Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

The Fine print: The following are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Journal by aristarchus

The Saga continues. I submitted a lot of very fine articles on Charlottesville, and its aftermath. Many of these were disallowed, which is fine. But that all of them were seemed a bit of a bias on the part of the editors. So I started a brief campaign where I posted "No Comment" to new articles. This got me spam-mod-bombed (hey, a new Soylent word!), and my karma fell to depths I did not know were possible. So far, so good.

          So, I made fuss, or a journal entry, explaining the situation, and calling all good solylentils to come to the aid of their site. And come you all did. Some actually said they would mod me up, for no reason, which while nice, seemed a bit irrational. Appreciated, nonetheless. And so my karma has recovered. Some of this might be due to admins revoking the spam mods that were place on me. But they give no notification, and if the post in question has fallen off my "info" list, I really have no way of checking.

    And then there is the question of punishment. If someone spam modded me, and it was not a fair spam mod (and I assure my fellow soylentils that I would never spam you, in any pure and simple sense), then they should have been put on probation, having their moderation privileges revoked for a month. This has probably happened to us all, it happened to me, when I accidentally spam modded something, was banned, and made the case the the "spam" mod was too close to the "troll" mod, and so was restored. But this leads us to the topic at hand: what the heck is a spam-mod?

    So, as the drama about the spam-modding of yours truly was being played out, the Celestial (sorry, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 just hit Redbox) The Mighty Buzzard took it upon himself to adminsplain what constitutes a spam mod-able post. Yes, crass commercialism is spam. Rushstatus https://soylentnews.org/~kapilsingh/journal/ is spam. We all have no problem with this. But the other part of the guidelines for what is spam is decidedly subjective.

Spam can come in many forms, but it differs from a troll comment in that it will have absolutely no substance, is completely undesired, are detrimental to the site, or worse.

The Mighty Buzzard kept suggesting that my protest posts fit this category, so I had no choice but to mod his assertion of this as spam, since it had "absolutely no substance, was completely undesired, and was detrimental to the site, and worse". So I spam modded The Mighty Buzzard. He had it coming.

      Wait a sec, and think about this. I spam modded one of the admins of the site. I am a lowly soylentil. I barely can remember my password for the site. And I spam mod the person who seems to be, by his own admission, responsible for rescinding spam mods? Is this anything but a symbolic action? To TMB's credit, he asserted he would not do so, but left it to the editors. https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=21277&page=1&cid=559394#commentwrap Nice reclusal, but only in the confidence of the exact same outcome. And his confidence was confirmed.

    So now the Mineorgy Bacculumard has succeeded in having me mod-banned. As I said, my karma is restored, and perhaps higher than ever (another thing admins never let us see), but I am banned from moderation for a month, just when TMB, in a typically random attempt to fix the moderation system, upped the daily mod points to 10! And even worse, both Eth and Runaway made posts that, for almost the first time, I would have modded up! Oh, the irony! So where do we go from here?

    The suggest path is that I email admin, and explain how my spam mod was all a mistake, which admittedly does happen. But it did not in this case. TMB was repeating the basis for suppressing certain viewpoints on this forum, and I must maintain that this does constitute a post of "absolutely no substance, was completely undesired, and was detrimental to the site, and worse". We pretend to be a site that values free speech above all. But when TMB can make his own subjective determination as the the value of another soylentil's post? He needs to be spam-modded.

    So I am non-violent philosophically, long existence on earth will kind of make that point to you, but if anyone else feels like living dangerously, you could spam mod The Mighty Buzzard, just to make the point. Would not have any effect on his ability to do the wonderful coding he does to keep us all up and foaming at the mouth, but it might make the point that we, the few, the proud, the Soylentils, came here because we wanted a site controlled by its members, not some corporate entity or administrative elite. I, for one, do not want to think our volunteer editors have become exactly what we fled when we left the other site.

    Welcome your comments, but I will not be able to mod them up, so take that as a given, if I could.

Yours,
aristarchus of Samos

Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Reply to Article Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:23AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:23AM (#560077)

    I have to take umbrage with you claiming that any spam mod you received was unfair. You're no better than EF in terms of content/bs ratio, and at least he's entertaining most of the time. Really, I agree with most of your politics, but you're a douche, annoying, and a bully. Please, just quit stalking TMB and shut up for a bit.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Monday August 28 2017, @07:15AM (3 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 28 2017, @07:15AM (#560087) Journal

      Take exception, not umbrage. At least get the language right. And I am a bully, how? Pointing out that people are ignorant is a service, not bullying!

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @02:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @02:05PM (#560236)

        "Take umbrage" is a perfectly valid usage. You really shouldn't try to lecture native speakers with your ESL ass. You're a bully because you constantly try to shout people down, fling insults, and AC bumrush anyone you disagree with rather than debate.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:22PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:22PM (#560470)

        I perceive that you hounded Francis [soylentnews.org] off the board. His last post [soylentnews.org] received an anonymous response written in your style. The word "bullying" did come to mind. Perhaps that's too strong. I see it as untoward.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 28 2017, @06:00PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday August 28 2017, @06:00PM (#560360) Journal

      I have to take umbrage with you claiming that any spam mod you received was unfair. You're no better than EF in terms of content/bs ratio, and at least he's entertaining most of the time.

