"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." :- misattributed to Einstein
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." :- Einstein
There is a lot in this Meta but it is necessary to have certain aspects of the site's operation explained in detail so that subsequent elements make sense and are understandable by everyone. The initial lessons from the Trial of Flagging by Journal Owners appear later in this Meta.
Permanent Banning
Banning someone from the site is a serious decision which is why it is rarely considered. It has always been recognised that the act of banning someone is never going to be easy to enforce. Some may wonder why banning is even considered at all, and the explanation is relatively simple. Some acts – in this case doxxing – can have serious repercussions and kolie has described elsewhere those potentially applicable under US law an in particular to the state of Oregon.
The rules exist to ensure that we maintain a viable site where people are free to discuss the topics presented in an adversarial yet friendly atmosphere. If the site's rules are not enforced then they are meaningless and, over time, they will be ignored. We are very tolerant of minor infractions but at some point it is necessary to remind somebody of the reason for the rule and that is often all that is needed. The next level usually involves moderation, possibly with an Admin-To-User message warning that the user might receive a temporary ban if (s)he continues. If temporary bans do not work then, in extreme cases, it is necessary to employ a permanent ban. Permanent bans require the approval of the Board.
Admin-to-User messages can only be used to communicate from staff to account holders; the only way to communicate with Anonymous Cowards is directly via a comment.
Doxxing
During the last few days some have challenged the definition of doxxing. In particular, they have argued that the addresses given are obviously fake and therefore are not doxxing. The rules are quite clear. It isn't possible for staff to recognise every address as being genuine or fake and so it is always assumed to be genuine and treated as such.
Kolie's amusing and robust counter can be seen here.
Sock-Puppets and Multiple Accounts
Each person is allowed to have one account which gives him the right to vote on the site. They are owned by a community member and they are not transferable nor can they be shared accounts. Additional accounts can be created providing that they are notified to, and agreed by, the Administration and are required to fulfill a specific function e.g upstart and Arthur T Knackerbracket (story submission bots), Acfriendly (journal to facilitate AC participation in front page stories) etc. These additional bots do not have voting rights nor should they receive moderation points.
Fake accounts are those accounts created to use the site often by persons not intending to participate in discussions. They are usually created for advertising purposes and might also be created by commercial organisations. As most people never even see them they cause little problem other than take up an account identity. However, occasionally they engage in activities that are not aligned to the site's purpose and they are disabled. Accounts created entirely in, or sometimes using, foreign languages are disabled as a matter of routine. Some of these have been associated with material that is illegal under US Federal or State laws.
Sock Puppets are accounts that are created usually with the intention of giving the user an unfair advantage with regards to voting or moderation abuse. They are sometimes intended to give the user an alternative account to use when their primary account would attract a ban, or to use when their primary account has already be given a temporary ban. Very often the sock puppet account is employed to positively moderate inflammatory or abusive posts made Anonymous Cowards, thus preventing the community from controlling such material by selecting a reasonable viewing level, while leaving the sock puppet account apparently innocent of any wrongdoing.
Historically, some users have created multiple sock-puppets as were used increasingly during the "Sock-Puppet-War" between 2018 and 2021. Each user employed the sock-puppets in an attempt to prevent the other from expressing his or her personal view and with the further hope that their opponent might be banned from the site. One person has created hundreds of sock-puppets. The names of many of these sock puppets contain doxxing material or express unacceptable statements.
I have been watching specific sock-puppets for some time to try to understand their purpose. As recently as earlier this week I disabled 6 such accounts. Their creator is known. There are as yet others that I am still analysing.
Real-World Politics
In the USA in particular, but elsewhere too, the political situation has become very polarised. There is much hatred between opposing political factions which has sometimes resulted in violence or other physical and verbal abuse. This site is NOT the place to continue to express your dislike of other community members who do not share your own political views. Demanding that someone be banned or continually punished for having a particular political view is abuse and it will be treated as such by the staff.
Everyone in our community has the same rights to express their opinion, and any attempt to prevent one of them from doing so is unacceptable. If you find yourself having to name a person in a comment it is often the sign that you are intending that comment as a personal attack. If a topic or journal is intended to discuss a political viewpoint it is entirely correct to do so, but that does not include personal attacks against other community members.
