Several Slashdot Notes 255
ACs post at 0. Logged in users post at 1. When you break the following alignments (I played a lot of Tradewars 2002, can ya tell?) your default score will be as follows:
-1 at -30
0 at -10
1 (Normal)
2 at +5
3 at +10
4 at +25
I suggest that this system will encourage posting of good comments. Currently it actually is only affecting about 1% of the comment posters. But extreme comment scores (-1 or 3 or more) tend to draw much more attention from moderators, so they will likely get knocked back towards the median unless they are consistantly high quality. Assuming that moderators are doing a good job anyway.
I've been fiddling with those numbers for the past few days. I've been making them pretty high, but we'll likely need to make them higher as more moderation occurs, but I'll need a few weeks of moderation to determine what those numbers are. Sorry to the people who have been surprised by these changes.
The mass moderation system is actually running now. I'm tweaking numbers, but it'll probably be a few days before any readers actually start getting moderator points. The system is basically what I discussed last week with a few numbers tweaked. We'll have to see how it works.
By far the most controversial change to the moderation is the new restriction against posting & moderating the same discussion. Let me try to defend this decision a bit. First, I think this prevents people from getting to play the judge and the prosecution at the same time. Many people argue that this will discourage moderators from posting comments. That might be true, but since the new moderation system will have more moderators, there will be people available to pick up the slack. Plus, currently the moderators have an abundance of moderator points- the new system will make them much more scarce (they'll expire after 3 days too!) so most of the time, people won't even have an option to moderate. Plus, if someone moderates and then decides to post, they can do that. Sure the moderation is undone, but that isn't the end of the world. The workload is distributed, hopefully (!) other people will pick up the slack.
The most important factor however is that our initial batch of 400 moderators were selected from the comment posters. The new batch will still have that element, but there will be many more lurkers as well- and since these guys don't post, this point is moot for them. I think that these 2 groups will offset each other and give us a good scoring system.
Finally, I added an option to the user preferences to allow users to say "I don't wanna be a moderator". By default all users will be flagged to be moderators. Remember that unused points will simply disappear after 3 days, so if you don't want them, just don't use them. A lot of people suggest that people ought to be required to turn moderation on, but I want to give this a try for now simply because I'm trying to get as large of a body as possible. Realistically, moderation is fairly easy. And since you'll only have a few points every few weeks, it won't be a major problem.
Anyway, I'll have a bit more on the subject soon. I'm sure this is a lot of stuff to talk about for now *grin*.
Some concerns (Score:1)
- Alignment is a fairly good idea.
- Blocking people from posting after moderating a topic, imho, is not necessary, and a deterrant to moderation. I seriously don't believe existing lurkers will be putting in the nessecary time to moderate things as much as "frequent posters" do. Furthermore, it could be argued that many good moderaters are also "good posters", and you're losing one or the other.
- Giving "mass moderation" access will be an interesting experiment, but you are running the DEFINITE risk of biased-moderation here, as you have more people that can play "moderator wars" now over unpopular opinions. This remains to be seen, of course.
BBSing (Score:1)
Favoring old timers... (Score:1)
test ** whats my default score ** test (Score:1)
BBSing (Score:1)
There are a large number of telnet BBSes available. Try wandering darktech.org, or check out the telnet BBS webring at http://www.spuncrystal.com/public/bbstel.htm
I'm in the process of setting up a BBS for telnet+dialup right now.
Isn't nostalgia wonderful?
Check your default here! (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:1)
Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:1)
Interesting data point... (Score:1)
BBSing (Score:1)
I've heard of some problems in trying to get door games working with telnettable BBSs, as many of them have COM stuff hard-coded into the executable.
Anyway, if
I like MEEPT! - on topic comment (Score:1)
A few moderators are bound to abuse their status. If a few did conspire to bring up their "alignment", I suspect the large number of other moderators could undo the damage. Hopefully CmdrTaco can catch those incidents if they happen.
This is madness! (Score:1)
--
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Should be interesting... (Score:1)
Default post score? (Score:1)
Self-Downmoderation (Score:1)
But it would be a good idea to be able to "down-moderate" yourself when you want to post something pointless. Saves you from having to log out, post as AC, then stick your name on the bottom to disclaim anonymity.
Followups to -ve posts (Score:1)
There are a couple of possible interpretations:
- The -1 post is better than that, after all, I'm a fairly cool dude, my posts are automatically at level +4, so maybe we should bump the -1 post up to 0....
- I'm responding to a flame. Which is usually not a cool thing to do. Maybe we should bump my post down a point.
