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posted by martyb on Sunday September 05 2021, @08:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the See-dick-mod.-See-dick-sock-mod.-See-dick-get-banned.-Don't-be-a-dick dept.

Labor Day:
In observance of Labor Day (a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September) I am hereby inviting the SoylentNews editorial staff to enjoy a three-day weekend — Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Stories will be scheduled and released on a weekend-story-spacing schedule. The holiday marks the unofficial end of summer and it often marked by parades, sales, cookouts, and the like.

These volunteers give selflessly of their spare time to try and make sure we keep the stories coming. Please join me in thanking them for their generous sacrifice of spare time and experience to keep those stories coming!

Tor:
(short for The Onion Router) is in the process of rolling out an updated protocol. ThIs update is NOT compatible with prior versions. SoylentNews has had support from the early days of the site (thanks to NCommander, IIRC). As nobody on staff has experience in this area, our support will cease at any time - the TOR site is saying October. It was laudable at the time. Unfortunately, its more recent use seems to have been primarily by spammers. As such, we could lose access to Tor at anytime as our network "neighbors" either upgrade or find themselves no longer "adjacent" to back-level versions like ours is. You can still access this site using TOR with our normal URL.

Sock Mods
We have been methodically identifying and shutting down sockpuppet accounts. These are NOT allowed. Attempts to bypass the will of the community by controlling multiple accounts is forbidden. One user, one account. Do NOT use another account (or accounts) to upmod one-or-more accounts that you control. If you do not like getting downmods, take a look at the comments you post. Sure, occasionally, someone might mis-moderate a comment by accident (heck, *I* have done it!) In our experience, such errors are generally rare and are frequently followed at some point by others, offsetting moderations.

So: "Sock mods" are being tracked. We are methodically investigating cases. Accounts are being disabled, and never in isolation. It takes agreement by at least two admins, and usually more, for any action to be taken.

If you are generally a positive contributor to the site, such impacts to your karma are usually just "line noise" in the grand scheme of things.

Mod bombs:
In a similar vein, if you disagree with someone, do not attempt to silence them by using multiple accounts to mod their comments down.

We have seen cases of both "mod bombs" and "sock mods". We have held back on taking action until we are certain. Any action taken is first confirmed by at least one other staff member. Complaining about moderation is OFF TOPIC and tends to get moderated as such.

Limits
We've previously tried to set concrete limits. "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile." I have personally witnessed cases where one account downmodded another account 4 times in one day. For ten days in a row! That was just enough to avoid getting moderations reversed, but certainly enough to show a concerted effort to moderate the commenter rather than just the comment.

This will no longer be tolerated.

Admins can see who has moderated whom. We talk among ourselves. We discuss cases that come up. It's pretty simple, really: "Don't be a jerk!"

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by shortscreen on Sunday September 05 2021, @05:48PM (7 children)

    by shortscreen (2252) on Sunday September 05 2021, @05:48PM (#1174751) Journal

    What if you put in a system where user A getting a large number of downmods from user B would have them build up an immunity and diminish the effects of further downmods from user B? It would be like leveling up a specific resistance roll, you see? Maybe that would be too complicated.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=3, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday September 05 2021, @06:38PM (1 child)

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 05 2021, @06:38PM (#1174766)

    My first thought was that would hamper the efforts of a good samaritan modder that comes across a rampaging troll or spammer.

    But on second thoughts, sharing that tidying-up responsibility among us (with sockpuppets mitigated) is the sort of principle this site aims for in the first place.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday September 06 2021, @03:57PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday September 06 2021, @03:57PM (#1175002) Homepage
      Rampaging troller/spammers are usually of the AC variety, and so the typical users can't specifically modbomb the posters as they don't know who they are.
      So if you see garbage that contributes nothing to the site - downmod away, that's what moderation's for. For disagreement, try counter-argument, or the disagree mod.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2) by Kell on Sunday September 05 2021, @10:56PM

    by Kell (292) on Sunday September 05 2021, @10:56PM (#1174821)

    I like this, because it means that one person's input towards another specific person becomes muted but the crushing weight of numbers would still prevail. Thus, direct victimisation one-to-one is prevented, but the weight of numbers will still prevail again spammers many-to-one.

    --
    Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
  • (Score: 2) by martyb on Monday September 06 2021, @12:11AM (1 child)

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 06 2021, @12:11AM (#1174838) Journal

    What if you put in a system where user A getting a large number of downmods from user B would have them build up an immunity and diminish the effects of further downmods from user B? It would be like leveling up a specific resistance roll, you see? Maybe that would be too complicated.

    You nailed it!

    Way back when, TMB and PJ (there may have been others, too) wrote a bunch of custom code to improve site performance when we had over 100 or so comments and it would take seconds to bring up a story's comments. AIUI, they bypassed the Template system (which I do understand) and entirely replaced it with custom Perl (with which i have a very passing familiarity). It took well over a month of my testing and their coding to get it working correctly.

    Unless someone with leet Perl skills shows up, and volunteers a bunch of their free time, I do not foresee any change being made to that code.

    Sorry!

    --
    Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday September 06 2021, @04:01PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday September 06 2021, @04:01PM (#1175005) Homepage
      I've worked a lot in maintenance, and whilst I could probably implement the features, as Perl's pretty much my go-to language nowadays, I wouldn't want to touch the code unless there was an *absolutely compelling* reason to do so.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by coolgopher on Monday September 06 2021, @01:55AM

    by coolgopher (1157) on Monday September 06 2021, @01:55AM (#1174859)

    While I find this interesting, I also see the an obvious weakness with it. Someone posting enough crap would eventually build up a resistance to even well-deserved down mods.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 06 2021, @02:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 06 2021, @02:45AM (#1174866)

    There aren't the modding wars lately, where you see one controversial little post getting five-up and five-down votes, ending in a draw. But as of a couple of days ago there were still slapfights, with fewer ups-n-downs, but still the same results. So, some tourist comes by unawares and thinks: if that post is so Insightful, how come it's rated zero?

    How about tallying just the net score for the post?