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
I have actually found that if I spend all my points before they run out and don't post while I have them I tend to continue to get them until I break the cycle.
I have found that I get metamoderated into oblivion (and therefore lose my mod-points) if I moderate a discussion in a way which does not fit the general opinion of most slashdot users.
That's the negative aspect of the/. moderation system, it encourages groupthink and censorship.
But yes, I agree, it is certainly the worst - except for everything else.
But it was fairly obvious. I was consistently given mod points for years, until I moderated the heck out of a story in which I was of the complete opposite opinion of 80% of the comments in the story. So I positively moderated those that agreed with my point of view (and made valid, logical points). Within one month of my moderation, I lost the ability to obtain mod points for 13 months (kind of an interesting-to-know timeframe).
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday December 11, 2009 @09:54PM (#30409800)
So what you're saying is that you moderated messages based on whether or not you agreed with them, which is exactly how you should NOT moderate ? No wonder you don't get mod points anymore...
I think what he meant to say is he gave points to those who had valid, logical points, yet had not been upmodded or in some cases unfairly downmodded since the opinions they expressed conflicted with the Slashdot groupthink. Happens all the time, and good for him for trying to swing the balance a bit.
I think Slashdot has done much better than other social news sites in this regard. At least some of the mods and meta-mods can recognize that upmodding shouldn't correlate to agreement with a statement. Try posting unpopular opinions on Digg or Reddit and you'll see how much harder it is to be heard because everyone has downvoting power.
Honestly, I'd be overjoyed to see a flurry of insightful or informative comments, even when they're not what I agree with. I want to be forced to think and be confronted by conflicting opinions - that way I can form more educated opinions of my own and be less influenced by groupthink circle jerks.
I have found that I get metamoderated into oblivion (and therefore lose my mod-points) if I moderate a discussion in a way which does not fit the general opinion of most
Confining your moderation to one discussion tends to make any of your biases appear as a pattern. However, if you use your points in different discussions, maybe you look like a better moderator.
I was a friend of friend of Taco and thus able to comment in his journals. I ripped him a new one for some faggoty journal entry he made. He then defriended robogoatgruff (uid 20, my friend of a friend of taco) so I couldn't comment in his journals and I have since never had mod points.
Yeah; I've been getting 2 or even 3 15-point mod sessions per week for a while now. One thing it makes me think of is that I don't really understand all that much of how/.'s mod system really works. Is it actually documented somewhere that we can read? I haven't found anything that I'd call very informative about the mod system.
Part of the reason I'm interested is that some friends and other acquaintances have recently asked me about building some online news/blog sites for a couple of local organizations. Doing the basic programming seems rather straightforward, but I suspect that there are some subtleties for which it'd be best to learn from others. I'd want to include some sort of moderation system, so I'd like to read about some experiences with such things. Both successful and unsuccessful ideas would be useful. It'd probably be better than me making guesses about how to do it.
I did look into slashcode, but found that the documentation seems scarce, and apparently nobody is feeding and watering it any more. I also did a bit of googling, but didn't find much useful. Maybe I just didn't guess the right keywords...
Anyway, if the/. editors have produced any sort of history of what they've tried, what worked, and what didn't, it could be interesting reading to some of us.
If you get them, just do what I do -- find a thread you don't have any interest in and moderate the first X posts as "under-rated". (X is the number of mod points you get, which is 15 for me.)
This gives you the benefit of nothaving to actually moderate plus you can't be meta-moderated.
I get points about once a week. YMMV. CYLDFD.
I'm really only posting here in case there's an acheivement... achievement... anchoviement.
Sorry, not enough sleep makes everything seem funny. At least I'm not rambling on pointles
I've found that when I post less I tend to get more mod points.
Traffic loyalty scheme? If you haven't been posting much lately, maybe it's because you haven't been reading/visiting much either. Mod points (esp. when notified by the Slashdotter FF extension) perhaps serve to bring you back in.
The moderation system here at slashdot is terrible.
