suspect people who like to downmod also do a lot more of it. So, yeah, downmod being more 'expensive' might not be a bad thing -- might discourage groupthink.
Well, you can always try it, and if it has unforeseen consequences, then ditch it.
[We've kinda been taught by That Other Site that any change WILL be set in stone and will never ever be backed out. :( ]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday April 03 2014, @05:33AM
The purpose of my posts is to show that we aren't going to be other site 2.0, and that we intend to build a community, through and through.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @01:35PM
And there was much rejoicing! :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:12AM
A delay for posting in a story if having negative Karma is definitely a good idea. One could also say that for anonymous and low positive Karma accounts, posting is possible immediately, but on "empty" stories (i.e. stories not yet having a post) takes effect only a minute after posting (so the post is in the database, but gets a time stamp of one minute in the future, and won't get displayed until that time arrived). That would greatly diminish the probability of getting first post with low or no Karma.
(Also note that showing that posts exist as early as possible also reduces the number of attempted first posts, because if the existing posts are not visible, FP trolls are encouraged to try their luck, although they cannot succeed anyway.)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:15PM
There's a cleaner way to deal with this; I never want a user to be unable to post (short of us applying a ban due to a bot spamming). Subscribers can see the Mysterious Future, which I thought was kinda a lame perk of subscription on the other site, so I rather change it that people with high karma can see articles a bit before they go live. Not sure if I'll implement it, but one of many ideas ...
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by unitron on Tuesday April 01 2014, @04:03PM
That kind of gets into something I'd like, over there and here when here gets bigger.
Either subscribers or logged-in account holders (depending on whether there ever are subscriptions and of what, exactly they consist, get to see "firehose" stories and comment on them before the "unwashed masses" can, and when it turns into a regular story/goes live/whatever you want to call it, you don't put up another entry of the same story, you just change the classification of it, and the comments already made are still there.
People are, I would think, more likely, by and large, to load the story if there are already comments to read as well, since we're the kind of "audience" that comes here to listen to and talk with each other.
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 3, Funny) by unitron on Tuesday April 01 2014, @04:14PM
...if found, please return to parent of this post.
Oh, wait, here it is. It must have come unstuck and fallen down here.
)
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 2, Interesting) by gishzida on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:42AM
Not so sure about this with the way some of the Moderators use their points as "I don't agree with you" Points.
Karma should not be removed after it is earned... and capping it at 50 seems to be kinda evil... Having maxed Karma points means I should not want to post anything, make replies, or submit stories-- i.e. capping Karma may put users into "cruise mode" conversely forcing users who have previously displayed good behavior by "Karma aging" is a bad idea... Honey works better than Vinegar... unless your are trying to attract fruit flies. "Karma aging" smells of Vinegar.
What to do instead?
Karma is a reward for good behavior and a measure of "goodness" rather than "talkativeness" or "present and accounted roll call"... Maybe adding karmic "achievement levels" is better... Hit 50 and it rolls to the next level like a martial arts belt ranking... as the levels go higher the number to reach the next level goes up... maybe a hexadecimal rating... so step 1 is 80 (50 in hex) , step 2 is 256 (#100), Step 3 is 512 (#400), Step 4 is 2048 (#800) etc... This is intended as a "reward" for the high karma member to keep giving... Down mods count against the total Karma but the long term effect should be that High Karma members will continue to plod onward and upward.
As to whether this ranking should be public is open to debate... but re-enforcing and rewarding good behavior is better for the site.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:48AM
Hrm, I hadn't considered the possibility of making karma more work like XP in games leveling. That might actually be the way to do it; you need X upmods/positive actions to level up, and at specific levels, allow people to do shit, and perhaps make it easier to go down than up (i.e. if people start trolling with their accounts).
The system was capped to prevent users from getting obscene amounts of karma, then being "immune" to down moderation. The devil is in the details as they say.
Still always moving
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:31AM
After writing the below, it occurred to me that a "gamification" system like that would be best as an optional "challenge" for users, rather than mandatory. As a few comments demonstrate, some people love feeling challenged and will become disappointed if they reach the top -- but what they interpret as a fun challenge will seem more like a frustrating penalty to others.
I have the bad feeling that a system like that could end up being great for a small number of power users, but harmful to the overall site.
One potential bad side-effect is that users would feel "forced" to show up every day and comment a great deal. That sounds good at first, but there's at least two unpleasant consequences:
a) Many users will react by producing a lot of shallow but acceptably positive comments just to meet the quota, so the site gets more quantity at the expense of quality.
b) Some with very limited free time, and/or that prefer to leave just periodic thought-out/longer comments, will become frustrated and give up.