Journals
Journals are for account holders to discuss any topic that is legal under US and State laws, but which would not be considered for front page use. The topics do not have to be written to suit everybody in the community. They do not have to meet with the approval of individual community members who have no right to demand that the journal owner stops writing such journals or take other action to intentionally disrupt the subsequent journal discussion.
...And if you have managed to get this far I hope that what I have written will now make more sense than it might have done before and you will now understand its relevance:
Flagging Trial
The removal of non-account Anonymous Cowards from the main pages has made discussion far more acceptable to many people. Unfortunately, it has not had the same effect in the journals which a minority of ACs have been using to disrupt the discussions and abuse the journal owners and other community members. As a result, fewer people are using the journals to introduce their own discussions, and fewer people are participating in journal discussions.
Several journal owners requested that we investigate ways of controlling the abuse. It was apparent that such control would be a significant task for staff with the current software and data. The site has always had a means of removing illegal or unacceptable content from display. From the very first days of the site there has been a facility to delete comments from the database. However, the method involved hard deletes (permanent deletions from the database) but that left the child comments also inaccessible. Soft deleting (flagging) was adopted in 2024 as a far better solution. The use of the flagging is different from the community's perception than the previous system because:
- It is immediately apparent that flagging has taken place. Previously comments just 'disappeared' and were irretrievable.
- The community needs to know that the system is not being abused, which could be provided by having increased visibility of the processes involved
- Such visibility raises several issues – why has a comment been flagged? who would do the flagging? and how would it be managed?
After discussions with some journal owners they agreed to assist in a trial in which journal owners themselves would be able to exercise some control over abuse and/or disruption in their journals. There were 3 journal owners initially and others participated as their journals appeared.
There is one permanently banned account – aristarchus. Even before his ban we have over several years tried various methods including moderation, arranging for him to rejoin the community with some restrictions, and deletion of his comments. This is not new and goes back to the very early days of the site. In 2014 he was already abusing some of the same people that he abuses today. His complaints about blocked IP addresses and censorship go back to at least 2016. This alone indicates that the blocked IP addresses are unrelated to any other function and are automatic within the Rehash software. The site rules state that technical means can be employed to remove such comments and that now implies flagging.
Identifying his posts was initially marred by the occasional mis-identification. Where they were brought to my attention they were corrected and apologies made – publicly and privately. Since the start of 2025 the amount of data available to us has increased in its nature, quantity and accuracy. It is far more reliable today than it was. Nevertheless, there is no automatic flagging and a person remains the final decision maker based on the originator and the contents of the comment in its entirety.
Findings and Recommended Actions
- Journal owners are reluctant to use the flagging mechanism for perfectly understandable reasons. They would prefer an inclusive, community-based discussion. They do not want the abuse and disruption and flagging provides them with the means to control such occurrences should they wish to use it. Action: Consider starting all journals set to Logged-in Users only as default. Journal owners should still have the opportunity to open the discussion wider if they wish.
- There is no reason to remove the facility from journals for those journal owners who might now, or in the future, wish to use flagging to control abuse in their journal. Action: Leave the facility in situ. We may also need it for future trials.
- Some readers still find the reduced banner impairs their ability to read a discussion. Action: Investigate still further whether it is possible for the banner be reduced further in size – perhaps just to the comment number in a smaller font? It is recognised that the fragility of parts of Rehash might make this very difficult to achieve.
- The management of flagging will require additional data to be recorded with each flagged item. For example, if a comment contains doxxing it should record the comment and also set a flag to prevent it ever being released. There may be additional requirements as the existing software is enhanced. Action: Keep as is for the moment but be aware that changes will be required.
- The management of flagging will either require additional staff for it to be maintainable over a period of time, or significant additional software to assist in the management task. Action: If no additional manpower is available the next best option is to make the site Logged-in Users only. Reverting to a previous state (i.e. relying on basic moderation) will only result in the same outcome as it did previously.
- User requests for a flagging to be reviewed (not simply viewed) must be by the person who made the original comment. Action: How to do this for ACs is not yet identified. Otherwise the system can be easily defeated by numerous unjustified requests for reviews by miscellaneous people..