But then again most online moderation systems are. Quite simply, it is somewhat depressing that at this point we still don't have a good trusted "commenter identity" system that rewards good posters in a better manner. There are a number of proposed solutions out there but no one seems interested in implementing anything but the most basic systems. We have far too much idle computing power to be implementing this simple systems that don't scale in terms of
The problem of rewarding good posters too much is that it tends to make the community degenerate into a clique. Look at Wikipedia and its editors, for example.
The best thing about Slashdot's moderation system, IMHO, is that it rewards good *posts* rather than posters because even Anonymous Cowards can provide interesting insight, and even the most intelligent fellow is liable to the ocassional episode of stupidity.
and even the most intelligent fellow is liable to the ocassional episode of stupidity
That was only the *one* time, I told you. Jeez, cut me some slack will ya. Well, since you've been most gracious in not mentioning my name, I won't be the spelling Nazi right now, and we'll call it even. In fact, to top it off, on Monday I will even pretend you didn't even make this post.
While the comment quality has not gone that much down, editorial quality did, in my opinion. I agree that comments convey much more than story "summary".
I used to get mod points all the time (once a week or so), then it suddenly stopped. My karma is still excellent, and I still have the option to turn off advertising. Is it waiting for me to turn ads off before it gives me my mod points again? Is it detecting adblock? Anyone have an explanation?
No... none of my moderations have been metamoderated. When you get metamodded down, your karma suffers. It seems that I've been purged from the moderation lists.
Funny thing is, I used to be able to mod until 2007. The only references I could find to a blacklist (rtbl flag purge) was way back in 2002. So there must be further blacklisting of mods going on. I just wonder what I did to get on the blacklist.
You mean the same moderating system that hasn't given me mod points in 4 or 5 years?
The slashdot system seems to be relatively hard on people who post one-liner smartass comments all the time. If we look back through your recent history [slashdot.org] then we don't see a lot that is likely to attract the karma-positive moderations. I suspect it also helps if you include a little context with <quote>s of what you're talking about. Otherwise it is too easy for people doing metamodding to not understand what you're talking about (no, you don't need to quote the whole lot. Just the relevant sentence or
Of course it doesn’t give you mod points. The FAQ clearly states, that the ones who get points, are in the middle. The very old and very new ones don’t get points anymore. It also states a half-assed reason for this.
But then again, I hope that was the point of your joke and I just wooshed myself. Or else you must have bought that account and must be new here! ^^
The FAQ clearly states, that the ones who get points, are in the middle. The very old and very new ones dont get points anymore. It also states a half-assed reason for this.
This is incorrect. The FAQ does not say that "very old" accounts are exempt from getting mod points. And i can assure you that does not happen either, my account is obviously "very old" and for quite a while i keep getting 15 mod points every few days or so.
The scarcity of mod points helps a lot with the type of posts that get upvoted. I mean, I just saw a Digg article (well, picture) where the most dugg comment was "Ha Ha! That was pretty hilarious...and true.", in response to some 4chan meme image. The good thing about limited upvoting is that people will usually only upvote comments that are either particularly witty or of substance, not thoughtless drivel that inspires no conversation at all.
"Flattery is all right -- if you don't inhale."
-- Adlai Stevenson
Age and quality. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Age and quality. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the worst one, except for all the others.
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Funny)
I haven't gotten mod points in quite a while either. That's why it's successful!
Wait a second...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oddly enough in my old slashdot account even though I never commented and rarely used them I was handed 5 moderation points pretty much every week.
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Age and quality. (Score:4, Interesting)
In the middle of a long dry spell myself
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's the negative aspect of the
But yes, I agree, it is certainly the worst - except for everything else.
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Funny)
how do you determine your meta-mod status?
Guessing.
But it was fairly obvious. I was consistently given mod points for years, until I moderated the heck out of a story in which I was of the complete opposite opinion of 80% of the comments in the story. So I positively moderated those that agreed with my point of view (and made valid, logical points). Within one month of my moderation, I lost the ability to obtain mod points for 13 months (kind of an interesting-to-know timeframe).