Actually, there's rather more than two possible interpretations, but these two seem the most interesting. Certainly my GNUS scorefile has a rule which automatically lowers the score of any followups to posts with particularly low scores, and this set of rules works well for me.As for the self-moderation downwards for certain posts, that definitely seems like a good idea. Encouraging moderation (in the sense of 'moderate behaviour') on the part of posters seems like a very good move to me.
Bell curve? (Score:1)
Play on words? (Score:1)
Don't make morons start low (Score:1)
The main reason is that they will just get themselves different accounts. If they are juvenile, loud and offensive they want to be heard and will certainly go to the trouble of creating a new account. This means that not only will they not start with a negative score, but readers will no longer recognise the name as someone who writes crap, so we lose the best form of filtering (individuals using their own judgement to not read something by X).
BBSing (Score:1)
It's a societal thing... (Score:1)
(I'm guessing that our two posts have been, and ultimately will be, read by only a few people. We didn't get in early enough, and our default scores aren't high enough, to propel our comments into the "mainstream".)
The point is, the very word "moderation" implies a movement toward the mean, a limiting. And when you limit the very bad, you most often limit the very good along with it, leaving you with the Very Mediocre. I'm not certain that this new (or any other, for that matter) moderation system will drive /. toward a least-common-denominator position, but I must say the thought has crossed my mind.
Ah, well. It was good while it lasted.
It's a societal thing... (Score:1)
What are we aiming for? (Score:1)
In combination with the "sort by score" or "filter by score" options (and to a lesser extent, even without using either of those), it is a self-reinforcing feedback loop. People will see mostly posts which "conform" to the /. ethos, whatever that winds up being. Seeing them, other posters will tend, even unconsciously, to adopt that ethos. They will learn what characteristics cause a post to get a higher score. And so on.
It works for moderators, too. People who qualify are those who have adjusted their behavior (again, quite possibly without being conscious of it) to fit the /. norm. People who don't qualify will tend to be less interested, and thus less likely to participate in any way. They'll go read Salon or something instead.
The end result, I believe, is a smaller, less diverse community. Another, less pejorative way to characterize it is more tightly focused, more unified, and probably more peaceful and coherent. If that's what we want, this is how to get it.
Everythin in......Moderation. (Score:1)
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG
This will create chaotic instability (Score:1)
Agreed. Further, I see a possible trend that could arise from this. If a moderater had x points and 3 days to spend them, he might just feel obligated to spend them on something that didn't deserve moderation to avoid wasting them.
I don't think that moderator points should time out(at least not so quickly, I can see how it would suck for someone to have 30 or 40 saved up for a rampage) simply because it comoditizes them.
I've already seen instances of moderators moderating aparently, simply because they can. Even in this set of comments, I've seen one line me too posts with a score of 2 or greater. I don't think we need to give anyone more reason to moderate simply because they have the points.
I think that perhaps the alignment concept is a bit flawed as well.
Like Bruce says, it's entirely possible that someone who writes great comments may want to write something without it having to be "golden prose" On the other hand, it's also possible that the worst troll on slashdot could come up with a profound, insightful comment that half the readers would miss because their alignment is -12. Like someone else mentioned earlier, each comment should be judged by it's indivitual merit.
Score pool. (Score:1)
Slashdot: the RPG
The goal is to build up as many points as possible while maintaining a positive alignment.
You get to roleplay one of several classes: open source political freak, 14 year old script kiddie, stuck up programer whose ideas are somehow automaticaly more valid than anyone else's, or just plain troll.
Watch for your copy in local comic and gaming stores,
Default Moderation Scores (Score:1)
Numbers are showing wrong (0 of 0 comments) (Score:1)
Richard Forster
Score pool. (Score:2)
I like letting good posters choose how to spend their alignment rather than simply bumping up their scores automatically. It would allow a user to "Get on the Soapbox" occasionally if they've proven that they have something to say in the past.
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
Pants are Optional
Nice try... (Score:2)
If you don't like it, turn it off. No sweat off anyones back. Its totally at your discretion.
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
Pants are Optional
Nice (Score:2)
Anyways.. besides a nice option.. I think there should be an option to post as an AC without having to log out.
Thread kill; coloring (Score:2)
By the way, I would be delighted if the color of the subject bar of a post corresponded to its score, darkening for higher score. Or maybe the user prefs could have a color choice for each score level. Yeah, it's eye candy, but if used well it could be effective visual feedback.
If anybody actually reads this... (Score:2)
Let me tell you all, right before I hit the submit button I think really hard if what I'm writing needs to be said. Perhaps it has already been said, or it's flamebait, or I'm coming down a little hard on somebody. Usually about half the time I write out an entire comment, think about it for 30 seconds and hit the back button. I'm sure that if a lot of people do this (and they might, who can tell?) then the overall comment quality will rise.