- The decision to flag a comment can for the moment only be made by a person. Despite the process being far more reliable now than it initially was it is still below the level that would result in an automatic system being viable.
- A clear policy that is acceptable to the community must be provided to state clearly when and how flagging is permissible. Action: A policy must be written with community consultation to fulfill this requirement.
Your comments are invited. ACs will have the opportunity to make comments in a journal. While AC views and opinions are welcome any abuse in that journal will be treated appropriately
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday October 30, @02:31PM (12 children)
There is no principle that states that Soylent or anybody else is required to give the proverbial microphone to somebody who they know is going to use it to be a jerk or a troll rather than say something useful.
And no, I don't care about the excuses of people trying to rules lawyer the issue. So far, I've seen the Soylent admins and moderators tolerate a lot of strong and even abrasive opinions on a wide variety of topics, so the idea that they're censorship-happy is simply a lie from folks hoping to get away with stuff they know full well they shouldn't.
You want to troll on your own website, that's your business, but Soylent has every right to enforce reasonable or even unreasonable rules as they are fit.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Thursday October 30, @02:42PM
I agree. The flagging system is a good compromise and letting users decide posting policy in their own journals is welcome. Those with the time and inclination to swat the flies are welcome to.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Thursday October 30, @02:55PM (10 children)
Agree. There is no right to post on SoylentNEWS Anything that reduces burdensome work for the people running the site is to be welcomed.
Idea: Put all postings by Anonymous Coward into a queue to be reviewed by the article originator (not the editor) or journal owner, with a default of no posting to be published. Any postings deemed worthwhile by the article originator/journal owner can be released for publication. Postings made by logged-in accounts don't get put in the review queue.
There are probably many reasons why this would not work, but I'm just trying to come up with something new.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday October 30, @05:03PM
Thank you. I'm not sure how we would do it, but it is another idea worth consideration. As usual, we much prefer possible solutions to people's complaints.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hopdevil on Friday October 31, @02:37AM (2 children)
Total shot in the dark, but what about random, or weighted random, community members being able to review posts? Share the love and responsibility and maybe get more involvement overall? I remember something, vaguely, from the green site doing this.
I personally wouldn't mind reviewing for posts (maybe those flagged?) meeting community standards, leaning heavily towards freedom of expression.
(Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Friday October 31, @09:04AM (1 child)
That was the metamoderation system. I used to do that from time to time.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by Unixnut on Friday October 31, @11:19AM
The green site used to have that no? I seem to remember that every once in a while I (and probably other random selections of users) would be asked to meta-moderate. Then based on whether my meta-moderations matched the community aggregate of other meta-moderations, I would be rewarded with more mod points.
I admit its been many many years (probably over a decade) since I last logged into the green site, but the above seems a bit too precise a memory for me to have imagined it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 31, @04:39PM
I like this idea and I post primarily because I can't mod it higher than +5. But yeah pretty cool idea. The only downside I can think of is "that sounds like a lot of work for a feature maybe very few will use"
Once in a blue moon, AC has something REALLY good to say. Not often. But if someone cared enough to go fishing in the sewer, on occasion, really good fish can get caught however unlikely it may seem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 01, @06:17PM (4 children)
It may make sense for journals, but I don't think giving article submitters additional burden is a good strategy. You don't want to discourage submitting, do you?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday November 01, @09:12PM (3 children)
I don't think anyone has suggested such a thing - I certainly haven't. We always welcome submissions - the better they are the more chance of being accepted, of course, but even a single link will get reviewed.
I am a little surprised that there are quite a few people here who are specialists in their own professions but they rarely make a submission about it. I would love to read more about the jobs that I have never had or, in some cases, that I have never known existed! We have technicians of all shapes and sizes, university researchers and lecturers, carpenters, laboratory technicians, pharmacy technicians, and then we haven't even started on hobbies - astronomy, members of maker communities, 3D printers, photography, ...
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 08, @03:53PM (2 children)
From my understanding, pTamok (to whose comment I replied) has suggested exactly such a thing.
On the point of submitting about things on your profession: When I was still doing physics research, the things I did were so specialised that they certainly would not have made good submissions (they definitely never made it to the general press). Now that I'm working as IT consultant, I'm not even allowed to talk publicly about for which clients I work, let alone the things I do for them. I guess many are in one of those positions.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday November 08, @08:08PM (1 child)
I understand and accept your point of view.
