SlashNET IRC Chat Tonight w/ CmdrTaco & Hemos 176
At 9 pm eastern, Hemos & I are gonna be in #forum on irc.slashnet.org
to answer questions about Slashdot. There's a lot of random stuff
that's happened since the last time we did this, so this is a chance to ask questions about Story Selection, moderation,
Slashcode, or whatever else is on
your mind. If anyone wants to take our answers and send in updates and additions to the FAQ afterwards, that would make our lives easier, and our inboxes smaller ;)
Re:Kill Karmal Knowledge (Score:1)
Confirm or deny the rumor? (Score:3)
Um...what about the Signal 11 vs. CmdrTaco IRC chat [kuro5hin.org] that's floating around. Is that true? I think you should confirm or deny that rumor here on /., because not all of us will be on IRC tonight.
My own opinion about /. is...you don't have a moderation problem, you have a spamming problem. kuro5hin deletes spam posts, and I think most of us here wouldn't mind at all if you just got rid of the garbage posts. IMO, that's the main difference. I'm not saying moderation doesn't need to be improved, but the spam posts are definitely the biggest problem.
I watch the sea.
I saw it on TV.
I hate archived discussions! (Score:1)
More annoyingly, all my saved URL's to interesting posts get killed!
How about just stopping accepting posts to stories after a while and not archiving at all? Doesn't your database scale up to the task?
I don't get it... (Score:2)
Please people realise that this whole thing is a non-issue currently turning into an holy war where both sides just hope to make the other guy look ridiculous. I really don't see why this has become such an issue and why every single comment-thread on
Let's all just forget that and let it become nothing more than it should have been and move on with constructive things...
"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
Re:Here's why... (Score:2)
First, I'd rather have replies than karma, but YMMV. Also, couldn't you keep up with that by looking at your user info and seeing what comments of yours got modded up? It would be an informal way to keep track of your karma, as would the +1 bonus, etc.
--
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:1)
Umm, it's right there in the post that started this thread. Telling people how the system works, and when the functioning of the system changes.
There is nothing in the FAQ about the karma cap, and it's been months since it was implemented.
--
Increasing Karma/Moderation Scale (Score:4)
While doing something completely mindless at work (pecking a software-hardware interactions document to control spaceflight hardware for ISS), I got to thinking:
Here's the thoughts:
Now, to see this post get to (Score: 8, "Insightfully Funny")
--
Re:what's broken about mod and meta mod (Score:1)
Also, your point of banality and negative, but well-thought out commentary, may be a consequence of the moderation categories. Essentially, by using the term "Informative" you're ruling out a +1 for such a negative comment, it's Flamebait by definition -- from the mod's point of view. Perhaps it is possible to encourage mods to think in terms of how well is a post formulated, does it make sense, is it rational or emotional, by using different terms : "Rational", "Overemotional", or something like that. Not sure if overemotional wouldn't trigger the same kneejerk reaction as Flamebait, though. Another random idea is a -1 option for obvious karmawhoring, there's only Overrated for this now.
PS, hide the karma :)
Re:I have to ask (Score:1)
I reread my post and can see how I was unclear. DebtAngel got it right... This post (and DebtAngel's) is a perfect example. My reply is in response to your post, and while a couple of people might like to see it, I like to keep posts like this under the +2 boundary so people who don't want to see it don't have to.
If Taco starts deleting posts... (Score:1)
IANAFL.
Watch your misogynism (Score:2)
Re:Give Slashdot a Break (Score:2)
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:1)
streetlawyer, posting anonymously to preserve my precious Karma.
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
in many respects, Trolls don't care for the very web page in which they operate(emphasis added)
Some trolls don't care at all. However, most of us feel that we can make a person think twice about what they are saying, or make a moderator think twice about how they are moderating. In that respect, many of us care.
On the other hand, most of us don't care about
1. How much karma we earn.
2. What kind of /. "popularity" we have.
I care about all sorts of things, `tis true, however, that most of those things have nothing to do with /.
Re:it's not a justification (Score:1)
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Re:Here's why... (Score:1)
In all seriousness, I don't see what karma can do, besides lowering consistently bad messages from one individual. And even then, that would be taken care of in a matter of minutes under a karma-less system. All karma does is turn Slashdot into a game for people with no life.
Re:Kill Karmal Knowledge (Score:2)
A lot of people like to see their karma go up, its kind of like positive reinforcement for doing a good thing. Like when I moderate, a few days later its nice to sometimes see my karma go up a couple points (if the meta-modder liked what I did anyway). Same thing with making posts that get rated up to 4 or 5, its nice to see the karma increase.
Is it necessary? No. But its nice.
Long term, people could probably get used to not seeing it, but short term it would make a lot of people upset by taking away a little thing that they like.
CT&H probably don't want to have to deal with all those upset people, and I can't say I blame them.
Yet Another Late Announcement (Score:4)
Oh well, I guess I'll just spend tonight figuring out what this "Microsoft Chat" program is. Heheh, it looks pretty familiar [jerkcity.com]!
--
Re:spam deletion (Score:3)
Is it CT&H? Everybody who can post articles? Moderators with 50 karma? Any moderator?