Speaking of which, I want to voice my support for the alignment system. I figure it can have two effects. One: People will abuse the system and use their Alignment to boost up bad comments. These comments will get moderated down and you will lose alignment points. Two: People will tend to write comments that deserve their default rating. I know that's my reaction to the whole thing. Perhaps Bruce Perens shouldn't be posting things that aren't worth the 3 default points? Just maybe we all don't need to see his latest tidbit of humor.
Time can only tell, but in the past week, I'd say the overall quality of the posts that I see has definitely risen. I think it only aspires people to think originally and creatively so that their comments get moderated up and their voices get heard.
--Peter
On late posting ... and other things (Score:2)
I've been pondering late posting since the 'Expanded Moderation System' took effect. Some thoughts:
What happens to a late post? Like this one? Does it dry up like a rasin in the sun? I have the feeling that by now (some 10 hours after the origional story was posted) nearly all the moderators have moved on to other articles.
Back when posts were ordered oldest-first, (ahh the old days) late posters always got the bottom of the page. So there was incentive to post early. But at the same time I think that more people read further down the page because there could be some real jems down there.
Now days, readers have less reason to surf to the bottom (I'm assuming that most people view their comments by rank- I could be wrong about this). I guess I'm whining about something that can't be helped. What we really need are more moderators in Australia!
I'll check back tomorrow, but I don't think that this post will have any replys or be moderated. (Note: this is not a challenge! Please don't reply or moderate just to be contrary ;) If you do reply I would be interested in discovering where geographically you are from.
One final thought: How cool would it be to have stats on stuff like how people choose to format their page (oldest 1st, highest score, etc) or what threshold most people prefer. Or which statboxes are most popular. Are you getting all this Rob? ;)
Final thought two: Have you ever wondered if Rob has a page where he can view all the posts with his name in the body? Or even better- how cool would it be if you could easily search posts not just stories? Bah. Enough of this stream of consciousness. Im out.
Well, Rob... (Score:2)
-----------
Very slight modification (Score:2)
So, what do yas think?
re:Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:2)
re: wish: back to comments after 'Submit' (Score:2)
Another potential solution to the problem (Score:2)
Score pool. (Score:2)
Anyway, your proposal solves all of these problems by allowing the user to say "yes, i know this doesn't deserve a 3, but i want to say it anyway, so i'll give it a 1."
"alignment rating" has serious problems. (Score:2)
If I've misunderstood and it's a total rather than an average, biases the other way happen: very frequent posting is encouraged, and those who post only the best are discriminated against.
I think this stuff is really difficult to get right. I'm surprised that there's no bazaar development around Slashdot so you don't have the same pressure to implement ideas before suggesting them.
--
I don't like this new system (Score:2)
I might be repeating a few things out there, but here it goes:
First, I don't like the way the new alignment works. What happens if a user with alignment posts 50 comments, each at +3. They would then be posting at +5. Oops.
Second, this encourages frequent posters and discourages new users. This is the biggest problem IMHO. Why should a newbie post a good message if it will automatically be rated down?
Finally, I have found that an easy way to get moderated up is to segment your post into points, with a paragraph or two for each point. Then all you have to do is ramble and make sense, and then poof! You are moderated upwards.
-Ben
This will create lots and lots of NOISE! (Score:2)
(And if you moderate me down, please mod the parent article up.)
Bleh (Score:2)
Rob, this system is completely whacked. You want to encourage good writing. Thus, all posts should start out at 0. Like the stock market, past behavior in not an indication of future performance. The system you have proposed is designed for creating elites. (I'M A THREE!!!)
Don't worry about the judge and jury problem. Someone else will come along and raise that opposing viewpoint back up. Why? Because there will be another moderator who agrees with the other guy. Allow moderators to post.
How you pick the moderator is probably a better use for the delta system you just came up with. Just as long as it isn't me. I waste enough of my time here as it is.
moderators and posting (Score:2)
--Phil (I'd just like some sort of selt-moderation option, for when I want to be off-topic.)
Quest for unemployment (Score:2)
Job Search -- fishmonger (Score:2)
Job search sites are a poor way to find a job. Here's a recent [eet.com] quote from Ask The Headhunter over at the EE times:
It should be no surprise to you that the big career sites where you can post jobs and resumes are owned by advertising companies. The objective is not matching people with jobs; the objective is selling as many ads as possible. That's why none of these sites (that I know of) can or will report on hiring rates resulting from those postings.
If I'm wrong, and this site is different, then prove it. Show them stats!
moderators and posting (Score:2)
on one side, the rule will prevent people from moderating posts that may oppose or advocate their vision, but I think the average moderator is intelligent enough not to do that. and the fact that there are a lot of moderators also works here, because a post that is valued too high or too low will be re-evaluated by other moderators and put back where it belongs, while still allowing moderators to post there on average good comments. or am I completely mistaken about this?