But (and there is always a but...) as part of your work, either previously or recently, you must have seen items that were of interest to you that were not closely linked to one of your clients, or so technical that you couldn't explain their value and explain why such research is being carried out. It was just a thought... Perhaps I am mistaken.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 09, @01:22PM
There is one thing back from the research times I could imagine could have been suitable as a topic, but linking only the paper would not have been good because that would have been to technical, and there was nothing non-technical I could have linked to. Maybe I could have written some non-technical writeup somewhere, and then linked to that in a summary, but for that I definitely would not have had the time back then (note also that writing it directly on SoylentNews, even in the journal, would also not have been suitable because without images, the writeup would have been utterly incomprehensible).
Indeed, one reason why I didn't submit more general stuff back in the time when I was more active here was exactly the time involved in doing so (the other thing being that usually the topic was already submitted anyway, and my experience was that it was pointless to submit something in that case because even if my submission was objectively better, it would not be considered anyway).
Of course lately, the main reason I didn't submit to the site was that I wasn't visiting it; it somehow slipped out of my consciousness for a while when other things occupied more brain space.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AlwaysNever on Thursday October 30, @10:39PM (2 children)
I'm sorry, janrinok, but this all is too convoluted. Perhaps you have too much idle time.
Given that creating a user account in SN is free and it in fact equals being annonymous for practical purposes, my vote it to totally and universally disable the Annoymous Coward feature.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday October 31, @04:11PM (1 child)
The flip side is to allow AC comments but make the default not to display them, karma adjust them into oblivion.
As an old timer, originally, the IRL used purpose of the AC feature was essentially snarky one liners, the kind of thing someone would yell while drunk at an improv night for the LOLs but not good enough / funny enough / tasteful enough that you'd want it, say, attached to your resume. Which is fine when used in moderation solely to max out the ha ha funny. A reasonable contemporary non-automobile analogy from "back in the day" long pre Y2K on /., would be the "Beavis and Butthead Show" where butthead says "huh huh huh he said dillhole huh huh" and in context of a bunch of drunks at a comedy club that would be uproariously funny if mildly distasteful. "Whats bigger than a set of Window 95 floppy installation disks?" "huh huh huh your mom huh huh huh" that not-overly-mature level of comedy.
However, unfortunately, in 2025 its mostly just a firehose of nonsense mostly by a bunch of dillholes, so shut it down. I'll save you ACs the time: "huh huh huh he said dillhole huh huh"
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday November 01, @09:14PM
ACs don't have karma.... they all share the one account. But I get your point :)
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by acid andy on Thursday October 30, @11:52PM (5 children)
I am part of what I presume is a minority of Soylentils who actually liked the chaotic, Wild West flavor of SoylentNews. I am not sure what that says about me as a person, psychologically. However, I do accept that many readers were put off by that climate and I do have some sympathy for them.
My personal preference would be that flagging is used at the absolute minimum level required to ensure legal compliance. However, this is not a serious policy suggestion because I understand my view does not reflect that of a large proportion of readers: most likely a majority.
The most important thing to me is that this community can continue to exist without too many people wanting to leave. So do whatever is best to achieve that aim.
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kolie on Friday October 31, @12:21AM
I'm pretty aligned with this as well. I think perhaps augmenting the mod/meta-mod system may be useful.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday October 31, @01:53AM (2 children)
My usual thinking of the "complete free-for-all" model is: If you want 8-chan, you know where to find it. I'd much rather people go there for that sort of thing than try to turn everything else into that.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 31, @04:31PM
Acid Andy suggested the genre of "Wild West", so in that genre I'd suggest the wild west saloon that is super busy and nobody knows nobodies name is going to be dramatically wilder and full of more shootouts and bar fights than the wild west saloon where everyone knows your name (even if it might be false) and its a somewhat slower paced longer term thing.
The overcrowded (well, in the old days) hip hop club vs the neighborhood dive bar. I like my neighborhood dive bar they have a nice fish fry on Fridays and its always the same people, even if we don't all agree on everything.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday October 31, @04:49PM
Well, when you say it like that, I probably should have said just a notch or two above the absolute minimum level required to ensure legal compliance. Without some level of control, this place could have been much more of a cesspool than it ever has been. Even TMB had his limits with the content that he allowed AIUI.
