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posted by NCommander on Monday June 08 2020, @01:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the somewhat-overdue dept.

As promised, here's the round-table discussion post that I said on Wednesday was coming. We have a long history at SoylentNews of listening and responding to our community; I genuinely hope that never changes. I also recognize that I may have ruffled some feathers in the last few weeks with original content postings so here's the best place to get this all out.

I am mindful of the community's support and goodwill; I don't want to squander any of it. Yes, there are times where my hand may be forced (e.g., DCMA takedowns). Still, I'm always a bit hesitant whenever I post on the main site for anything that isn't site update news or similar. I may be the de facto site leader, but I want my submissions to be treated like anyone else's — I want no favoritism. The editorial team does review my stories and signs off before they go live (unless it's an "emergency" situation such as the last time we blew up the site). However, as the saying goes, the buck stops with me.

SoylentNews accepts original content. I'm also aware that I've probably submitted the most original content so far (See "Previously", below for some examples). I'm grateful for the community's apparent acceptance of my submissions and the positive responses to them. What I don't know is if there is an undercurrent of displeasure with these. Maybe everyone thinks these are all fine. Then again, maybe somebody has an issue with them. Rather than assume anything, let's get it all out in the open.

What I want to cover in this round-table discussion is original content and having images in posts as well as topics such as yesterday's Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020.

So, contributors and commenters to SoylentNews, get that Reply button hot and let me hear your feedback. As usual, either a member of staff or I will respond to your comments below,

73 de NCommander

Previously:
(2020-06-03) Live Show on Improving Your Security -- Wednesday June 3rd, 2020
(2020-05-24) Retrotech: The Novell NetWare Experience
(2020-05-14) Exploring Windows for Workgroups 3.11 - Early 90s Networking
(2020-05-10) Examining Windows 1.0 HELLO.C - 35 Years of Backwards Compatibility
(2020-05-15) Meta: Having a Chat about SoylentNews' Internet Relay Chat
(2018-10-25) My Time as an ICANN Fellow
(2017-10-09) soylentnews.org experiencing DNSSEC issues
(2017-04-20) Soylentnews.org is Moving to Gentoo...
(2017-04-17) SN Security Updates: CAA, LogJam, HTTP Method Disable, and 3DES
(2017-03-13) Xenix 2.2.3c Restoration: Xrossing The X (Part 4)

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 08 2020, @04:47PM (14 children)

    Everyone who moderates in even a slightly contentious discussion is consistently overruled though. I'd much rather not take away people's right to an opinion because it doesn't agree with everyone else's.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday June 08 2020, @06:27PM (13 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday June 08 2020, @06:27PM (#1004935) Journal

    Except that Troll and Offtopic mods are not meant to express your opinion. If you misuse them for that purpose, you deserve the consequences.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday June 08 2020, @07:20PM (9 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Monday June 08 2020, @07:20PM (#1004956)

      Yes, that. And what I've been trying to say is that "Troll" is being misused a LOT, but (obviously) there's no easy way to fix it.

      But taken into context, it all makes sense- all part of "growing pains" and it's all on a to-do list for SN admins.

      Not wishing (even if I had the time) to get into bit philosophical discussions, it all dovetails with governmental concepts, policing, who even sets the rules, libertarianism, etc. As a descendant of the American Revolution, for me some of these things are more than intellectual debate.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @12:19AM (6 children)

        Well, it's plenty easy to fix but you have a choice between two options. Do you let the community fix it as they decide via corrective moderation or do you have a select few sit in judgment of everyone? Rotating who sits in judgment or having them self-select doesn't make the results any more democratic; it's still a select group deciding what's right for everyone.

        I mean, ponder for a moment if you would. What would happen if Trump implemented a meta-voting program that would deny folks the right to vote for the next N years based on how they voted last time according to "randomly selected" or self-selected voters?

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 10 2020, @01:42AM (3 children)

          by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @01:42AM (#1005584)

          ... it's still a select group deciding what's right for everyone.

          And your point is?

          Seriously, it kind of sounds familiar, no? Parliamentary maybe? Y'all top admins could appoint people. They do it somehow on reddit, but I confess, I'm not involved there and barely ever read anything there and don't know the levers and cogwheels.