Besides, at that point instead of obvious spam, we would get questionable borderline spam, and god forbid if that gets deleted, then we'll have entire threads full of "/. is censoring us!"
Its more trouble then its worth.
Re:IRC Log (Score:2)
I pray, beg, and plead with the Slashdot community for something here.
I will not be able to catch the IRC chat tonight, so I hope someone is decent enough to fully log it.
And if Sig11 is still out there, please god, let him show up for this. It would ruin Taco's night, and be great fun for the rest of us.
Wanna know why I ask this? Click here [slashdot.org] to witness a conversation and a previous IRC log about Taco and trolls and karma whores (OH MY!).
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:1)
ummm... It's trolls like you who make it suck.
Say what? I thought he had valid and constructive points (and #1 and 2 were questions I was planning to ask tonight). Could it be that the attitude of "We are your gods -- know your place and mindlessly accept what we tell you and we'll permit you to call yourself a Geek and Member Of The Community!" attitude that's come over the Slashdot editors in the last year is what makes it suck?
Re:Kill Karmal Knowledge (Score:1)
You know, I personally like seeing my karma. It's my motivation to write well-thought out, informative comments. Without it, I'd probably blow off slashdot and go elsewhere. Since my karma is fairly high, I suspect that people value my comments.
I suspect I'm not the only one like that.
Maybe if "God" let us know when we were doing something positive or negative by simple incrementing or decrementing a counter, and the counter had to be over a certain positive number to get into "Heaven", then more people would do more good things. As it is, even for the religious, the whole Heaven thing is too Ethereal (sorry, couldn't resist.) It's too much effort to be a good person at every single moment, to be filled with humility and goodness during every action you take.
But if people were good enough, the majority of the people in the world would be a whole fuck of a lot better people than they are now. Strive, strive, and strive some more, and all you do is end up dead. So why look out for anyone else?
Post, post, and post some more, and you never know your karma. So why bother to construct an intelligent comment?
Shuttle Launch (Score:1)
what's broken about mod and meta mod (Score:4)
In terms of plain old moderation, I've a few suggestions for improvement. How about revealing to the moderator some historical information about the poster? For example, streetlawyer is an admitted troll, and he has some talent for posting "interesting" points of view that get him some mod points, but he uses those points for evil. Couldn't some rating be added to give a hint that he should be treated with skepticism unless it is clear that his posts are not karma whoring?
Then there's the problem of the increasing number of moderators who think Micros~1 gets treated unfairly. It is a theoretically valid point of view, OK, but I'm completely fed up with the amount of Windows and Microsoft in my life. I know more about the company than 99% of posters here, and it is no longer an open question to me; I'm simply not interested in hearing people defend Microsoft. Others may have similar/opposite feelings about other issues. How about letting each user moderate the moderators. I don't want to see the moderation that comes from certain moderators. Over time I could indicate that by simply clicking "personally overrated" on posts that I see getting too high. Yes, the straightforward implementation would be computationally prohibitive. But, perhaps there are aggregate statistics that would show large clumps of Slashdot users in various "camps" and they could better see what they are interested in.
Finally, in terms of plain old moderation, I don't much enjoy doing it either. There tends to be too much "grade inflation" as hinted previously, so I rarely see something that needs more points, just things that wish for fewer. (Sometimes I see strong evidence there is a hidden moderation system taking place: Slashdot editors with unlimited points hammering things into rough shape on the fly and letting the public system tweak the results.)
Finally (I guess these are just random thoughts), how about an "offtopic" rating that is not negative. Sometimes I want to shut off all the "noise" in a discussion, but sometimes it's funny and adds color. It would be nice if moderators could rate topicality without devaluing.
Re:Million Troll March (Score:2)
This place is a gigantic joke. I'm glad I got a sense of humor (and a pair of hip waders).
Re:IRC Log (Score:2)
Ah, but you see, that is what pisses some of us off so much. We have to browse at -1 to see all of the interesting comments and have to sort through a lot of garbage. Why? Because there is no real check on the moderation (yes, meta-mod, but that's just as big of a joke as moderation itself).
Just because someone doesn't post a view that you 100% agree with, that is absolutely no reason to mark him down. And it's happening way, way too often. Mark down stupid crap, but if it's a well worded, on-topic, and completely relevant post, don't mark it down just because you can't fucking handle someone having an opinion that differs from your own. That's just wrong! And I understand Siggy's point on that. Although I agree that he did take it a little too personally. I do have a wife and family and quite a bit of a life outside of slashdot. But I suppose some people don't.
Re:IRC Log (Score:1)
Re:Signal 11? (Score:2)
And second off, if you really fucking think that Kuro5hin has something to prove by posting that IRC log and falsifying it, then by all means, tell taco to sue their fucking asses off!
I think Siggy had some damn good points in there, the primary one being, Taco doesn't give a damn what people say. No matter what they suggest, if it wasn't Taco's original idea, he's going to say fuck off and tell you it couldn't work. So fuck him.
