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posted by martyb on Friday August 23 2019, @06:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the tragedy-of-the-commons dept.

I was going to post this to a particular story, but thought this might generate more attention and discussion as a general submission.

Seriously, what is going on with all these troll mods? Just because you disagree with someone, thus earning a "disagree" mod, does not mean that person is a "troll." To steal a definition from Urban Dictionary:

An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

Just because you disagree with someone, does not mean they are trying to do the above. Be faster on the "disagree" and slower on the "troll." Under such abuse, it is hard to have a good discussion and, in itself, is trollish behavior by "generally disrupt[ing] normal on-topic discussion." Other than people disciplining themselves, a concerted effort to police such abuses, or making moderation logs public on the bottom of a comment where the score is shown now, I'm unsure of what to do about. As it stands, it is getting increasingly ridiculous to read what discussion is here on any topic remotely controversial, and is expanding outside of even those. It is starting to drive me away from the site, and I'm somewhat confident it is doing the same for others. I'd be interested to see what others think about the depth of the problem, if they even believe it even exists at all, and what solutions you all have for it.

[Ed note. This story is published exactly as received. First off, it bears repeating that complaining about moderations in the comments often leads (rightly) to an off-topic moderation. That is a contributing factor to my decision to run this story. Secondly, moderation is something that I on occasion have found I've fat-fingered and given a different moderation than expected. Thirdly, in the grand scheme of things, a comment's moderation is — relatively speaking — small potatoes. It is NOT a measure of your IQ or value as a human being. or standing in the community. Just accept that stuff happens and that as likely as not, someone will be along to moderate it the other way. Which is a good opportunity to say: PLEASE USE YOUR MOD POINTS! Lastly, if you think a comment was moderated in error, then send the CID (Comment ID) link e.g. "(#876543)" in an email to admin (at) soylentnews (dot) org. Keep in mind however that we are all volunteers here and there most likely will be a delay between when you send out an email and when we can get around to it. --martyb]

[Updated: 20190823_111312 UTC See comment from JR who far more precisely and eloquently expressed the idea I was attempting to. I concur with his assessment. If I want people to upmod a comment of mine that I believe was unfairly downmodded, then I need to be willing to upmod other's mis-modded comments. For perspective, so far this month, anywhere from ~150-~350 mod points were used in any given day. It bears repeating: use your mod points!]


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:20AM (7 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:20AM (#886597) Journal

    But you forgot the rules and made the mistake in the first place, before taking the punishment, isn't it?
    Expecting it or not, that's an example contradicting your

    I don't expect to start forgetting the site rules or important functionality for a decade or two yet.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:26AM (6 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:26AM (#886599) Homepage Journal

    I didn't forget. I'm not making any cop-out excuses for that. I just straight up broke them and took the same lumps I'd dish out to anyone else.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:34AM (5 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:34AM (#886601) Journal

      Ok, so willful abuse of power it is, then (grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:49AM (4 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:49AM (#886606) Homepage Journal

        Ordinary user power though not admin power. I'm more deliberate about adminy stuff precisely because of the abuse potential and discuss it with the other admins if there's any doubt.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday August 29 2019, @07:38AM (3 children)

          by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday August 29 2019, @07:38AM (#887202) Journal

          aristarchus, mod-banned by the The Mortiarity Brandsouertard, for painting him and his alt-right buddies with too broad a brush. It is Soylent History, not in dispute. TMB is a Nazi sympathizer, if not an actually white supremacist, which it is hard to be if you are Choctaw, or Samoan [wweek.com], or boat people from Vietnam, [wikipedia.org], or hapa-haole part Nipponese like Joey Gibson [www.nrc.nl], not even a white Proud Buoy.

          He was born in Camas, Washington, and is of Irish and Japanese descent.[34][35] Gibson is married to Haley Gibson.[36]

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Gibson_(political_activist) [wikipedia.org]

          I am sure his Japanese parent is quite ashamed of his violations of the law.

          And Malfoy Draco is appalled: Mudbloods, you know.

          So why did you get the original aristarchus submission rejected, after it had been accepted? You are a hypocrite, my lower Busstard! You need to do more than wear the cone of shame for a short time. You need to fess up to you ideological bias, and inordinate influence on the Editors. I will continue to paint you with a brush that is suitably broad, you person ignorant of political theory!

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 29 2019, @10:28AM (2 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday August 29 2019, @10:28AM (#887227) Homepage Journal

            Poor ari. Does it bother you that much that I'm able to make a convincing argument in an open IRC channel while you can't seem to manage? Is it that painful that I only had to point out your hardon for extremist progtard propaganda once for the entire world to see it for what it is?

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday August 29 2019, @08:04PM (1 child)

              by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday August 29 2019, @08:04PM (#887473) Journal

              A convincing argument for censorship? You are hoisting yourself on your own petard, Buzzy!

              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 30 2019, @12:33PM

                A convincing argument against promoting propaganda. You're perfectly free to publish the exact same nonsense in your journal on the exact same site and it will be linked in the Most Recent Journal Entries box on the front page. It takes some serious mental gymnastics to call that censorship.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.