In both cases, the site would eventually lose at least some of the users are primarily interested in those serious/longer comments.
I admit my other concern is a bit on the paranoid-conspiracy side... If only users with karma over a certain amount can moderate, and karma drains over time, a small group of power users that become allies/friends could actually interfere with someone's ability to reach the magic number. I don't think that most current Soylenters would do something like that, but Slashdot has run into that sort of problem before, especially when controversial topics attract 'activist' new users that decide to stick around.
Just my humble concerned opinion. :)
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:51AM
Very good point. This post just got put in my scratchpad of things to keep in mind on working on this. The biggest problem is just having a karma system at all acts like a challenge (when we started, there was a race between the staff to see who could hit karma cap first).
That being said, for things like earning XP, I didn't intend to have it just earned by posting; you have to post, and get modded up to get XP; you don't get points for posting low quality stuff; it has to get upvoted for it to count with stronger XP award if it gets to +2/+3/+4/+5.
This might also be the way to get metamoderation to work, and moderators can earn XP by getting their moderations voted on, and metamods get XP for metamoderating itself. I don't want to tie the metamod data into the mod algo until its transparent to the user (black boxes are bad), but having a way to get feedback is a GOOD thing.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by Rickter on Tuesday April 01 2014, @02:45PM
Perhaps you could track & display a person's number of +5 posts next to their name, along with a percentage or ratio of upmods v downmods.
(Score: 1) by VanessaE on Tuesday April 01 2014, @05:53PM
I think the problem isn't so much whether a user has to grind to "level up", but what they get to DO when they get there. At the moment, there isn't really a whole lot to offer on this site (or the other one) because the feature set is kinda fixed to a degree. That said, I can see a few things that might work:
1. Allow editing of posts. Replied-to posts would need a metric assload of karma compared to a post with no replies.
2. Disable that G*d damned lameness filter (if we still use it, which I assume is the case) after a certain karma level is reached. Think crude ASCII-art diagrams where a discussion calls for it (but still limited in width and height).
3. Allow posting of embedded images within a reply (with the ability for any user to configure their account to reduce them to thumbnails, links, or just never show them).
4. If/when this site gets ads, allow them to be disabled for users beyond a certain karma level. The other site does something like this, but I get the impression that it's based more on the amount of time you've been there, rather than how good of a contributor you've been.
5. Everyone's always bitching about lack of Unicode support, and others have said in the past that the reason it's mostly disabled is because of trolls using right-to-left switches, non-breaking spaces, and other methods to disrupt the page layout, and so I guess it's filtered out at posting time. Whitelists are sort of a non-starter given just how big the Unicode space is, so why not just open up clear Unicode access to those who can be trusted not to abuse it?
6. Make it more difficult to mod-down someone whose karma is already sky high. I posted elsewhere that the 2-point-to-mod down idea was good, provided that moderators have enough points to ensure that good posts get adequate coverage, but maybe this should go a little further. Give users a minimum of 15 points; 1 point to mod anything up, as always. 1 to 4 points to mod down, depending on the karma of the person whose post is being modded.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:29PM
That may be true on the other site, where every Unicode character not on a very narrow whitelist is filtered out, but from the behaviour seen here, I think it's more of a problem with Slashcode interpreting the UTF8 byte stream differently than the browser encoded it. If using numeric entities, you can post almost unlimited Unicode (directionality markers seem to be filtered out, however).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by gishzida on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:53AM
One added feature of this to be considered is that down mods have more effect for "up leveled" users.
Let's consider an example: "Jane Moderator" has ten points... She sees that "George Shiny-Karma" has made a bad comment... She down mods him... she does not know he is a "leveled up user" [this is a reason why public ranking might be discouraged... Karma is personal and does not need to be advertised if a person has good Karma it will probably be obvious to other members of the community]. But here is "Shiny-Karma making a bad comment-- so She gives "Shiny-Karma" a down mod... but the effect on Shiny-Karma's points is in proportion to his karmic level.. so if he has hit the 100 point level, the down mod costs 2 points rather than 1 one point... if he is above 200 points in costs him 3 points and so forth...
The idea here is that a "good" user will pay more heavily for bad behavior... but not terribly so unless the behavior continues. The net effect here is to try to suppress bad behavior at "high levels of Karma" while continuing to reward for good behavior... other added bonuses might be allowing high karmic users able to vote on the inbound article queues or other things that "proven good community member" can be "trusted" to do.