And in case you couldn't tell, I'm a little fucking testy because of all the bullshit that I've witnessed on slashdot the past few days. And reading usenet has made me even bitchier. Thank god I have a life off-line to keep me attached to reality, or this place would have driven me completely insane by now. But for those that don't, I feel for you. I remember when "heavy metal" took it's great tumble (and that was my entire life), and it was the worst few years of my life. But I lived through it. ANd you'll live through this. Just find something else to do. Which is probabl what I'll be doing again in a couple of weeks. (Waiting for my Karma to sink again. I've posted a few negative comments lately, gonna get burned by the zealotous moderators).
Re:Hrm... (Score:1)
Re:Watch your misogynism (Score:1)
A troll!
Go away.
What? (Score:2)
--
Re:What? (Score:1)
The part where you threaten to become a troll if people don't say what you want to hear. If you don't like the way you are treated here, go away. I've been pissed off at being unfairly moderated, but I recognize the urge for revenge as immature. You should too.
Re:Give Slashdot a Break (Score:5)
I sympathize with Rob, I really do. It must be painful to see your creation attacked by trolls and spammers from one direction, and an endless stream of complaints from the other. But some of these complaints are legit. And he has gotten secretive in his changes to the mod system, and defensive about them. A lot of the complaints would be nipped in the bud if he just told us "Hey guys, there have been some changes, here's what they are and here's why I made them." That's more in the open source spirit than secretly making changes to the Slashcode. (Yes, I know I can just go look at it, but for one thing, I'm not a perl poet and secondly, I'm not interested in diffing the code every couple of weeks to see what changes have been made.) In the irc log he talks about how he gets tired of hearing the same suggestions over and over. Then why doesn't he publish the ones that have already suggested and the reason they haven't been implemented? Somebody else said that they never read the faq. Well there's no reason to - it hasn't been updated in over a year. And it *still* says "updated 9.9", that would be 9.9.1999.
Af for the mod system itself, I don't think it's horribly broken. The biggest problem is that moderators aren't doing a good job. That's not a problem that can be fixed within the system. There are some things that might help, but if moderators are modding trolls up, that's a societal problem that is outside the scope of any moderation scheme. Some things that *could* improve the system are:
1) Make karma hidden again. Karma shouldn't be a spectator sport. I know it's a rush to see your karma increase, but it's just a number. If you're getting modded up more than down you know it's increasing - you don't need to see the number in your user page to know that. Posting a thoughtful reply or participating in a lively discussion should be reward enough. Yes there will be significant lashback, but Rob's just gonna have to put on the asbestos suit for a couple of weeks and ride it out. Maybe some people will leave too. That might not be a bad thing. Are the posters that only post to see their karma increase the type we want around here anyway? To me that's the definition of a karma whore.
2) Require a higher karma to get mod points. Maybe the vets are better at recognizing the trolls and karma whores. Maybe not, but it seems like it's worth a shot.
3) Give some feedback from M2 to the moderators. Right now if I mod a post and it gets whacked in M2, I don't know why or even which mod was the one that did it. It would be helpful to know which one of my mods was thought to be unfair and why. Hopefully better moderation would be the result. Perhaps not, maybe all we'd get is things clustered more toward the mean.
4) Force moderators to browse at -1, newest first instead of +1 highest score first. In other words, ignore the settings in comments.pl when you have mod points. Many older posts that should be modded up are simply ignored because the moderators only see the ones that have already been modded up.
Having said all that, for the most part the mod system works. Most of the truly insightful comments end up at the top of the heap and most of the crap gets buried on the bottom where it belongs. It's not perfect, but I'm not sure it can be. That shouldn't stop us (or CT) from improving it if possible, however.
Lastly, I think we're all (especially Rob) taking this thing waaaay too seriously. Let's lighten up and make this place fun again. Ok?
Re:it's not a justification[getting really OT now] (Score:1)
OK, I've never looked at trolltalk. Why should I? Are you saying that if I want to discuss something, I should check first to see if the poster means it? For everyone who trolls there's someone else who thinks like it, so it's pointless trying to separate the two.
As for the rest of your trolling
I drink lager, and so does every rugby player I know. Beck's, Stella, Kronenberg & Heineken, just for the record. I own neither a Ben Sherman shirt, Armani jeans, or a beer belly. And I'm 21. And I'm not cynical, I admit; I'd rather have an intelligent discussion on
Me and my like? How many Linux-using rugby players do you know then?
No score+1 bonus because I'm talking bollocks
---
Moderation... (Score:2)
However... I've been reading
Here is an issue I have with the system. I don't have a terrible amount to say. I read here every day, and most articles, but I post only when I find something I'm knowledgable on, or have strong opinions about, and even then, I won't post if someone has already said what I'm going to say. Those are times when what I would like to do is mod that person up, to show my agreement. I think my karma is like two, simply because I don't post that often.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw my two cents into the pool. Have fun tonight, wish I could be there.
Joshua
Re:Kill Karmal Knowledge (Score:2)
With the Karma Kap in place it is more useless than if it wasn't displayed.
What good is a counter that only goes down with Troll Metamoderation(tm).