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Alignment decay (Score:2)
please NO! (Please Yes!) (Score:2)
If the comment IS extremely intelligent, then I would LIKE it to be posted. That's what I'm here for. If someone trys to up thier score by posting "whee... first", they will fail, and possibly lose a point or two if they had it. This would discourage bad posts and encourage good posts. Plus, it would allow those posters that we know have insightful comments (regardless of if they are right or not) to boost the score of the posts they want, instead of having ALL thier posts boosted.
If we stick with this system (which I personally don't like all that much), then a person with 2 good comments will start showing up at the top of my list with thier regular insipid ones. (If I understand correctly). I'd rather the pool.
Remember, because this forum is very open to the public, you can't stop stupid posts. I'd rather keep the system open, then try to eliminate ALL the ways a clever idiot (heh) can abuse
Default Moderation Scores (Score:2)
Auto scoring is a bad idea. Indeed it is (Score:2)
Gordon
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
One thought (Score:2)
Whatever
Stan "Myconid" Brinkerhoff
Quantifying Credibility (Score:2)
Everything you do IS judged. (Score:2)
Whenever you post in a public forum, your post is judged by all who read it, even if the judgment is fairly superficial, such as "reading this post (was|was not) worth my time." Of course, judging the relevance and worth of a post is somewhat different than judging the person that's posting.
The point-pool idea doesn't create a currency in the typical sense, since posters cannot exchange this currency directly. The closest thing to such an exchange is the fact that moderation actions on a post will affect someone's pool. I, as a poster, would not be able to exchange points for favors, etc. with other people. And with moderators turning over every few days, it'd be very hard to make a black-market in moderation points.
Given that all of the "currency" comes from and is ultimately controlled by the moderators, and given that the moderators come from a large subset of the posting population, this sounds alot more like a meritocracy with a touch of democratic socialism than the "invisible groping hand" of capitalism.
--Joe--
This will create lots and lots of NOISE! (Score:2)
Just look at this here discussion for instance. Bzztzpht! Noise!
I have my threshold set to 3+ (has worked fine until now) but today all I see (right away anyway) is some "low-quality" chit-chat between the selected few. a.k.a. the Slashdot Elite.
I don't care who's hip on the /. discussion forums, and who's not. I just want insightful and interesting comments on todays news. Personally I don't care who posted what.
I have a suggestion:
smuModerators should by default not be allowed to see who posted what. So that we don't have to trust them not to moderate up only their friends.
Make the moderators person-blind and have some sort of setup to help them review only the newest postings on a thread. The system today only moderates the first few postings, and then the rest is left unread by the moderators, nomatter how insightful or otherwise interesting they may be... this sucks
Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:2)
One person could self moderate their messages very low in order to gain global ranking when he is going to be moderated back up. I think that if there is self moderation (and I like the ides), the adjustment to the global ranking should be:
Let f be the final rank of the message,
Let d be the default rank of the writer
Lef m be the self moderation
(with m = d)
if m d, add f-d to global ranking.
That way, if a person over-estimates his message, he loses point, if he is being modest, but the message doesnt exceed his average, the score doesn't change, and if he is better than his default ranking, he gains points, regardless of his self-moderation. I think it's important that gaining points do not depend on the self moderation.
When do we get to vote on the articles themselves? (Score:2)
Running, ducking, and hidding.... ;-)
What's my score? (Score:2)
Also I find myself agreeing with a number of the
comments on this page. *SOMETHING* should be done
to change the default score on the comments.
Bruce's idea of self-imposed moderation is nice,
but requires too much action on the part of the
user. I prefer the other idea of seperating
"reputation" from "commentValue", and allowing the
viewers to sort the comments according to either
(OR, better yet, allow the user to type in their
own evaluation function, like
rating = 2*commentValue + reputation
Whaddya think?
finally, re: the restriction on commenting and
moderating in the same article, I'd fear that the
moderators would stop *Moderating*, not
commenting. Is there any known abuse of the
system with friends pumping up each others
comments?
Perhaps we could even allow the user to
parameterize this, with an option like
- Ignore moderation from commentors.
That way all moderators can moderate freely, but
they know that abusing the system won't always
work. And, of course, Rob's alignment function
will automatically have this Ignore function
turned on.
-Felix Klock
"Alignment" sucks (Score:2)
1. You're off-topic posts were repetition of the other off-topics,
and you should have been on their thread.
(moderators tend not to lower the score of big threads)
2. Have you ended all of your comments' subjects in the word "sucks"?
---
Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:2)
Sorry, I meant I thought it was a bad idea (Score:2)
yes, Yes, YES! (Score:2)
Damn! I don't know why no-one thought of this before... it's so blindingly obvious (and simple)!
