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The Mighty Buzzard writes:

Apparently some people mistook Request For Comment to mean the same as it does for Internet RFCs, a settled matter. Not so much in our case; it meant exactly as it said. The proof is in the pudding though. Given the legitimate concerns of gamification of karma scores leading to lower quality comments raised by some users in regards to our RFC: Reworking Karma post, we agree and the idea has been scrapped.

It wasn't a difficult decision and we would have posted this the next day but there were a lot of very interesting ideas in the comments that we decided to work in to another RFC. Keep in mind these won't necessarily all go in at once even if everyone loves them all. Here's the list.

1. Karma minimum to downmod
2. Downmods cost the moderator karma, except the Spam mod
3. Touché gets its missing accent
4. Spam mods not to cost mod points but limiting it to 5/day
5. The triumphant return of Overrated
6. No karma hits for someone moderated Overrated/Underrated
7. Require comments to be otherwise moderated before you can Overrated/Underrated them
8. Organize moderation drop-down list
9. Separate Spam in the drop-down list with a spacer
10. Automated mod-bombing detection and manual resolution
11. Add an Incorrect moderation that must be accompanied by a correction

Details below the fold.

1) Karma minimum to downmod
We're currently thinking a floor of 10-20 karma on the part of the moderator in order to downmod a comment. This would primarily be to keep puppet accounts that never contribute from being used to downmod people into oblivion.

2) Downmods cost the moderator karma
Combined with the karma minimum, this would be more effective at keeping puppet accounts from being used. It would also hopefully at least make us think before we downmod someone we simply disagree with.

3) Touché gets its missing accent
Okay, so leaving the accent off was me doing a minor bit of dev-trolling. I've gotten my laughs out of it though, so you can have your accent.

4) Spam mods not to cost mod points but limiting it to 5/day
Reasoning behind this is you lot should not be charged for helping us keep the signal to noise ratio high. The per day limit would be to keep someone from writing a script to moderate every bloody comment on the site Spam at once and make us manually de-Spam each and every one.

5) The triumphant return of Overrated
Yeah, removing it did little to nothing as people intent on being asshats just used Flamebait or Troll instead. No point in leaving it gone.

6) No karma hits for someone moderated Overrated/Underrated
Overrated/Underrated are supposed to be there for when you believe a comment is correctly moderated but slightly too far. You're essentially moderating the current moderations, not the comment. Thus, you shouldn't be affecting the user's karma.

7) Require comments to be otherwise moderated before you can Overrated/Underrated them
Since you're really moderating the previous moderations with these two, you they should not be usable unless previous moderations exist.

8) Organize moderation drop-down list
This is actually already done on dev and should not really require comment as it's not a functionality change, just a minor aesthetic one. It's mostly being mentioned because it was asked for.

9) Separate Spam in the drop-down list with a spacer
Ditto #8.

10) Automated mod-bombing detection and manual resolution
Potential mod-bombs are easily detected even in realtime, we just haven't written the code to do so and format a list for staff to keep an eye on yet. Fixing them, that should require human intervention and judgment; if the mods were just, it wasn't a mod-bomb. The main question here: Do you lot want a moderation ban to accompany the undo of the mod bombing?

11) Add an Incorrect moderation that must be accompanied by a correction
Incorrect would be for factually incorrect statements. The first use would only be allowed if you have already posted a correction in reply. Once one correction is posted and the comment is moderated by one person, others may then use this moderation as well. If this makes it in, make sure you actually post a correction with citation. If your "correction" is along the lines of "Ur wrong!" with no citation, I will personally take your birthday away, add four zeroes to your UID, and and change your sig to "I ♥ moose wang!".

So, that's pretty much it. If you've got a beef with or love one or more of them, speak up on which and why. If you don't get specific, folks will just assume you hate all change just because it's change and not lend much weight to your opinion.