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday October 31, @06:03PM
I think the issue more than anything else is that this isn't a big budget site. And even big budget sites do have a hard time keeping up with the right wing nonsense and lies. Not that it doesn't happen on the left, but there is a reason why the "Gish gallop" was named after a rightwinger.
As far as who should and shouldn't be allowed to post on the site, I don't know. I used to be pretty close to being a free speech absolutist, but watching the way that platform after platform after platform has been taken over by the bigoted BS being spewed from the right, and now rightwinger controlled bots, But at least we're nowhere near the point of becoming the sort of cesspool that Slashdot was the last time I posted over there.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 31, @04:22PM (6 children)
Is it accurate for me to rephrase that to "one person one set of daily mod points"? If not, well, thats how I interpreted it so the rest of the post will read pretty weird in that case LOL.
Now there's a difference between stomp my foot and demand it, vs a thought experiment while sippin breakfast tea rather late this morning. This is definitely the latter scenario, an idea interesting enough to ponder for a minute. Not necessarily a good idea nor one I support but one I enjoyed thinking about for a minute.
What if the equation were "one non-AC comment post = one mod point"?
Seems fair, on one hand, if you want to critique someone elses work in public you should risk your own hide in public.
On the other hand, "its a lot of work" the algo would look like count(posts) - count(used_modpoints), round down to ten, is how many modpoints you get to use today. (why ten? i donno, maybe tradition?)
On the third hand, this wouldn't stop reddit style karma farming, if anything it would encourage it. You'd see a lot more trash posts trying to farm modpoints. "Frist Post" etc just to be able to use the modpoints tomorrow.
So its not all sunshine unicorns glitter and balloons but its an interesting idea to daydream about for a minute. Really the only part of my idea that I really like is "if you want to critique someone elses work in public you should risk your own hide in public."
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday October 31, @04:54PM (5 children)
The two things go hand-in-hand. Each account can only cast 1 vote during voting sessions, and each standard account will get moderation points too. Special accounts (essentially bots) get neither. Having more than 1 account is not permitted - the others are sock-puppets.
Thanks for the other ideas. They are definitely worth thinking about.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday October 31, @06:08PM (4 children)
Has there been an issue with mod point? I seem to never run low on them pretty much no matter what I do. Lately, I've been trying to make more use of them to help encourage better posts, but even then, I still wind up with a bunch of them left at the end of the day as much of the posts worth modding are already where they should be.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday October 31, @07:03PM (3 children)
There has not been a problem with modpoints that I am aware of, other than people who use them to abuse other accounts. That is fairly rare nowadays on the main stories.
As long as you have enough to moderate those comments that deserve it and have not yet been moderated to the maximum, then the system seems to be reasonably balanced.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday October 31, @08:06PM
Cool, I wasn't sure if I just wasn't seeing issues. I generally browse at -1 and apart from that recent topic where I couldn't see a bunch of deleted posts, I don't see that many posts that I think are significantly off where where they should be.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday November 01, @01:27PM (1 child)
Theoretical model (which could be wrong) -> "Normal" users like aafcac and I and probably many others, essentially never run out of modpoints at current quota. Abusers would tend to create fake accounts and max out their modpoints on each fake account, probably/possibly. Presumably you have the raw data.
Would it be easer for you or you'all to catch the naughty people by reducing the modpoint quota making the naughty people do more naughty stuff making it easier to catch them, or would it just make more of a mess? Or the middle ground of possibly being a waste of time for all involved.
Somehow I'm thinking injecting modpoint data into the data science project would have interesting results.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday November 01, @04:30PM
Some others do run out of modpoints. Changing the quota might help you but not them.
Actual live sock-puppets are in very low figures at the moment. That is because we are looking at every new account as it is created. The fake accounts and sock-puppets are fairly easy to spot - as long as somebody is looking.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Friday October 31, @10:11PM
Cut staff some slack, guys, they do a really good job here and their rules are reasonable. Some of the problems they've addressed here affected some of my journals, and I appreciate their work on it.
We have a president who posted a fake video of himself shitting on America