This is the perfect solution... in combination with the existing system... in that people should be able to "pre-modify" the moderation points of any article based on the poster.
Therefore people who don't particularly like/want to hear about Bruce Perens (for example -- it happens to be a good one) can set his particular modification to, say, -3.
So. By default, Mr. Perens has a score of 4. Someone who doesn't particularly want to read his stuff can add -3 to that, making a default of 1. And, of course, set their threshold to 2, or something. So an "average" Perens article wouldn't show up. If Bruce has said something "really" worthwhile, it would be moderated up, and get a 5. Add -3 and you get 2, which would show up. (Note I'm not conscientiously ragging on Bruce; I just happened to read a post complaining about him recently, and it's still on my mind).
On the other hand, someone who doesn't particularly mind Bruce could just leave his modification at default (0), so an "average" Bruce post would be 4 + 0 = 4, a good one would be 5, and so on (as things are now).
In theory, someone who really likes him, could assign a + modifier, so he would always get scores of 6, 7, whatever (for that person). Pretty much guaranteeing that that person would always catch Mr. Perens' posts. This would still apply if Bruce made a quick, "off-the-cuff" remark, that got demoted to 1, but 1 + 3 (for example) would still be 4, and still be seen.
Now, this system would automagically apply to anyone. The same would happen if people did/didn't like my posts (which I believe default to 2 at the moment), or (and here's the beauty of it), our old favourites, the Anonymous Cowards!
That last point, I think is a godsend... hopefully it will put to rest once and for all the "AC's should/shouldn't be allowed to post" argument. A solution was tried with automatically demoting AC posts to 0, of course, but I still see the occasional "that's like censorship!" claim, and also the occasional "They shouldn't post at all!" one.
But, if the viewer was allowed to set their own preference, those who wanted to see AC's should leave their modifier at zero (ie: 1 + 0 = 1 = default), those who like the system as-is modify to -1 (1 + -1 = 0 = as it is now), and those who don't want to see AC posts at all (unless they're really good ones) modify to -3 or something (a 1 + -3 = -2 post will never get seen if the threshold can't be below -1).
Of course, still leave the moderations in place (note I distinguish between moderation and modification). That would indicate how good/bad a post was compared to other posts by that same person. But the modification (done on a personal, not a global, level) would determine whether a "default" post by that person would show up.
(I guess this is sort of like multi-dimansional moderation, as suggested by someone else... just thought of that now...)
And of course, as you mentioned, the same thing could be applied to subject lines, helping out with alleviating the old "First Post!" syndrome, among others.
Anyway... I'm sure this would all create a hell of a lot of work for poor Rob, but hey... you can handle it, right Rob? And of course... "there is nothing that Perl cannot do! Nothing!"... hehe.
Anyway, yes... I think this is a brilliant idea. Simple, elegant, and would do the job!
--
- Sean
a possible problem (Score:2)
Interesting System (Score:2)
Actually, I think that's a reason why it shouldn't say your current level on your homepage. That way the only way to find out what your score is is to actually post a message, and you don't want to post a stupid message (which will probably get moderated down) just to find out your score.
alignment vs. average (Score:2)
IMHO, somebody who posts 10 things a day scored zero or +1 deserves a default score of 4 less than somebody who only posts once a week but always gets scored +3. The alignment system seems to reward meidocre quantity over true quality.
Also, this would eliminate the need to be constantly adjusting the alignment thresholds over time. An average is always an average.
Interesting data point... (Score:2)
Apparently Rob's alignment only gives him a +1 posting bonus...I don't know why, but I'm a little surprised that it's so low.
(I'm also posting to see what my alignment is...'cuz I'm too lazy to do the math myself.)
john.
What's my score? (Score:2)
-Dan
please NO! (Score:2)
In the real world, someone who has more $$ can defend themselves better in a court of law despite the statement that ALL ARE EQUAL..
please please please dont start reproducing this kind of thing on slashdot, even if "intelligence" (measured in slash dot points) is the currency. It wont work. Just the same as traditionally, the concept of $$ for rewarding "work" has been completely corrupted..
does everybody realise that the minute somebody posts a comment purely to try and up their point tally then
Whooohooo shaping up nicely (Score:2)
I have a lot of ideas about how to take over the world/end capatalism/emancipate information, but at this rate you will have the "new world order" on your hands before I write any pseudo code:)
Its a weight off my back if you can take over the world for me:)
-dont bother flaming me about brown nosing, I dont plan on even reading the responses to this one:)
Momerath
Check your default here! (Score:2)
Until you get up a way to see your default score, why not set up a "See your score" area that is unmoderated so people can see their scores?