I'm all for hiding it if it's useless
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:3)
2. Some people do read the faq (like me, I'm weird that way). One idea I've heard is to create a section for things like Slashdot news and changes that aren't big enough to make the front page. That way, people who are actually interested in changes can read them, and otherwise they don't fill up the main page (or not get posted at all for fear of filling up the main page).
3. I have no idea. Overrated and Underrated are pretty hard to metamod though, because you have to know the original score to know if the overrated is actually fair. Over/Underrated do seem to be a good way for trolls with modpoints to get around the system though, so maybe something could be worked out?
4. In the infamous CT/Sig11 irc log floating around, this actually came up. The problem is that they see suggestions that have already been throught up a few hundred times before, and I guess they just have a hard time replying to them over and over and over again. The suggestions actually have to fall into a pretty narrow set of limits to be even considered too, because of issues like server/database load.
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
You've heard something about a cap? I've heard nothing -- all I know is that my Karma (a large 2-digit number) hasn't been increasing, despite recent moderation to my posts. And personally, I like knowing my karma and seeing it increase -- it motivates me to post better comments, and let the half-assed stuff slide.
2) When you change things, please, for the love of GOD, TELL US
Agreed!
--Jim
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:3)
All trolls (note, not spammers, not anonymous Emily Dickinson, not Penis Bird Man) have done is played devils advocate and forced people to think about what they are posting. In fact, I am considered a "troll" because I don't believe open source is the way to go. So what? I disagree, big deal. But that makes me a "troll" around here. I gladly accept the title.
Allow me to quote one of the "Troll Manifestos"
But for Trolls, it's more than just parody of the webpage. In fact, in many respects, Trolls don't care for the very web page in which they operate. For Trolls , as well as for many other readers of the page, Slashdot itself has become too self-important and too self-congratulatory. Its hosts take on extremist viewpoints merely to keep pageviews high... from posters who often just parrot whatever CmdrTaco says. Worse yet, Slashdot believes it makes a difference in the issues, when it rarely if ever does. And perhaps worst of all... if it's on the internet, people believe it as an absolute truth, despite the fact that most of what's on Slashdot is simply opinion. What Trolls do on Slashdot manage to demonstrate that rather accurately, each and every day.
This website would be nothing but a bunch of zealots shouting "Me Too" at everything taco posts, were it not for the trolls.
Sorry, but I have been reading /. for about 2 years now, and have watched the quality in comment response drop steadily. The only thing that has improved has been the quality of trolls.
Here's why... (Score:3)
Karma can be used, among other things, as a measure of your reputation on Slashdot (a very crude and rough measure, yes, but a measure nonetheless). If you find your Karma going up, it's a pretty safe bet that you're well-liked by the community. If it's going down, then you're not doing so well (unless you're a troll, in which case you're doing quite well). If you're serious about being a good Slashdotter and you see your Karma going down, you know that you need to find out what's going on and take steps to correct it. You can't get this otherwise. Posting histories are unreliable because the score is bounded (I could be modded down 50 times on a single post and lose 50 Karma, but the score on the post would remain at -1). Looking at reactions is also unreliable, because people don't always post their reactions (remember, moderators cannot post reactions in a thread they mod at all, or their moderation is undone).
So it's still necessary to at least give people the option to know what their Karma is.
----------
Re:Watch your misogynism (Score:2)
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
1. Limit the # of posts per user more than it is now.
2. Eliminate Karma as a cumulative system.
3. Limit the # of posts per story. We shouldn't need a (-1 redundant) tag.
I have more, and I will be there at 9 est. to share them don't you worry.
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
1) No, it's trolls like me. OS isn't a troll, AFAIK, and I know most of 'em
2) If it's "making it suck" that we're talking about, I'd appreciate you pointing me to the URL of an instance in which a troll has posted a blatantly inaccurate or self-serving story. I stopped feeling guilty about trolling the day that you guys posted "Hotmail Set to Collapse Under Load" as the title of a story about them moving a few servers to W2K. When you pull shit like that on the main page, you kind of lose your right to complain when other people do the same thing on the threads.
On the other hand, at least we don't have to listen to Emmett Plant's self-absorbed whinings any more, so hurray for that.
Re:IRC Log (Score:2)
Dunno, having read the log before, I think Taco really gets off tormenting sig11 and sig seems to get pretty peevish about it all.
I have to admin, sig's top-page article on k5 the other day was pretty interesting, although I can see where his constant whining and badgering about improving slash to eliminate this 'groupthink' pet peeve of his gets under taco's skin after a while.
I think everyone who is interested should read the log and decide for themselves. It is a facinating insight into sig and taco.
I think sig raises some valid issues but I tend to agree with taco that the system mostly works for the benefit of the of the majority. No one claims it's perfect, not sure it can be or even needs to be. Could it be better? Sure. Is it so broke right now that other things that need to be done everyday to run the site should be stopped. Doesn't seem like it to me.
Just a highlight to entice you to look at the log linked above:
[20:55] <CmdrTaco> You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. ;)
[20:56] <Signal_11> Just leave me alone, Rob... I've had enough for one week.
[20:57] <CmdrTaco> Sig:I've had to deal with your childish crap for 3 years. You can handle 10 sentances of IRC slapping
[20:58] <CmdrTaco> Signal 11 thinks he is the reason for moderation, for mete moderation, and for jesus.