Think of this "software project" is an "open source news and idea stream". How would you want to reward "commits" and discourage code trash and commentary sludge? Rewards for good behavior should be as good as punishments are bad.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:05PM
The trick here is though that if we have uncapped karma, you'd still need one hell of a hit to make it work, and if someone is vidictively downmodding, it could be UGLY.
My thought here is to have a second "recent karma" value that goes from -10 to 10, and caps at 10. At 5, you get the +1 bonus, at -5, you post at 0, and each period of aging (once a week?), the value moves closer to 0. This allows a disruptive user to get squelched, and allowed someone who's been vindictively downmodded to recover without loosing months/years of progress.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:29AM
Is it possible/feasible to prevent someone from modding the same user account more than once with the same set of points? I generally prefer the idea of making downmods "cost" more, or restricting them to only one or two downmods per set of points, but limiting downmods to a user could also be considered.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Open4D on Tuesday April 01 2014, @11:27AM
Yes, to me (and others [soylentnews.org]) that is currently the biggest problem in the realm of moderation. Here's [soylentnews.org] one example and some discussion that followed, including alternative ideas for changing the moderation system.
If anything, I think changing !(post^moderate) would probably make matters worse.
NCommander said:
So this proposed change is intended to increase the number of comments? Is it a response to the perceived low number of comments? Personally I just have a quick think before moderating in any story: am I likely to want to comment on this? It's rare for me to change my mind subsequently, and thus be inconvenienced by this rule, so in my case, changing the rule wouldn't increase the number of comments very much.
I admit, I do believe the rule is a bit of a blunt instrument. Some kind of system that lets you comment and moderate the same story fairly would be a nice-to-have. But I think we'd probably need meta-moderation first.
I think [soylentnews.org] the only way we're really going to get more comments-per-story is by getting more users.
(Score: 1) by gishzida on Tuesday April 01 2014, @02:25PM
I have to agree with you... Writing a comment on a post you've already moderated or vice versa seems to be the wrong way to go... also allowing the use of mod points as "i don't agree with you points" needs to be addressed... To accept the moderator points there is a price... One is not posting on things you are judgeing and two (at least for me) biting my tongue when a yammer-head makes a statement that makes me cringe... but even yammer-heads are allowed to have opinions and so I resist the temptation to down mod... in fact I'm not sure that having down mods helps... Down mods do nothing "positive" when it is used simply for the purpose of saying I don't agree...
If we are not going to do something about moderators "editorializing" then at least make it clear and add "I Agree +1" and "I Disagree -1" to the list of moderation options. Then at least those being victimized by a disagreeable moderator will know exactly why they got down modded... I'm sorry but over-rated or redundant tells me exactly nothing as to the Moderator's thoughts.
Since the 5 point cap on a single comment is an artificial, remove comment cap and eventually the cream rises to the top.
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Tuesday April 01 2014, @12:10PM
Lots of good comments about down-moderation issues (and potential fixes) here:
http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=923 [soylentnews.org]
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RobotMonster on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:45AM
I've been at the 50 cap for awhile, which has been making me wish the cap was higher so I had a score to "game".
Perhaps some kind of exponential system would be cool -- when you're at 50-100, it takes 10 up-mods to go up by 1 Karma, but still only 1 down-mod to go down by 1. When you're over 100, it takes 100 up-mods to go up by 1, and still only 1 down-mod to go down by 1?
Thinking it through, it's probably a bad plan, but might inspire somebody else with a better idea?
Perhaps a separate score which is the ratio of up-mods to down-mods, just for display/vanity?
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:54AM
Slash saves every moderation in a log (editors can see this log; its designed to allow us to prevent moderation abuses), so generating a "spread" so to speak is possible. I'm liking the idea of gamifying karma, that you have to level up, and at specific levels, you get various perks on the site (as to what that may be, I'm unsure).
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by RobotMonster on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:06AM
Yeah, gamifying karma is definitely where my head was at. I don't know that you need perks as such -- badges and other useless honourifics, along with some stats would satisfy me.
In the interests of encouraging more comments & lively discussion, perhaps a user can earn "points" (not necessarily Karma) based on how many replies each of their comments receives, either just first-level replies, or the entire sub-tree if feasible. -- i.e. a reward for encouraging more comments to be posted.