I saw that a couple of these were already moderated.
Soooo, until then, how about people replying to this post not get moderated so they can see their scores?
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
Default Moderation Scores (Score:2)
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
User scores? (Score:2)
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
Interesting System (Score:3)
This will create chaotic instability (Score:3)
I agree with this completely. Another recent change also introduces a bad effect in my eyes.
If I were a newbie to Slashdot, someone with a low alignment, or an infrequent poster, I would feel pushed out by the big boys who post often and therefore have a hugely positive alignment. Why would I post unless my comment will be read by others?
The effect is, I think, that we will see an increase in frequent posters, and a decrease in new posters. This is not necessarily a good thing.
-Ben
Impressive, but Nessary? (Score:3)
The pool idea where every +1 contributes a 1/2 point to a users score pool that can be drawn on to later "get on a soap box."
BUT, my over all opinion is this is getting chaotic already. Not the potential to, but it's there. I am very impressed with Malda's mod_perl abilities now, and what he is capable of doing. But, IMHO, we have reached the level of "overkill."
This is my opinion, but I personally liked it when there was a small pool of moderators, people started at 1 (AC's at 0), and things were streight forward.
My suggestion would be gut it all, do half points, or a 1 to 10 scale (because of the larger number of moderators, and potential for several people to +1 something). And leave everyone start on the level field again.
At first I wasn't sure I liked the idea of "earning" moderation points (the ability to moderate)... Now, I think it's probably for the best. That may be the best place to focus Rob's coding efforts.
But I don't think I like the "auto start at level X" stuff. At least not when i don't have the option to 0 or -1 myself! (I guess I wouldn't mind sticking my foot in my mouth more often if I could -1 myself and go somewhat un-noticed unless someone else found my comments interesting).
I guess I still like command line better than GUI, so maybe it's just my natural inclination to not fully apreciate this "automation in moderation" thing?
A slightly modified approach... (Score:3)
Wait, though... (Score:3)
At least, that's how I read the changes. Am I wrong?
Interesting ideas, but... (Score:3)
Sorry to be a nudge but no-one seems to have answered this. I'm curious to see how this is implemented, and (with my semiconscious perl skills) possibly augment with more features, clean up cruft, document, etc...
Please make a statement about the source. Anything would be useful:
o "it's so cruddy right now we're embarrassed to release it in this state: give us time to clean it up a bit, it'll be available X"
o "we're going to turn it into a saleable product and make some m00la off it, v0.2 is all you're gettin' and if you don't like it you can lump it"
o "oops, we forgot, here's the link to the tarball"
o "you jackass, it'll be available when it's available, just like Quake, so quit yer whinin'"
o "you jackass, we've had anonymous CVS for aeons now, here's the CVSROOT"
o "you jackass, it's at (freshmeat|rob's page|foobar), you just didn't look hard enough"
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:3)
Ideally: You'd be presented with a SELECT item when you make your post, with all the scores possible less than or equal to your current default. You select the score for your post from that list, but you're barred from rising above your current default.
No sir, I don't like it (Score:3)
If you really MUST base something on reputation, make it separate and parallel from the comment ratings. I can then set my preferences for posters ranked at 5 to spill out and comments at 3 to spill. I could sort by poster, comment, date, etc.
My only other question is... what about AC? Does his reputation remain at 0, or will he eventually be knocked down to -1? Doesn't seem fair to knock AC down since it's not one person, and it seems even worse to knock identified posters have anything lower than AC.
Again, kudos to all the other great changes, but please consider this one a bit more...
wish: back to comments after 'Submit' (Score:3)
Thanks,
-matt
Have a 'rating' on comments on the first page. (Score:3)
I don't normally read that many comments, haven't got the time, but now I read those that spill over the 4 and this is rewarding. Previously I would scroll down searching the subject headings. So overall I am reading far more comments now than I used to.
It is also encouraging me to come into a story 'late' so that there is a decent chance of having some good comments. How about having an indicator on the front page showing where abouts the comments lie, just showing the number of comments that 'spill over' with your own settings would be enough, but there are a thousand variations along this theme that would also be useful.
Doing this would tell me when a story had 'ripe' threads.
Interesting System (Score:3)
As long as it doesn't result in people getting bumped down for comments that go in at a high moderation level (due to alignment) that are good, but probably aren't worthy of the high level.
I believe that's the point: higher scoring posters are usually of consistently higher quality (though admittedly, not always). In order for someone's alignment score (AS) to remain high, the quality of their comments must also remain high. In your example, if a poster with an AS of 4 posting a comment of only "normal" quality (AS 1) would probably have that post moderated down, with a corresponding drop in the poster's alignment factor. This could result in a high-quality poster dropping from an AS4 to AS3 as s/he posts more comments of limited value. In order to maintain the higher score, s/he would have to maintain higher quality posts.