      EF's get rescinded all the time, though.

      Here's a pretty ridiculous example. [soylentnews.org]

      Somehow, saying Germans eat shit in a Windows thread is on-topic because....why...exactly?

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:28PM (#560476)

        The topic was the German response to unwanted Windows 10 installations. Are you saying Windows 10 isn't shit?

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @07:15AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @07:15AM (#560088)

    It's not surprising that a political fake-news site like ShitStain Political Fake-News is full of petty political in-fighting between members.

    How about you and the Mighty Buttfuck just fuck each other already. As soon as you consummate your burning gaylove, another pair of homogay assholes can take center stage with another idiotic lovers feud. That's what happens whenever Idiots, in the original Greek sense of the word, congregate to wave their erect dicks around in fake discussion of fake political fake news.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @11:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @11:18AM (#560157)

      I asked him in the very beginning to see a psychologist. I am 110% sure he is a man because only men have this problem of covering their problem with ego. well, not only men but very common in men. In the true fashion of taking SN seriously, he obviously hasn't seen one.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 28 2017, @02:22PM

      WTF?! Have you been looking at my browser history?

      While I am a fan of his mostly very well done trolling, that isn't enough to make him worthy of some Buzzard Buggery.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday August 28 2017, @12:54PM (3 children)

    by JNCF (4317) on Monday August 28 2017, @12:54PM (#560203) Journal

    As I said, my karma is restored, and perhaps higher than ever (another thing admins never let us see),

    Good to hear, Detective! You can see your karma on the main page, right between your email address and your new/old messages.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @12:58PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @12:58PM (#560206)

      IIRC it gets capped at 50, so you wouldn't be able to know how much you have over that.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @12:54PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @12:54PM (#560204)

    TMB's post was not spam and you know it. The post was on-topic and had substance despite a lack of your desire and your opinion that it was detrimental.

    Your "no comment" posts fit the definition of spam much more closely. They were the same off-topic content posted multiple times in different discussions. If you kept it up, then I would've modded them spam as well. I appreciate your contributions, but I'm not only here for you.

    If you mod undeserving posts as spam or hand out other negative mods to posts that do not deserve them, then it is probably better that you can't moderate.

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday August 28 2017, @08:49PM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 28 2017, @08:49PM (#560495) Journal

      If you mod undeserving posts as spam or hand out other negative mods to posts that do not deserve them, then it is probably better that you can't moderat

      This is the issue, right here. What undeserving posts? Why do you maintain that I handed out negative mods to posts that did not deserve them, when obviously I must have thought that they did deserve them, or I would not have modded them such? Are we to accept the sensibilities of an AC, or TMB, when it comes to determining desert?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 28 2017, @03:12PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 28 2017, @03:12PM (#560272) Journal

    I got mod-banned some time back. I knew all about the spam mod - just stay away from it. I made the mistake of FIVE down mods in the same day, and it cost me a month. I didn't bitch, belly-ache, whine, or complain. Despite the fact that I was on IRC every day, and talking to the staff pretty regularly, I didn't even suggest that anyone make an exception or anything. I got a month off, and I took it.

    Stop being a special snowflake, and give this all a rest, alright?

    BTW - I'm sure that you saw in your other journal entry, that I took your side. The "no comment" comments didn't rank as spam in my book. I thought a "-1 retarded" was appropriate, but not spam.

    And, oh yeah. You can't win this thing. I can't win it, the Buzzard can't win it, Nick can't even win it. It's a dynamic thing, give and take. Stop trying to win. It just ruins the experience. There's no logic, no rationale, nothing like that. In fact, there is only a very loose game plan. You flap your gums, I flap my gums, a whole bunch of other people flap their gums, and all that flapping just stirs the atmosphere creating hurricanes or something like that. Ain't no winners, so stop trying.

    The whiner posts just make you look immature, man. Cut it out.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 28 2017, @06:04PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday August 28 2017, @06:04PM (#560364) Journal

      Frankly, I think we should just get rid of the damn thing altogether at this point.

      Admins making unilateral moderation decisions is always going to cause a problem. This would be the case with normal -1's but creating a super-negative-mod (-10) and then selectively reverting some of them is just adding insult to injury.

      The "no comment" comments didn't rank as spam in my book. I thought a "-1 retarded" was appropriate, but not spam.

      Agreed 100%!

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:35PM (#560484)

    The actual spammer (I have a hunch that there's only one) creates spam journal entries.

  • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Tuesday August 29 2017, @06:09AM

    by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday August 29 2017, @06:09AM (#560682) Journal

    We pretend to be a site that values free speech above all.

    Is toilet karma really the same thing as censorship? I would guess no.

    I, for one, do not want to think our volunteer editors have become exactly what we fled when we left the other site.

    Whaaaaaa? Did you actually expect or hope for better news editors? Ever? Here on Earth? AND unpaid? I just thank my fate every day I don't have to deal with their interface & ads anymore...

  • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:22PM (12 children)

    by CoolHand (438) on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:22PM (#560775) Journal
    *disclaimer - these are all my personal opinions and feelz... They do not represent SoylentNews* I haven't been as active as I'd like as an editor lately. I don't think I was around for your barrage of Charlottesville posts. However, I'd like to say that, as a team, I don't think we editors have a bias to the right, and several of us have a bias towards the left (although I believe we all try to keep our biases in check). We try to only run one political story a day, and try to keep the them as balanced as possible, both in those individual stories and over the course of days. Of course, that doesn't always happen. It is nigh on impossible keeping a neutral slant on things, especially when most submissions coming in are biased - either from the submitters, or the original news sources (who all seem slanted to either the left or right nowadays). Add on top of that the filter of the reader, and its a pretty impossible situation. I was hoping that when the Politics nexus was introduced it would keep the politics contained there, but I fear that it is stirring up even more animosity amongst some factions of our readership. As far as all your mods, and little spat with TMB, it seems like you're being a bit petulant, and trying to push limits in order to make a point. Even though I absolutely do not agree with TMB's politics, or his posts on politics, I've generally found him to be fair when dealing with those of opposite political persuasion when it comes to the site, and found him to promote open discussion of opposing viewpoints.
    --
    Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:54PM (11 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:54PM (#561227) Journal

      As far as all your mods, and little spat with TMB, it seems like you're being a bit petulant, and trying to push limits in order to make a point.

      Nice to know someone actually gets it! Thanks, CoolHand!

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @06:00PM (10 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday August 30 2017, @06:00PM (#561610) Homepage Journal

        Oh I got it just fine. I expect everyone else did as well. It wasn't subtle. Unfortunately, if we smack down everyone else who tries to push it, we have to smack you down as well. Regardless of your motivation.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:53AM (9 children)

          by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:53AM (#561981) Journal

          So, Martin Luther King Jr, parading without a permit in Birmingham, was a complete violation of the rules!! Of course, why did they have such rules, in Birmingham, or on SoylentNews? You should know that this will haunt the entire site. This is not just a case of someone who threw a spam mod, when they shouldn't have. I was protesting the spam mods thrown at me, which admin let stand. So I had not choice but to spam mod the most visible enforcer of spam mods, The Might Buzzard Hisself. Was I wrong? Will no admin hear me? Is SoylentNews firmly in the hands of the alt-right? Or do we stand for something more? Real news aggregation, not fake news. Actual justice, not Anti-social Injustice Warrior speak! So, it would be nice if I could have my mod privileges back. I cannot promise that I will not spam mod the Mingerty Brouxxard again, because I still think he deserves it. Who made him the sole arbitrator of spam/not-spam modding? I think the entire game is rigged.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:37AM (8 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:37AM (#562054) Homepage Journal

            Who made him the sole arbitrator of spam/not-spam modding?

            The rest of the staff did by not checking the Spam mods page at least once a day. I'd say come on staff and do it yourself if you don't like how I'm doing it but you in particular couldn't be trusted with the security level necessary to even see the Spam mods page.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:08PM (3 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:08PM (#562256)

              Am interested in seeing the list of spam mods that are allowed to stand. Just the list of comments, not the login names of the moderators.

              • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday September 01 2017, @01:02AM (2 children)

                by melikamp (1886) on Friday September 01 2017, @01:02AM (#562367) Journal
                Omg yes, can we please have THE SPAM HALL OF FAME?????????
                • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday September 01 2017, @01:04AM (1 child)

                  by melikamp (1886) on Friday September 01 2017, @01:04AM (#562368) Journal
                  To clarify, THE SPAM HALL OF FAME (TM) should include EVERY spam, because EVERY spam is precious.
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 01 2017, @04:59AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 01 2017, @04:59AM (#562412)

                    The motivation for my request was not to glorify spammers, but to be informed about the nature and scale of the problem. Search engines do not crawl the journals, so linking from a journal will not bring additional traffic to spammers' sites.

                    I sense you're ridiculing me with your emphasis on "every spam." Just the most recent ones would be enough to give us a sense of the problem. I would welcome a complete list, if that isn't too unwieldy or too time-consuming to prepare--and if I may request it without further ridicule.

            • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday September 01 2017, @08:57AM (3 children)

              by aristarchus (2645) on Friday September 01 2017, @08:57AM (#562443) Journal

              but you in particular couldn't be trusted with the security level necessary to even see the Spam mods page.

              What makes you say this, oh Mightbe ABuzzard? Do I detect a hint of bias in your tone? The suggestion below, to make spam mods public, as well as measures dealing with them, might compromise the confidentiality of the mod system, but you seem to have let much slip regarding my modding habits, so I guess that cat is out of the bag and the horse has already left the barn. What happened to the four spam mods that were thrown my way, and to thems what threw them? I promise that, like you, I will take no action on the basis of such information in a matter that involves myself.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @06:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @06:01PM (#564211)

    I hope you stick around, I like reading your comments on articles. Don't really know anything about this moderation stuff.

(1)