Similarly for story submissions, you could get points related to how many posts were generated by your stories.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:38AM
We have the Achievements system which works (though the HTML for it was missing; re-adding that won't be hard), though I always found it to be kinda stupid. I *like* video game achievements, but I'm not sure how you could have actual achievements on this site and not be stupid or repetitive (like being upmodded 1000/5000/10000 times). I may open the floor to this once I get this discussion summarized.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Tuesday April 01 2014, @02:42PM
This type of achievement is how a lot of systems work. My Fitbit (hi-tech pedometer) is the one that comes to mind most readily.
It is kinda like lifetime achievement badges. On my Fitbit, it tracks for lifetime numbers of steps, lifetime staircases climbed, most steps in a particular day, and a few other things. Getting badge is a small ego boost and encourages continued participation.
I know the achievements system exists, but I don't know a whole lot about it. My $0.02 is a small thing like lifetime tracking is a nice little ego boost, and if we can be given the option to make it public or not, so much the better. As long as the achievements are achievable for the common Soyler (so as not to discourage those of us who lurk and occasionally post), it might be worth looking at.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:26AM
I'd like the ability to view more than just the last 24 of mine & other people's comments.
Currently I go to something like http://soylentnews.org/~NCommander/ [soylentnews.org] and see "NCommander's Latest 24 of 146 Comments", with no apparent way of getting the remaining 122 comments.
I'm not missing anything am I? Shall I submit it as a feature request? For the time being it could be just for users with Karma > 42 or something
And maybe there are other operations that take up more than their fair share of computing resources that could be made into perks.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:39AM
I believe this is a side effect of the fact that we don't have the subscription module installed, combined with Sphinx still being broken (two staff have fought with it, and yet to get it to work). I'll put this on the bug tracker, though I'm concerned it might do horrid things to the DB ...
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @02:47AM
I too would love to see "older comments" when I check someone out. I've already run up against the current inability a couple times. :(
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by bitweeder on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:50AM
Since karma is a proxy for reputation, I like the idea of it bleeding away without active maintenance. I also like the idea that only high-karma types are trusted to comment and moderate; it doesn't have to get more complicated than that. Of course, I only like this idea if it's in conjunction with implementing karma deflation.
FWIW, I don't post. Ever. I just don't have much to say most of the time. But I do mod pretty actively. It would be nice to have a metamoderation system incarnate here, especially if it granted karma to good moderators - to tie back into that whole "reputation proxy" thing...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:02AM
We *do* have the metamoderation code, but its somewhat knackered; I could probably fix it if I put my mind to it. I always got the opinion *very* few people metamodded, and even then, due to the way the old algo worked, I'm not sure it was ever effective. It might be worth enabling it and letting values build up in the database, though I was considered scrapping the feature for something a bit more automated (i.e., if a post had +4 upmods, and one downmod, that would be the equivelent of a negative metamoderation).
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by Roo_Boy on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:16AM
When ever I had the opportunity to metamod "over there" I usually did but one of the failings I often noticed was that it could be hard to determine if the moderation was justified without seeing the thread in more context.
It would be possible to click on the parent and then read the whole thread but it seemed like a bit of a chore for something that should be reasonably quick to do.
Of course I also wouldn't want to see all bajillion threads in some monster topic either, again a bit of a chore, so perhaps just the parent and grandparent of the comment in question?
--- The S.I. prototype "Average Punter" is kept in a tube of inert gas in Geneva.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:18AM
Once you became elligable for metamod, you could always metamod on the other site, there was no limit; and while its been ages since I metamodded, I remember it being much the same.
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:48AM
Automatic meta-moderation: I've thought about that as well, but...lemmings. You don't want to encourage group-think.
- Sometimes at the other site I've seen a thought-provoking post buried with "flamebait" and "troll". I've spent the odd mod-point trying to get it back up where people might see it.
- The flip-side isn't really any prettier: Someone espouses an easy, PC point and collects an easy +5. I have been known to be a grouch and and give a "-1 overrated".
Mind, I'd still do both of these things even if I get a penalty for it - but I won't be able to do many of them - and there would be that extra psychological barrier.
Do we really need metamoderation? Especially if you gamify the karma a bit. It shouldn't age *too* fast - sometimes life happens and someone is away for a couple of weeks - but over the course of months, I think this is a stunningly good idea.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:53AM
I've come to the conclusion that moderation was brilliant only in the fact that it was a solid concept. I felt much of the underlying math and assumptions using to underpin the system simple are fundamentally wrong.
I've written pretty heavily about why I think slashdot's old moderation algo is busted and have gone through a lot of lengths to justify the changes I made here. I *do* read every comment, email, and post on articles I post, and I frequently comment on all of them. I've already got a LOT of good feedback on this, including another thing to poll the community about (which I'm going to write up for Thursday or Friday).
