SoylentNews

Admins should probably take a hands-off approach when it comes to moderation. Especially, if they are regularly posting highly opinionated comments in the same forum.

No matter what, SOMEONE will question the fairness of any given decision.

The problem with the SPAM mod is that it's a -10 moderation. That causes 2 issue:
    1: Mods can never fully revert it if we think it's in error since we can only ever make a post +5
    2: Because it's a super-mod, now the Admins are forced to manage it. It wouldn't be such a problem if the standard was objective (e.g. only commercial). But, since it's a subjective standard there will always be disagreements.

Is this a solution in search of a problem?

We really don't see much commercial Spam. Why isn't -1 Troll sufficient for the non-commercial "Spam?" Sure, it'll slow the descent into the karma hole a bit but how quickly do we really need to demote people?

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

Americans #PlanAhead, #winning big league against #Harvey! We have an all out effort going, and going well! So far, so good! Experts are calling #Harvey a once in 6000 year flood! They've never seen one like this! #WOW! But no match for the most resilient nation on Earth! #USA pic.twitter.com/tpXmOK70ug #TrumpTV #RepealThe22nd #RepealThe25th

Boy Scouts 'Exploring' Co-Ed Programming Provokes Girl Scout Ire

Girl Scouts Accuse Boy Scouts of Recruiting Girls, Souring Century-Old Friendship

Editorial: On their honor, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts should settle their boundary issues

Parents, Don’t Let Your Girls Join the Boy Scouts

Lots Of Girls Want To Join The Boy Scouts. What's The Problem With That?

I can sense film scripts being written about this.

Islam is no more inherently violent than Christianity, BUT..

If anyone has a basis to say otherwise it's probably Charlie Fucking Hebdo!

Which they didn't actually say, for the record.

In case anyone has not been paying attention, the events in Charlottesville have revealed the true nature of SoylentNews. SN sides with the Nazis. Now, like the TMB, this is done under the cover of "free speech", so that, I guess, Nazis can express their side of the violence they do against Jews, homosexuals, Roma, Communists, the developmentally disabled, and jmorris.

Aristarchus has been extraordinarily targeted. After submitting a HUGE number of submissions, I have been pilloried, and subject to at least four unjustified spam mods, and now my karma is so low that I cannot even come back as Runaway1955! Truly a sad state of affairs! And, I also did not realize that after a certain level of karma, one can no longer mod negatively, only positively, and certainly not spam mod in retaliation. Neat system. To suppress free speech!!!

Well, I said long ago that if we did not control the alt-right influence, the promise that was SoylentNews would be lost. Now, I am quite convinced that it is. I have started a "no comment" campaign, so that when the editors fed us stories that do not reflect the true interests of Soylentils, we can register our objection by making note of the fact that we will not comment. And comments are what could have made this site. And I said, I will not leave, but, I also will no longer comment.

Not sure what this all means, but we have gone from BuckFeta to SuckOylent, for sure.

Daniel Kammen, you are a schlemiel, a shmuck, a schmoe, and a #TOTALLOSER! But I have to say, you were smart to quit. That was a smart move. Because I would have loved to fire you. I promised my hard-working coal miners I'd bring back their jobs. In Youngstown, Ohio. In Detroit, Michigan. And in Pittsburgh, Pa. And getting out of the Paris agreement, which we all know is farcical, is a big part of that. I'm keeping my promises. And neither you, nor anyone else, will stand in my way. Screw Paris, screw your VERY CHILDISH hidden messages, and above all screw you. With a rusty pitchfork. Never darken my door again, you're dead to me. #JOBS

The Humble Bundle has a bunch of BSG (classic and new) comics on sale ($15 for the bunch).

Looks interesting: i've grown kind of fond of e-comics and manga's. About the only thing i can do while mobile, (like going to Disney World) cause i ain't got no phone.

Would have loved one of the phones Ubuntu was trying to crowd fund, but it was like $600-800+, if memory serves (and it NEVER DOES, Batman), but yeah.... money.

Still saving for that computer upgrade, but Disney set me back a bit, lol.
But worth it.
Last years vacation was a staycation. Really sucked. Didn't do anything. Disney World i enjoyed even though the humidity put it up over 109 degrees.
Helllllllla enjoyed EVERY second, pretty much.

Disney really can do a good job, despite the tracky-ness of it all. You just gotta want it bad enough: and i hella needed it.

Always nice to see your kids face light up like it did when Goofy entered the room.

Redefining 'Drug Bust': German Police Seize 5,000 Pills In Shape Of Trump's Head

'Donald Trump-shaped' ecstasy pills seized by German police

German Police Seize Thousands of 'Trump' Ecstasy Tablets

Germany’s orange ecstasy pills have Trump’s name — and face — all over them

Molly!

Tune in to my very important speech NOW! #TrumpTV