[20:59] <CmdrTaco> I work all day, you just fucking troll websites. That definitely qualifies you as an expert.
[21:01] <CmdrTaco> Oh, shit! Dark Angel!
[21:01] * CmdrTaco is away: dark angel.
[21:02] <Signal_11> He comes in, slams me, then walks out to watch TV. what's WRONG with this picture...
Some of this may be out of context, read the whole thing. (I didn't try to intentionally slant it, but it probably looks that way.) Very interesting.
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
The site depends upon user moderation. If the users want to moderate up crap, there is NO moderation system that will stop that.
I lump trolls and spammers together. Most trolls spam. Most spammers troll. They feed off each other. I see little distinction.
Trolls don't care for the very web page in which they operate...
Exactly. They're purposefully destructive. Nothing noble or honorable about that.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
2) But getting insulted directly by Slashdot editors is exactly the kind of thing that might turn me into one.
--
Re:IRC Log (Score:2)
Re:Hrm... (Score:2)
Re:Cheney and Lieberman vs.CmdrTaco and Hemos (Score:2)
--
Re:increasing page views? ha ha! ;) (Score:2)
Personally, I think it would be much better to get rid of the current mod system altogether and implement something akin to the article scoring in some of the newsreaders like strn. Let me choose my own scores, based on the people I know I like to read, and apply those scores automatically when I request an article. Sure, some people will refuse to read anyone who disagrees with them, but that's their problem, not yours, and one you can't solve anyway. At least it isn't a problem for everyone else the way bad moderation is.
Meta-moderation isn't even a partial solution; it's just the first step in an infinite regression. Who moderates the meta-moderators? I meta-moderate every day; if even 5% of the users did similarly, there's no way you could be reviewing them all.Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
Well you could start by rereading the post you called a troll. Beyond that:
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
Well you could start by rereading the post you called a troll. Beyond that:
Give Slashdot a Break (Score:5)
Taco works his butt off to maintain this site, and people do nothing but ream him. I think I'm a pretty average Slashdot reader, and you know what?
Why is everything Rob's problem and responsibility? Why is it entirely his job to get everything just all tidy and perfect for pampered little you? Has someone tied you up and forced you to read Slashdot? And, if so, is she good looking?
How about this bit from the IRC log?
[21:47] [CmdrTaco] Some days I just go home so fucking angry because some dickless wonder with no information and a paranoid fantasty is convinced that I'm the antichrist.,
[21:48] [CmdrTaco] Its great when someone uses a forum that you work so hard to create & maintain to attack you
I wonder what it feels like to work your butt off 10 hours a day and still get dozens of emails a day, every day telling you what a dick you are? I wouldn't take a job like that. And, as far as I know, there's nothing preventing Rob, Jeff, Michael, and co. from saying, "screw this abuse" and dumping Slashdot tomorrow. What do you want from these guys?
Re: IRC Log (Score:2)
Re:spam deletion (Score:2)
Unless you make -2 a normally browsable level, you take that away. And if you make -2 browsable, you've just defeated the whole purpose, because then it just replaces what -1 is supposed to be, the black hole of posts.
Re:Just a comment. (Score:2)
I mean really, if I were going to write somethig like this, it'd be written in ASP (vbscript) and talking to MS-SQL through OLEDB and ADO, because thats what I'm most comfortable with. I could do it in other things, but remember the context
It didn't start out with any plan to be as big as it is now, it was a couple of people doing something for fun. Back then, the choice of perl probably made perfect sense, especially since thats what they wanted to use. (just like back then I would have done it in ASP, in that context it makes perfect sense)
They don't seem to want to rewrite the whole thing into another language, but the code is out there for somebody else to do it if they want to.
Summation vs. Averaging (Score:2)
I, too, rarely make use of IRC and will not be online tonight. . . .
5) During the infamous CT/S11 IRC discussion, the topic of scoring behavior was brought up. Specifically, the difference between Slashdot (which sums ratings to compute a comment's score) and Kuro5hin (which averages ratings to compute a comment's score) was pointed out.
In my opinion, this is a very crucial difference between the two systems. I also believe that the Kuro5hin system is much more accurate at capturing readers' ratings of a comment.
Both CommanderTaco and Hemos emphasized strongly that the load of computing averages would break their server. I am confused at this; there is a simple way of updating averages. The current scheme looks like this:
In order to update an average, it can be computed at the time of the moderation action using the following logic:
(Note that "score" must be stored in floating-point, though it may certainly be rounded for display.) The math at the time of moderation will indeed require a few extra instructions, but this is insignificant; the concern of overhead is at comment display time, which this scheme entirely avoids. Yes, there will be slight rounding error, which should nevertheless not prove significant in the context of moderation.
My question for CT and Hemos is this: Why (in light of this proposed code) not compute scores using averaging? I see no compelling reason that summation should be used. My personal opinion is that this change (along with hiding karma ;-) would improve comment quality a great deal.
Re:it's not a justification (Score:2)
Any chance of a poll to *prove* no one likes all the trolling? It's annoying and pointless, and almost never funny.