          Your randomly selected voter system is interesting. Leave it up to the pseudo-random number generators. :) Can't be any worse than what we got now.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 10 2020, @03:27AM (2 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday June 10 2020, @03:27AM (#1005630) Homepage Journal

            It very much can. It's a feedback of majority (plurality?) consensus that's going to be not one whit more intellectually honest than moderation currently is. So if bad moderation is happening often enough to bother you now, you're going to like meta-moderation even less. And it's either forced upon you and you're going to be cranky about it or you get an even worse group doing the meta-moderating because anyone who self-selects to be part of a special group that gets to enforce their will on others should by no means ever be allowed to.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @07:17PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @07:17PM (#1005949)

              anyone who self-selects to be part of a special group that gets to enforce their will on others should by no means ever be allowed to.

              So you /do/ support defunding the police!

              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday June 12 2020, @03:20PM

                Stop trying to disarm me and I have no issue with handling any issues that crop up myself. I'm a realist though and know the rest of you would never be satisfied without some formal authority to make sure you follow their rules.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 10 2020, @01:57AM (1 child)

          by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @01:57AM (#1005594)

          See, all this insanity is stimulating my thinking. Here's an idea (sorry, it's coding and I'm not proposing you do anything- you've done far more than anyone and it's awesome!) But someday... If a post is modded "Troll", 1) make it show to all. 2) anyone can upmod it at no cost, but the upmod won't change its score yet- just keep a count. After so many upmod counts, the system decides that enough people have outvoted the one idiot, and 1) "Troll" gets removed, and 2) person who laid the turd gets some kind of punishment, like maybe all his posts get modded troll. Okay, not that, I was just venting, but some kind of punishment.

      • (Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @01:23AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @01:23AM (#1005054)

        Yes, that. And what I've been trying to say is that "Troll" is being misused a LOT, but (obviously) there's no easy way to fix it.

        Actually, there's a *very* easy way to fix it. If you see a comment that's been, in your view, unfairly modded 'Troll', then negate it with a positive moderation.

        Oh, and you're welcome.

        • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by RS3 on Wednesday June 10 2020, @01:50AM

          by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @01:50AM (#1005589)

          Okay, for the 27th time: if said comment gets modded "Troll", I might not see it, depending on my reading threshold- to be able to mod it up. Right? Get it yet? Logic?

          And don't waste your time telling me to lower my reading threshold. I'll set it where I feel like setting it. There's a reason the system has a settable threshold.

          Get rid of the reading threshold and your point has more merit.

          And, for the record, I often DO upmod where "Troll" has been improperly done.

          I have many ideas for fixes, but as martyb has written, admins and coders are backlogged. Other than idiot abusers, this system is pretty good.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 09 2020, @12:08AM

      Offtopic is mostly a fair cop there but Troll? You're by definition divining someone else's motives, so that could never be anything but an opinion.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @12:21AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @12:21AM (#1005046)

      One of the problems is that "troll" necessarily expresses your opinion. For example, a post of "Trump is obviously showing signs of dementia" or "Biden is obviously showing signs of dementia" differs only in "troll" or "disagree" depending on if you think the person is sincerely expressing that opinion or not. It is true that the facts that inform the opinion is many times obviously revealing of the intent, but that doesn't change that ultimate resolution as an opinion.

      • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:10AM

        by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @02:10AM (#1005600)

        Absolutely, and it all comes down to the definition of "Troll". The real problem is that it involves knowing the intent of the writer, and I posit you can't know that. You can infer it, and maybe deduce it from other writings by that person, but I'm sorry, I see "Troll" laid improperly 95% of the time. Just because someone gets butthurt over a statement does not make the statement nor the writer "Troll". Right? I think we've all agreed on that many times.

        I suggested an idea above, and here's an alternate: no one person gets to mod a post "troll". It would take some number of votes.

        There's a psychological effect and aspect here too. "Troll", as applied to someone's writing, is a fairly recent thing. Even when I see posts modded "Troll" I wonder "gee, maybe it is troll and I'm still learning what "troll" means. I won't waste a mod point upmodding it because other people are smarter than me".