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Welcome, new trolls! We're pleased as punch to have you aboard, unfortunately as you may have noticed our moderators are unable to give you the moderations you've been working so hard for. Since we can't really do much about people not moderating more, we're going to be giving out more points so that the ones that do can give you the attention you so desperately crave.
Moderators: Starting a little after midnight UTC tonight, everyone will be getting ten points a day instead of five. The threshold for a mod-bomb, however, is going to remain at five. This change is not so you can pursue an agenda against registered users more effectively but so we can collectively handle the rather large uptick in anonymous trolling recently while still being able to have points remaining for upmodding quality comments. This is not an invitation to go wild downmodding; it's helping you to be able to stick to the "concentrate more on upmodding than downmodding" bit of the guidelines.
Also, this is not a heavily thought-out or permanent change. It is a quick, dirty adjustment that will be reviewed, tweaked, and likely changed before year's end. Questions? Comments?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @11:53PM (5 children)
I am registered but almost 99% of the time post AC. Sorry people are dicks and like to dox you. You never know what will set them off... So sorry if that makes you mad but I am going to protect myself.
I try to mod fairly. I regularly mark things OT that I may even agree with. If you are not contributing to the convo. Then I mark it. Also a reminder to other mods. Also Troll != disagree. There are a couple of accounts that tend to pick up troll from me. They are obvious troll accounts meant to just piss people off. They are almost always offtopic or try to make the topic about something they hate/love.
I did not mod you on this one bob_super, but I would however mark it disagree.
The slashdot system of modding has a bad problem with more points in the pool. Stuff will either go -1 or +5 and stay there. I have seen many comments that are a 3 maybe a 4. That are +5 or -1. It is a poor side effect of the system. There is no clean way to fix it. Not everything is OMZG AMAZEBALLS or DIE DIE DIE IN FIRE YOU BASTARD. Yet this system produces it. Also being logged in and adding +1 to a comment produces over inflated items. So other mods look at the current score and decide. Adding more points will basically degenerate the sd system of modding into thumbs up and down.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:12AM (4 children)
I am not sure you are correctly answering my question, which was genuinely the technical difficulty of having mod points separated between AC and registered users. I mod ACs up a lot more than I mod them down (mostly because very efficient people do take care of the trolls quickly), and outside of rare odd cases, I am not complaining about mods I receive.
I have left obvious trolls unmodded in the past, because I wanted to keep points to reward those very good comments which keep me coming. Having a separate pool to reward ACs or punish AC trolls could potentially avoid that effect, when giving everyone ten "universal" points risks a +5 overdose...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @12:30AM (3 children)
I just disagree. Like I said. I think more points will make the problem worse. -1/+5 is what will happen no matter what. More points just shows the issue more. 'special points' do not do any good other than let people over-inflate a particular segment.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @06:21PM (2 children)
As I see the moderation system here get more and more complex, the more I think it should just be thrown out completely.
It's like a balance is trying to be found for something that cannot be balanced.
Each supposed ``fix'' introduces new problems and new incentives for unwanted behavior.
So throw it all away. Throw away comment ratings. Throw away mod points.
Show all comments by default, regardless of who they're posted by.
If you like a comment, then reply and say why.
If you don't like a comment, then reply and say why.
If you don't want to read a comment, then skip over it.
I always have to browse at -1 anyway, so I can see the best comments here.
The ``quality comments'' that have been modded up are usually bland and state the obvious, or worse, they push some circle-jerk line of thinking.
The most intelligent, insightful and thought-provoking comments are often at 0 or -1.
Having to browse at -1 just to see the best content means that the moderation system has utterly failed. So get rid of it. Discard it.
The moderation system here serves no beneficial purpose, and is actually quite harmful. It should be removed immediately.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:04PM
Damn! I'd love to mod you up, not because I agree, but because you raise some thought provoking ideas I haven't seen so well supported before, so I'd like others to consider them too.
But...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday August 27 2017, @12:36AM
While I largely disagree, you raise an interesting point: we all disagree on what's interesting or thought-provoking, sometimes vehemently. I've rescue-modded enough comments from -1 hell to know that it doesn't mean "positively is shit and needs to vanish" -- at least in my opinion. Yours? that's why we have discussions and don't just repeat everything here by rote.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.