What's amazing to me isn't that/. has carried on this long, but rather that the comment quality on here hasn't gone the way of most social new sites. It seems that in general as a social news site ages, matures, and grows, the comment quality follows an inverse pattern. Or more simply, as the number of users approaches infinity, the comment quality approaches 4chan. Digg used to be a decent site for discussion; now you'd be laughed at for even suggesting that the comments might be notable. Reddit is quickl
As do I. Having comments separated by funny/insightful/etc, capping them at +5, and only letting a select few upvote is a surprisingly effective strategy.
Apparently it is, it would be very interesting to know why exactly this works. I mean, seriously, comments almost never get deleted here, right? (unless it's related to scientology?). And you can post as anomymous coward without logging in? It's a miracle that it isn't full of crap posts and automated spam messages.
It's a miracle that it isn't full of crap posts and automated spam messages.
At least part of that stems from the aforementioned moderation system, the fact that most regular users don't browse at -1 (which means we wouldn't actually see AC spam even if it was occurring), and perhaps also because geeks are not good marks for the sorts of products generally plugged via spam; that and geeks have the means, motive, and opportunity to take active technical measures against spammers making us doubly not worth the effort from the spammer's point of view. In short, The spammers don't spam
the fact that most regular users don't browse at -1
Actually I would recommend that everyone browse at -1. There isn't really that much spam/trolling to contend with -- in exchange for having to scroll past one or two racist trolls you'll get to see raw unfiltered discussion that may not have survived the group think that permeates the moderation system.
I stopped caring or paying attention to moderation a long time ago. Give it to me raw baby!
Amen. There's a lot of great trolling and off-topic humor that doesn't make it up to the surface at default. Also some pretty good posts come from people who are willing to post things that have killed their karma. I think most of the really useless trolls must be getting discouraged by our system, considering how many there actually aren't.
Age and quality. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a miracle that it isn't full of crap posts and automated spam messages.
At least part of that stems from the aforementioned moderation system, the fact that most regular users don't browse at -1 (which means we wouldn't actually see AC spam even if it was occurring), and perhaps also because geeks are not good marks for the sorts of products generally plugged via spam; that and geeks have the means, motive, and opportunity to take active technical measures against spammers making us doubly not worth the effort from the spammer's point of view. In short, The spammers don't spam
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
the fact that most regular users don't browse at -1
Actually I would recommend that everyone browse at -1. There isn't really that much spam/trolling to contend with -- in exchange for having to scroll past one or two racist trolls you'll get to see raw unfiltered discussion that may not have survived the group think that permeates the moderation system.
I stopped caring or paying attention to moderation a long time ago. Give it to me raw baby!
Re:Age and quality. (Score:2)
Amen. There's a lot of great trolling and off-topic humor that doesn't make it up to the surface at default. Also some pretty good posts come from people who are willing to post things that have killed their karma. I think most of the really useless trolls must be getting discouraged by our system, considering how many there actually aren't.