Of course this will also result (in those to whom AS is important) in fewer posts, since it is easier to maintain a high score by not being moderated down!
Which brings us to this: At what point does the pursuit of points supercede the importance of posting insightful, relevant comments? And we know it will come to that, for some posters. Fortunately, IMO, the moderation system Rob et al. have put in place should account for that, and the "point-pursuers" will simply have the effect of raising the bar for all posters. All in all, an elegant solution to the SNR problem.
Hmmm... (Score:3)
It would be nice if there was some way to separate a writer's reputation from a post's score (defined as solely what the moderators did to the post, disregarding the writer's reputation) and sort accordingly, either by reputation OR by score. Or by reputation + score (current moderation scheme). Or by score - reputation (previous moderation). Or score * reputation * 0 (no moderation). Or score * reputation, or reputation * 5 + score, or score * 5 + reputation. Of course, these last few mean there should be no non-positive scores. It would allow you to do some pretty cool customization of your sorting if there were multiple criteria and you could come up with your own formula to sort based on those criteria. But now I'm getting kind of silly.
Auto scoring is a bad idea (Score:3)
If you are a user that sets his threshold really high so that you only see the good stuff, you are still going to get these guys with pretty good reputations but the occasional bad comment. The more users that
In the beginning, we had no moderation. Then we got moderation through scoring. Now we have moderation through scoring + past history. Next it will be moderation through scoring + past history + grammar. Then scoring + past history + grammar + buzzwords, etc.
Let the moderators decide, not past history. Moderators are the most effective noise filters. The logic a moderator goes through determining what is a good comment and what is not is a lot more involved than something you could code in Perl
"Alignment" sucks (Score:3)
Second off, this is dumb because it is possible that someone with a bad posting history could post a pretty good comment. Then nobody reads his post - by the time some moderator gets round to reading his default -1 post and moderating it upwards, the article is old and stale and noone is reading it anymore.
The only exception is when someone obviously is a troll and is out to continually post only crap. Then there should be some other type of flag that can be set on that user, like "troll" or something.
Too much of a good thing? Maybe. (Score:4)
I was wondering why my posts were defaulting so high today. I thought they were good posts, but certainly not Pulitzer material. Now I know.
This isn't necessarily a bad system, but I think this should be the last tweak for a while. An allegorical story, if you'll permit me:
I had a friend who wrote his own role-playing system, did the points up and the skills and dice rolls and all that math stuff. It ended up being way too complex to play smoothly. Just finding out who walked away alive from a single battle took all day. The system barely survived one session before all his notes were thrown in to the fire. Literally.
I cannot help but wonder if Slashdot might eventually fall to that same phenomenon, where the bells and whistles not only drown out the static, but the pure sound as well.
That's not to say that CmdrTaco and his crew haven't done a superb job thus far. They have, and I for one am thankful for the great resource they've provided. But perhaps they should let this settle a while and see how things play out before tweaking any further.
And that's all I have to say.
Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:4)
It's sad that it has to be that way, but there isn't much that can be done about it. People should be rewarded for posting good stuff.
re:Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:4)
(laughing out loud) It won't be a problem. I've sure done my best to keep them in your face up until now, haven't I?
If anybody actually reads this... (Score:4)
I reply to a lot of posts, and most of my replies are not +4 material, although they may be important - for example one of my replies today was to a -1 post that displayed some easily-corrected confusion about the GPL. I might have wanted to put my reply at -1 so that only the readers of the original post would have seen it. But I was stuck with using a +4 nuclear warhead to swat a -1 fly.
I hope that makes my quandry more clear.
Thanks
Bruce
Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:4)
There is a built-in encouragement to self-moderation. If you do it well, moderators will demote your comments less often and your score will be higher.
Maybe we are really figuring out how to do this sort of online discussion well, after years of people talking about it but not getting anywhere. I'm really intrigued.
Thanks
Bruce
It's a societal thing... (Score:4)
Hopefully it shouldn't be any new information for me to say that it's a fine line between including all points of view and succumbing to the line noise that mass voices can create.
However, I subscribe to the belief that the truth doesn't neccessarily have to be phrased in eloquent, multisyllabic aphorisms. The truth is ugly, people, and often the messengers of the truth are despised for their frank talk. We don't want to hear some things. We don't want to hear that some people are stronger, better, faster, smarter than others -- unless, of course, it applies to you
What I fear this moderation alignment will do is remove many people like MEEPT!! -- who, despite his or her incoherency at times, told the truth in ways that irritated people because it was the truth about them.
It's a sad day when I find myself defending MEEPT!!, but there's something to be said about an inherent anti-bluntness bias in slashdot...