---
Re:Signal 11? (Score:2)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
There is nothing destructive in posting a thought that disagrees with yours.
However, picking through a long post and quoting one or 2 lines out of it, is the easy way out.
But then again, what should I expect? You don't care about the quality of this site. You are just here to increase page views.
Right?
Re:Summation vs. Averaging (Score:2)
To me, the most important thing moderation does is pick out intelligent dissenting opinions from the sea of banal groupthink. Averaging moderation would cause the opposite result -- all posts would be ground down by the same flood of of conformity and all double-plus-ungood thoughts that might challenge a Slashdot reader's unswerving faith in Linux, Peacefire and Napster will be hidden down with the goat links.
If what you want is vigorously enforced conformity, read Advogato [advogato.org]. Before being able to post, members must reach a minimum score on the Scale Of Being Just Like Everyone Else. Personally, I find it much more interesting to read a site where people are allowed to say something in defense of Troll Tech, or even Microsoft.
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
Popularity is obviously involved; the site has probably thousands of regular posters out of its 200k+ accounts; a new story can get 100 comments in less than half an hour. It's impossible for anyone to keep up with it all, and even if the moderation system was basically sensible (which it never has been), it still wouldn't be enough. As it is, the totally broken moderation system does little but encourage conformity and amuse the trolls.
Management: Two factors here. One, wretched journalism standards, e.g. Taco's report yesterday that Red Hat claimed to have invented Open Source, or the Hotmail debacle that streetlawyer mentioned; two, the moderation system; three, the refusal of management/admins to do anything about it other than whine that it's the fault of the trolls.
I've been spending a lot of time at Kuro5hin lately. Admittedly, as a less-popular site, it doesn't have Slashdot's popularity problem, by a long shot, but I think as it grows it will do better than Slashdot at retaining the things that make it good. The way that users vote on topics works really well, and the thresholds can be raised as the site becomes more popular, so I think it can scale up fairly gracefully. I'm less enthusiastic about Kuro5hin's comment moderation, but it's no worse than Slashdot's, and arguably better.
Slashdot's editorial system makes the quality of the site highly dependent on you editors. Of the lot of you, only timothy can be relied on at all to post quality articles. That has more to do with why Slashdot sucks (if it does; hey, I still read it, so obviously I haven't completely given up hope) than any number of trolls.
increasing page views? ha ha! ;) (Score:2)
There's a big diff. between "posting a thought that disagrees with yours" (which is fine) and letting people intentionally detract from others' happiness. It's grafitti vs. earpoking. The fact that the people who wrote the code for the site and risked the uncertainty of making it work full time are still around and in fact care *deeply* about the site is pretty impressive to me. Not all of them want to have the floor constanly peed on.
An easy-sounding fix for anyone who reading troll posts would be an option that says "view trolls" and an option for posters to honestly label their posts "This is a troll."
Or at least that's how I see it.
timothy
Chat logs (Score:2)
Re:Moderation... (Score:2)
--
Re:Taco was an asshole on my IRC server (Score:2)
For the record, no, the above isn't me. Damn, I don't need to make a Bruce Perens .sig now, do I?
--
There is no K5 [kuro5hin.org] cabal.
Re:Give Slashdot a Break (Score:2)
A little professionalism.
Your argument was perfectly valid before this:
The Rest © 1997-2000 OSDN.
This isn't just some guys' hobby anymore.
-nme!
Re:Karma Cap (Score:2)
Seeing as how I'm not there, this is not first hand information.
Hrm... (Score:5)
Re:it's not a justification (Score:2)
But it must be the Microsoft/Troll contingence who hang around with mod points and waits for us to troll.
Right?
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
It's sequences of posts like these that make me want to start fresh sometimes...
~luge
Re:Karma Cap (Score:2)
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
it's not a justification (Score:3)
And my comments aren't crap -- I weight them on purpose to maintain constant Karma, and the ones which bring me down (usually by defending the concept of copyright in terms only slightly more vitriolic than the Slashbots attack it) are always much, much better than the ones which bring me up.
You need me. And people like me. We keep the arguments going which bring in the page views and return visitors which keep your page views up. People will come and post "DMCA SUCKS!" to a copyright story, or "If this was Open Source, it would never have crashed", but they'll only post it once. It takes someone who tells them they're wrong to bring them back.
I've contributed a fair old amount to your site, Mike, all of it under the streetlawyer identity (unlike a few other bigtime trolls, I have no alter ego). I contributed one of your April Fool jokes this year. This morning I submitted a story warning you about how a prominent geek site could be used to bring cross-site scripting vulnerabilities to your bulletin boards. I'm happy to play along with you. But I'm not going to play along with your legion of little me-toos and catamites. I'm not going to agree with your own dangerously naive political views. And, while you provide me with this bulletin board (which is to say; forever; you have no economic alternative), I'm not going to stop saying that you, personally, and your followers, collectively, are frequently full of shit, and doing so in as amusing (to myself) a way as possible.
Oh yeh, and I don't do IRC either.
