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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!]
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday August 24 2019, @02:25PM (1 child)
I'd agree that mod points aren't there for people who have nothing to say. I suspect that one reason that people don't use their mod points is because if its a subject they give a fig about they would rather have their $0.01 worth on the issue. However, SN still depends on people choosing to moderate rather than comment which, ideally, should be based on the quality of contribution rather than whether you agree/disagree with it.
Lets say its a discussion about a court case and someone provides a link to one document from the plaintiff and another by the defendant. That could be a great contribution to the debate, but do you "Agree" or "Disagree" with the post?
Only in mathematics and a few areas of well-understood science - and SN isn't a scientific journal. The mod rules have to cope with everything from politics to whether or not you like Name of Classic SF Novel.
(-1 offtopic) I agree that "agnosticism" as a philosophical position it (a) fails to recognise than most theologies require accepting their tenets as a matter of faith, making theism essentially a binary believe-it-or-not position and (b) sets up the straw man that science claims to be complete and have an answer for everything. I don't think its a fair reason to dismiss the idea of open-mindedness or (in the case of modding) taking a deliberately neutral position.
...and if a posting contains some points you agree with and others you disagree with?
My argument is that moderation shouldn't be an opportunity to like/unlike responses because you agree with them - it should be entirely about quality of argument or contributing useful evidence. Moderating should be like chairing a debate, and people who take it on themselves to moderate - as opposed to join in the debate - should try and suppress their own opinions and concentrate on the quality of debate. Now, that's idealistic, but having 'Agree' and 'Disagree' in the moderation categories actively encourages partisan moderation.
Define "not being offensive". Elsewhere in this thread, someone complained about the use of "WTF" in the title. WTF is (an abbreviation for) an offensive phrase - no getting away from it - although far worse is usually present in comments. Where do you draw the line? Well, look at in in context and ask - was the poster setting out to cause offence? I.e. is it trolling?
Then the criteria should be "Unsubstantiated" and apply equally to true, but unsupported, statements. Also, SN is not a scientific journal and people don't conduct a literature review and have several colleagues proof-read their draft before submission. Then, the rules have to be one-size-fits all for everything from "0.99... < 1"* through "vi is easier to use than Emacs" to "The Doctor is a martian" (the common problem with all those statements in terms of their contribution to an argument they are unsubstantiated).
* OK, trigger alert, before anybody goes into XKCD386 [xkcd.com] mode, that one is definitely false**!.
** -1 unsubstantiated :-)
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday August 24 2019, @07:19PM
That's what evidence discovery for. Evidence are presented and the other party either objects or accepts.
I'm being repetitive but that's where the comments come in. Look, the world is full of +1 Like social networking services where people meaninglessly bandwagon their tribal politics much to the satisfaction of the advertisers. For those platforms, simple and easy moderation is enough to serve their data mining purpose. Soylent doesn't exist for that. It exists for having discussion about news pieces. Hopefully, meaningful discussion. With the occasional joke. So the moderation system needs to do the opposite: To discourage mindless virtue signaling by adding a 2nd layer to the selection choices. By not satisfying people's desire to express an opinion through what we all understand to be a meaningless vote.
Taking a neutral position means not moderating or leaving a comment.
Then leave a comment. Again, optimize to encourage discourse. Not banality. Plenty of that elsewhere.
Don't have to. That's why it's a voting process. Someone mods offensive. Someone else disagrees and up votes. The definition will flesh itself out over time as it always does in society.
Again, it's about the mechanics setting the standard. It doesn't mean people will follow. It just means you optimize for it to encourage them to follow it as much as possible. It's similar to campaign political debates: There's different formats with different cons and pros, but it's generally agreed the alternative is a shouting match. Consider the kind of discussions you'd want to participate in. The kind of comments you'd want to read. Are those promoted by +1 Insightful? I personally don't.
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