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday April 01 2014, @11:07AM
Would it be a good idea to figure out what needs metamoderation first? I often get the impression that "Overrated" mods (or the downmods in general) are used when someone disagrees with something, but can't refute it in a comment (and don't want to add a comment repudiating it lest they look silly), so "punish" the poster with a downmod.
If this is the case then metamoderation would just be showing a list of comments that got a downmod (including what the previous score was) to see whether it was correct to downmod or not.
Someone would have to look over what moderations are actually happening to determine whether this or something else actually needs focus, however.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:11PM
I've never really liked overrated/underrated, especially because they ARE immune to metamoderate (metamoddable is set to 0 in the DB). I realize they serve a purpose, but I feel like its something that can be handled in a better way ...
I'm open to ideas on this.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:35PM
I don't think I've ever used underrated, so I would be in favour of just removing it. I would say that overrated should only be enabled if a post has had 1 or 2 positive mods already*. If a moderator wants to use a downmod on a post with no other mods, they have to have a reason for it (and the other downmods are easier to see if someone is abusing the moderation system)
*maybe something like
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @02:41AM
Unlike the other poster, I have used 'underrated' often enough. Its meaning to me is kinda "none of these other upmods really fits, but it deserves to be seen, so... 'underrated' it is."
'Overrated' seems most often used to mean 'I disagree' but I'm still not sure it should go away.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @02:38AM
I don't think you can automate it, as all four +1 might be full of shit, while the single -1 might have a clue. You just can't know.
I tried metamodding for a while, and could not see the point of it. A 'peer review' system where peer means 'anyone who wanders past often enough' will be by its nature unfair, and since the 'fix' (metamod) didn't seem to actively do anything... why bother? so I quit doing it.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:03AM
Karma aging is definitely a good idea, although I'd keep a stock level (say, any Karma between -5 and +5 never changes without explicit action, and if you are above 5/below -5, you cannot get beyond those thresholds except through explicit actions). I mean, someone who has posted great stuff in the past but then left for a year should definitely have an advantage over those trolling a lot and then leaving for a year.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:36AM
Already on my scratchpad for things to implement. The objective here is to keep a competition w.r.t. to scores and such, while not rendering users invulnerable to downmods. Once this drops off the main index, I'm going to sit down, compile this into an actual blueprint, and see on what it will take to get it implemented, as well as letting everyone pound on it.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:50AM
Another thing to think of is measures to make moderators more aware of the fact that they are doing mainly a service to the readers, not to the posters. Too many people consider mainly the effect their moderation does on the authors (affecting their Karma, giving them feedback), and due to this for example don't moderate up AC posts by principle (because the AC won't profit from that anyway, or because they are generally anti-AC). But the main point of moderation is to have good posts stand out for the reader, while at the same time saving the reader from having to sift through the bad posts. That is, the moderators should have mainly the reader in mmind when moderating, not the author.
I have no idea how that could be encouraged (other than by trying to educate the moderators whenever they publicly say something about having such a policy), but every step in the direction of encouraging the moderators to consider the readers before the authors when deciding on moderation would be a good step.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday April 01 2014, @04:25PM
It is outlined in the first few sentences of the Moderation Guidelines. [soylentnews.org]
Maybe we should make a big link to this doc the first few times a user receives mod points.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 03 2014, @02:45AM
Well, one way to encourage sifting thru AC posts might be to only charge half a point to mod AC comments. OTOH, that could make downmodding 'cheaper'. :(
Personally I don't pay much attention to the userID, or lack of, when I mod. I was amused the other day to discover I'd given an upmod to a friend's post without realising it was his handiwork.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by monster on Tuesday April 01 2014, @03:51PM
If you allow both posting and moderating, please implement some way to "flag" abuses in a future metamoderation function. Even max-karma users should be oversighted.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 01 2014, @12:02PM
In a past discussion I wanted Karma expressed as decibels referenced to AC rather than an absolute power level. An uncap it. So I'm coasting along at +17 dBK0AC or 17 dB Karma above AC. And then you could express rules as "block all posts with an absolute Karma level of 5 dB below AC" or "+1 display posts by authors with a relative dB Karma level at least 3 dB over my Karma level".
Depending how smart they are, it takes a noob to the telecom fields only a short length of time to get used to this stuff. Biggest problem is some fields going total power for zero ref and some fields going voltage for zero ref, but we've got the obvious selection for zero ref of Anonymous Coward.