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what he meant to say is he gave points to those who had valid, logical points, yet had not been upmodded or in some cases unfairly downmodded since the opinions they expressed conflicted with the Slashdot groupthink. Happens all the time, and good for him for trying to swing the balance a bit.
Re: (Score:0)
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I often find myself modding up posts I disagree with, to undo an unearned "troll". Was that you?
Re: (Score:2)
"That's the negative aspect of the /. moderation system, it encourages groupthink and censorship. "
I agree quite a lot. Try posting anyting critical of free markets or austrian economics, see what happens.
Left wing criticism of anything gets heavily modded into oblivion all too often.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what underrated and overrated are for.
Re: (Score:2)
I have found that I get metamoderated into oblivion (and therefore lose my mod-points) if I moderate a discussion in a way which does not fit the general opinion of most
Confining your moderation to one discussion tends to make any of your biases appear as a pattern. However, if you use your points in different discussions, maybe you look like a better moderator.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Same here. I wonder if it's because I don't post much?
Re: (Score:0)
I get 15 mod points at least once a month and I rarely use more than a few of them. I still keep getting them though.
Re: (Score:0)
The probability of receiving moderation powers is inversely proportional to the frequency for which you post on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
plus an unknown constant vaguely related to pizza.
Re: (Score:0)
I was a friend of friend of Taco and thus able to comment in his journals. I ripped him a new one for some faggoty journal entry he made. He then defriended robogoatgruff (uid 20, my friend of a friend of taco) so I couldn't comment in his journals and I have since never had mod points.
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Lately I am getting 15 mod points almost every day compared to the old 5. Is this something new or have I been blessed?
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Funny)
All your thought are belong to us.
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Funny)
I agree!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:0)
You have demonstrated discernment and worth. Congratulations.
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah; I've been getting 2 or even 3 15-point mod sessions per week for a while now. One thing it makes me think of is that I don't really understand all that much of how /.'s mod system really works. Is it actually documented somewhere that we can read? I haven't found anything that I'd call very informative about the mod system.
Part of the reason I'm interested is that some friends and other acquaintances have recently asked me about building some online news/blog sites for a couple of local organizations. Doing the basic programming seems rather straightforward, but I suspect that there are some subtleties for which it'd be best to learn from others. I'd want to include some sort of moderation system, so I'd like to read about some experiences with such things. Both successful and unsuccessful ideas would be useful. It'd probably be better than me making guesses about how to do it.
I did look into slashcode, but found that the documentation seems scarce, and apparently nobody is feeding and watering it any more. I also did a bit of googling, but didn't find much useful. Maybe I just didn't guess the right keywords ...
Anyway, if the /. editors have produced any sort of history of what they've tried, what worked, and what didn't, it could be interesting reading to some of us.
Re: (Score:2)
I do believe the code is open source; I also think that is more or less the documentation :P
As for writing your own, don't. Find some suitable software instead. There are quite a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't had mod points in about 5+ years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean the same moderating system that hasn't given me mod points in 4 or 5 years?
I don't know what's up with you, but I get mod points about 1-2 per week.
Hmm... Maybe this is a sign of Slashdot's quality, after all!
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what's up with you, but I get mod points about 1-2 per week.
Used to be the same way for me, then I found myself not being online much over the summer. Haven't gotten em since!
Re: (Score:2)
1-2 per week? I tend to get 15 a week at minimum...
I always wondered how often others got mod points.
Re: (Score:2)
I average about 10 posts a day.
Almost every other day I get 10 moderator posts.
Coincidence?
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, that one. Apparently it's been giving me all your mod points. Most weeks, I get more mod points then I can have time for.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you get them, just do what I do -- find a thread you don't have any interest in and moderate the first X posts as "under-rated". (X is the number of mod points you get, which is 15 for me.)
This gives you the benefit of nothaving to actually moderate plus you can't be meta-moderated.
I get points about once a week. YMMV. CYLDFD.
I'm really only posting here in case there's an acheivement... achievement... anchoviement.
Sorry, not enough sleep makes everything seem funny. At least I'm not rambling on pointles
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're going to do that, you might as well just ignore the mod points..?