Re:Confirm or deny the rumor? (Score:3)
Too bad I was asleep at the time
--
Re:increasing page views? ha ha! ;) (Score:2)
Re: question (Score:2)
How slash rates your example comment would seem to depend on the order the ratings were given.
If the post started at 0, we can figure it out like this:
- Goes to rating 5 (+5)
- Goes back to 1 (-4)
- Goes back to 5 (+4)
There is still a point left. Now you can mod a score 5 post up, and the poster gains karma, but the post can never go over score 5.
So consider this (same example)
- Start at score 0
- Get modded up 10 straight times (score 5, +10)
- Get modded down 4 times (score 1, -4)
Now the post shows as score 1, but the poster still gains 6 karma (+10 + -4)
This is an extremely unlikely example, but you can see the drastic difference order makes in slash vs in an averaging system (where order is meaningless).
Cheney and Lieberman vs.CmdrTaco and Hemos (Score:3)
Re:it's not a justification[getting really OT now] (Score:2)
Let's review the facts. You want to have an intelligent conversation on Slashdot, and Streetlawyer has told you that you've been trolled in the past. Can you see that the two are not mutually exclusive?
If nothing else, engaging one of the 'good' trolls here (the ones who get moderated up and frequently have decent if not flawed arguments) does wonders for your own online conversation. They will force you to back up your statements, face your opinions and basically be absolutely certain you know what you are talking about, or your post will be shredded on the followup. Don't mistake that there often is quite a bit of useful info posted in response to even the most blatant, obvious trolls. It's even quite possible, easy in most cases to win the argument against one, regardless of whether you've lost the game.
All I'm saying is that you should realize that troll postings do have a certain usefulness, regardless of their irritation factor. If they bother you then simply don't respond, and the troll will either go way, or come back with something a bit more useful to the conversation. Think about it.
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
I have to ask (Score:2)
If you don't think it would benefit others to read, why would you bother posting it in the first place?
IRC Log (Score:2)
I will not be able to catch the IRC chat tonight, so I hope someone is decent enough to fully log it.<br><br>
And if Sig11 is still out there, please god, let him show up for this. It would ruin Taco's night, and be great fun for the rest of us.<br><br>
Wanna know why I ask this? Click <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/10/0
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
On slashdot, your glass house has long since been destroyed.
If you don't understand it, please don't reply.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
question. (Score:2)
Can everybody rate posts?
If everybody can rate posts, then here at
If we end up with a lot of troll accounts that simply rate everything badly no matter what, then we would need some kind of way of rating the raters to weed out the bad ones, which is what MetaModeration does right now.
So what would happen is only certain people would be allowed to rate, and we end up with a system very similar to the one we have now, except for some different math.
s11 and taco (Score:2)
Thanks...
~luge
Re:Couple of points (Score:2)
Now for some bizzare reason, it gets modded up to 5, when there is no way its ever worth that. But its not flamebait, its not a troll, its not redudant, offtopic, etc. Now if a person mods down a good post as flamebait, that person will get destroyed in meta-moderation.
Thats where overrated is useful, its for dropping a post from 5 that doesn't deserve to be there without calling it a troll post.
4. Maybe they just haven't updated it lately. It might be a good idea for some of us to log tonights chat and create some new FAQ entries from it for them (as was suggested in the story actually
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
Well, the initial post by me that you responded to was modded down as a troll.
Why don't you tell me?
Re:Signal 11? (Score:2)
Another version is available on kuroshin [kuro5hin.org]. Now I have no idea how many people have access to this server, but if I were rusty I wouldn't want to tarnish my domain's reputation by posting a fake.
And according to the log, he was on the channel at that time.
That being said, I praise your skepticism. The conspiracy nuts must be going crazy right now (no wait, they are already)
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:4)
I moderate as "overrated" a pretty good bit when I have moderator access. In the last month I've been posting to
I usually read
There are plenty of flaws with the moderation system, but it does a decent job of filtering out bad comments. I'll be interested to see this IRC chat session tonight and the effects of it, especially considering the recent Signal 11 brouhaha.
Re:it's not a justification (Score:2)
I dunno. Maybe it's all the trolls modding each other up? All the newbies not realising it's a troll post? Of course, there's a wide range of what could constitute trolling, and sometimes it can be... sort of funny. Not very often though.
Perhaps there could be a checkbox (like 'post anon') that said 'I am trolling', with the user option to turn off viewing these posts. We would soon see how many people appreciated the trolls. But of course, that would defeat the whole point of trolling, which as far as I can tell is to annoy everyone.
---
Kill Karmal Knowledge (Score:5)
Since I'll be on the road to visit my family and haven't gotten the heads-up display/satellite Internet connection in my truck to work yet, let me just ask this:
All the comments I've seen about this include "we'll get 1000's of emails" and "people want to know their karma". I posit that people knowing their karma is a bad thing. It's not like some deity lets us know how many good and bad points we've got in this world.
<><
--
Re:Kill Karmal Knowledge (Score:2)
Of course after a certain point everyone gets capped at 50 these days, so it loses its meaning. But so what? After you get to 50, you're probably already hooked. If you aren't, then you probably won't be.