Let's take an example. Recently I read a post w/respect to Linux in a Dilbert article. Some killjoy posted his or her frustration about how Dilbert was mocking "The cause" and how Scott Adams was "like a weapons dealer", appeasing both the management and (in his/her words) "us peons".
A couple posts were put in response to it, more or less politely telling the poster to lighten up, that he had a lot of bitterness locked up, etc. All of them were moderated down, because the posters had the audacity to draw a correlation between the tone of a post and probable experiences in the personal or work life of this poster. The truth was ugly, but it's something we can all recognize in a grade school sandbox: the bitter poster had a stunted sense of fun and felt trampled on, and was ruining someone else's fun. I don't particularly believe that everyone's posts have equal merit -- neither does Rob, if we have moderation to begin with --, but I find it grimly amusing that it's easier to bitch about the decline of Slashdot as if it were the fall of the Roman Empire, than it is to take the truth that someone's social skills cast a bias on their statements and add a pompous air to Slashdot.
On the Internet, no one knows if you're a dog, unless you talk a lot about bones.
There gradually is a PC -- Politically Correct, not Personal Computer or Program Counter -- mobocracy when it comes to approval of posts and the like. This leads to a spiraling affect, the articles which please hoi polloi tend to go up in score, and the ugly truths, the insightful posts that no one wants to hear, the laments that only become appreciated after their time are covered by the posturing of killjoys. What kind of moderation is this that only the virulently PC posts, the posts that kiss the ass of our ego, the posts that pat us all on the back because nobody makes mistakes, can get a high score, and the posts that tell people to suck it up and face the facts objectively get shot down? Moderation? Try Extremism.
Other examples include the recent slew of articles about the so-called "Future of Open Source." -- I happen to like these articles very much, but something doesn't seem right. Open Source is all about putting your code where your mouth is; you don't talk, you don't spew, you do. Why the sudden overload of articles on Open Source when there's no need to promote it? There is no need to promote it, people. The sheer fact that Open Source hinges on volunteerism means that no matter how hostile the climate, it's still going to be done. But if someone were to point out that the majority of these so-called essays on the future of open source were made because it's "cool" to be associated with open source, they would be shot down.
"Oh no! Someone dared accuse us of jumping on the bandwagon! Someone spotted us trying to steal a little credit we never had before in our lives! No matter, Open Source is my credo, (as long as it's convenient,) and I'm an individual, just like everyone else!"
The irony of the above paragraph is that a good deal of
Here I sit in the face of the mobocracy with the brazenness to call them animals, twisting real ideals into pop culture. How dare I stand up for materialism, and moderation (of behavior, not posts), and the fact that the same criticism told you when you were five still applies if you haven't changed? At least you have to respect me for trying
Allowing mass moderation is going to galvanize
-- my $0.05. Keep the change.
Score pool. (Score:4)
(intentionaly or unintentionaly).
I have a good idea.
For every point someone's comment have got,
he will get half a point on the pool.
When he posts a comment,
he can boost it up according to his pool.
If someone wants to say something stupid, like "agreed, blah blah",
he can choose the score for the comment to stay 1.
but, if he had an enlightenment, and has a very good point (and he knows it), he can pull from the pool,
and get attention.
but, if the moderators thinks the comment is bad, they can lower it down, thus lowering the amount of score in his pool to spend at other times.
(and ofcourse, when he posts the comment, he lowers the pool by himself).
negative pools will FORCE users to post at bad score of 0 (no choice for the user).
the user will rely on moderator to give him thumbs-up to normal score and higher his pool.
he will get a score for the act of posting,
if a poster post "this is meant to higher my score" he will get thumbsdown,
and it won't change anything.
however, positive pools cannot be set for such a thing, and may not recieve score in such a way.
also, an extra 1/2 point should be given to a user who got 4 points.
a point for going to 5 points,
and -1 points for getting to -1.
(and the reverse on the opposite direction)
---
This will create chaotic instability (Score:5)
Consider that people will lose moderation points semi-randomly: if there's a three day weekend when they're offline, or few interesting stories, etc -- it rewards only extremely recent behavior, yet it's people's long term behavior that you want to reward.
It's also true that, the more capricious and unpredictable a reward system, the less it is perceived as a reward system, and therefore the less it tends to motivate behavior.
(I don't mean "reward" here necessarily in a moral sense, just in a behavior modulation sense.)
Need post-time control of our initial level. (Score:5)
Not everything I write is a 4, and the posting form should have an option if I'd like to self-moderate it to a 1, 2, or 3, rather than wait for a moderator to come along and do it for me.
The way it's set up now, I feel as if I should never post unless it's golden prose :-)
Thanks
Bruce