I've found that when I post less I tend to get more mod points. Even if I don't use them it still tops them up every few days.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I've found that when I post less I tend to get more mod points.
Traffic loyalty scheme? If you haven't been posting much lately, maybe it's because you haven't been reading/visiting much either. Mod points (esp. when notified by the Slashdotter FF extension) perhaps serve to bring you back in.
- RG>
Re: (Score:2)
Ever since the "spent all my mod points" achivement, its become an obsession of his.
Re: (Score:1)
You think there might be an achievement for posting here? Interesting.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
100,000th story, what's the comment count at? 30408632?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The moderation system here at slashdot is terrible.
But then again most online moderation systems are. Quite simply, it is somewhat depressing that at this point we still don't have a good trusted "commenter identity" system that rewards good posters in a better manner. There are a number of proposed solutions out there but no one seems interested in implementing anything but the most basic systems. We have far too much idle computing power to be implementing this simple systems that don't scale in terms of
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Age and quality. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem of rewarding good posters too much is that it tends to make the community degenerate into a clique. Look at Wikipedia and its editors, for example.
The best thing about Slashdot's moderation system, IMHO, is that it rewards good *posts* rather than posters because even Anonymous Cowards can provide interesting insight, and even the most intelligent fellow is liable to the ocassional episode of stupidity.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
and even the most intelligent fellow is liable to the ocassional episode of stupidity
That was only the *one* time, I told you. Jeez, cut me some slack will ya. Well, since you've been most gracious in not mentioning my name, I won't be the spelling Nazi right now, and we'll call it even. In fact, to top it off, on Monday I will even pretend you didn't even make this post.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean the same moderating system that hasn't given me mod points in 4 or 5 years?
You can have mine.
Re: (Score:1)
Yup, the same one - welcome to the club ;-)
While the comment quality has not gone that much down, editorial quality did, in my opinion. I agree that comments convey much more than story "summary".
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
I get them all the time! (-1 Troll)
High karma, but stopped getting mod points (Score:2)
I used to get mod points all the time (once a week or so), then it suddenly stopped. My karma is still excellent, and I still have the option to turn off advertising. Is it waiting for me to turn ads off before it gives me my mod points again? Is it detecting adblock? Anyone have an explanation?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't that what happens if you get ranked badly in metamoderation? I'm not going to RTFMMM just now.
Re: (Score:2)
No... none of my moderations have been metamoderated. When you get metamodded down, your karma suffers. It seems that I've been purged from the moderation lists.
Funny thing is, I used to be able to mod until 2007. The only references I could find to a blacklist (rtbl flag purge) was way back in 2002. So there must be further blacklisting of mods going on. I just wonder what I did to get on the blacklist.
Re: (Score:0)
I hesitate to even say it, but yeah, after the greatly stupid $RTBL purge, no mod points for me either.
Re: (Score:2)
I hesitate to even say it, but yeah, after the greatly stupid $RTBL purge, no mod points for me either.
Same here, haven't seen a mod point since that debacle.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean the same moderating system that hasn't given me mod points in 4 or 5 years?
The slashdot system seems to be relatively hard on people who post one-liner smartass comments all the time. If we look back through your recent history [slashdot.org] then we don't see a lot that is likely to attract the karma-positive moderations. I suspect it also helps if you include a little context with <quote>s of what you're talking about. Otherwise it is too easy for people doing metamodding to not understand what you're talking about (no, you don't need to quote the whole lot. Just the relevant sentence or
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it doesn’t give you mod points. The FAQ clearly states, that the ones who get points, are in the middle. The very old and very new ones don’t get points anymore. It also states a half-assed reason for this.
But then again, I hope that was the point of your joke and I just wooshed myself. Or else you must have bought that account and must be new here! ^^
Re: (Score:2)
This is incorrect. The FAQ does not say that "very old" accounts are exempt from getting mod points. And i can assure you that does not happen either, my account is obviously "very old" and for quite a while i keep getting 15 mod points every few days or so.
Re: (Score:2)
Glad I'm not the only one, haven't seen any since early 2004.
Re: (Score:1)