I don't use IRC (Score:3)
1) WTF is up with Karma? First, no cap, then a cap. Now I hear rumors of no cap, but only for some people.
2) When you change things, please, for the love of GOD, TELL US. Don't just break it (from our point of view). And forget about that FAQ--no one reads it. Just post a story like you used to.
3) Is Slashdot still depending on metamod? If so, why the heck are "overrated" and "underrated" still allowed without being metamodded? Of all the mods I get, "overrated" is nearly half of them. Nobody is keeping moderators who use those options in line.
4) Is there any point in us suggesting new features (mod-related or not) or is your mind totally closed on the topic? It used to be that you would respond to good ideas with a comment and sometimes even an implementation. Nowadays we keep suggesting but Slashdot keeps sucking.
--
Re:IRC Log (Score:2)
I agree. The whole karma system was kind of interesting at first to see some kind of tangible feedback to your comments. Getting the bonus point and being able to moderate and watching your posts to see if they are replied to and/or moderated added a little something to /.
But now it becomes this little game that some people play to mess with others and to attach a number to their self-worth. I agree that sig appears to attach _way_ too much importance to slashdot and it appears to be out of some need to validate himself.
From his user-page:
It seems my lasting legacy on Slashdot is in the moderation system.
I think when he was the "poster boy for the moderation system" he got a sense of self-importance. When Taco somewhat neutralized the karma issue by placing the cap, it took away some of sig's impact here and with that he decided to move over to K5 where seems to want to rebuild his status and standing. More power to him.
He also mentions the old bitchslapping incident:
When Malda's solution to unfair moderation was the "bitchslap" - a practice whereby someone's karma is set to -50, and their default posting score to -1, was first used, I spoke with some of the people who it had happened to. People accused me of being the cause. After a lot of research and talking to Rob, I managed to get a couple of those accounts placed back at 0 karma and they were able to post again and be seen. Nobody really bothered to thank me.
For the record, I was one of the ones who got my account crippled [fishstick.hey.to] for moderation abuse. I didn't blame him, but I also didn't thank him for having anything to do with getting this account restored. I did that on my own by e-mailing Taco. All sig appeared to do was misrepresent the facts of the matter.
Karma doesn't/shouldn't really matter. Having something interesting to say should.
Re:Here's why... (Score:3)
Then Karma was hidden from other users, so you couldn't see anyone's reputation even if you wanted to. If they had over 25, you could see their +1 bonus, however. You could still see your own karma to judge how your own reputation was doing.
Then pretty much anyone here longer than a couple months figured out the "formula" to get 25 karma points. Garbage at score 2 has become common, so the +1 bonus became meaningless.
Then Karma was 'kapped' at 50, so the people who have been here a long time can't use it as a relative measure anyway.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not arguing against the Karma Kapping or Karma Hiding or Karma Bonuses -- I'm just wondering, with all of these modifications, what is the point of Karma at all these days?
Karma came in after the moderation system -- Slashdot did not always have it. My feeling was the S/N ratio was higher in the days before Karma, and people would actually post and read at the AC level. The readership has gone way up and the quality has generally gone down, but in general moderation has worked, but I don't know if anyone can honestly say that Karma has worked at all.
So since Karma been rendered largely pointless, and has been a contentious problem for some folks, why not get rid of Karma all together? If you must have a +1 bonus, do it purely on seniority (just like Mod and MetaMod privs). Just a thought.
--
Re:I don't use IRC (Score:2)
Happily, a good number of the /. crew seems to have much more of a clue than you do.
In any case, go through the DB, and look at the following two groups of accounts:
Group 1: Magenta syringe, Penis Bird Man, Vladinator.
Group 2: Jon Erikson, streetlawyer, vertical-limit.
Please point at examples of spam from the second group, and/or examples of genuine trolls in the first one.
You simply don't know what you're talking about, don't you?
Re:Moderation... (Score:2)
My user number is less than 80,000. I have been active at
3 times.
Almost 2 years, I believe. Don't expect too much unless you post and get modded up a _lot_.
Re:http://meta.slashdot.org (Score:2)
CmdrTaco talks about this in the infamous #Kuro5hin IRC log. He (understandably) wants to read every single question asked about /. He wants to know what we think. That's admirable as hell. After all the shit people have given Rob, I'm happy he still gives a hoot.
I'd suggest, though, that one person can't do it all. There are many /.ers who've been around for a dog's age--let them answer some questions. If it were well-moderated--the Catch-22 in this--CmdrTaco, Hemos and the gang could read at 3, 4, or 5 and be fine. Me, I'd probably read that at 5, just because I don't know enough to code my way out of a wet sack of beans.
--
Re:Relax, It's all good (Score:2)
Re:Moderation... (Score:2)
--
logging - (Score:2)
Re:Signal 11? (Score:3)
Click here [slashdot.org].
Signal 11 didn't deserve all of the crap that Taco threw his way, but what do you expect? Egomaniacal garbage seems to be a big turn on for him. Don't believe me? Read the IRC log, he compares Slashdot to Microsoft by saying, "It's like Microsoft. They're popular so everybody dumps on them, ra, ra!" And he doesn't realize that makes him look just as fricken egotistical as Gates.