Slashdot Code Update

You will likely notice a variety of changes in the comments system if you are logged in. Most of these changes surround the new 'Zoo' system which implements (among other things) a sort of killfile function, and much more. Logged in users have the ability to flag each other as Friends or Foes, and assign bonuses and penalties appropriately. So if a user annoys you, you can easily not read their comments any more. If you notice any bugs, feel free to submit them or let krow or me know.

Comments

Re:make CT a foe!

[Anthony Boyd]

And that's the first bug with this system, I think. People will be able to make links to Slashdot that appear visually to be links to other stories or something innocent, but instead these links might actually mass-blacklist a victim if a lot of Slashdotters are fooled into clicking the links. I think these links should be flagged or not allowed in the body of messages.

Ability to tag friend or foe

[weslocke]

Maybe it's just me, but this really seems to go against the basic idea of a forum like /.

To me this sort of environment is supposed to be a sea of conflicting viewpoints and brash arguments. Trolls tend to already be taken care of to an extent by the current moderation abilities, and to an extent flamewars tend to fall below filter level.

But with the ability to assign "Friend or Foe" you essentially gain the ability to make the No-Mans-Land of the comments into an area that only reflects your own views and opinions. Granted it might take a while, and will very likely never completely kill dissenting opinion, but a pretty self-supporting environment can still be made.

The closest analogy I can think of would be a hardcore conservative listening to 24 hours of Rush Limbaugh (Not sure who would be a good example for a Liberal stance, so I won't list them. ). Sure they can do it, but in doing so they cut themselves off from the other viewpoints and opinions that might provoke some thought in what they believe in.

Re:Ability to tag friend or foe

[led]

Yes, the only problem I see with this is that people change, a newbie posting stupid comments today maybe an enlightened being tomorow with interesting new insights...
I think a timeout for foe could be a good feature for some cases.

Re:Ability to tag friend or foe

[Erasmus Darwin]

"But with the ability to assign "Friend or Foe" you essentially gain the ability to make the No-Mans-Land of the comments into an area that only reflects your own views and opinions."

Allow me to offer a few counter-examples:

A poster insists on including his/her sig in every post as actual post content rather than via the post mechanism. There are some people, myself included, who choose to browse with signatures turned off. However, since the sig's being included as part of the post, it circumvents the signature filter. Marking someone who does this as a foe wouldn't have anything to do with me reinforcing my own opinions on a Slashdot issue. Instead, it would be a purely stylistic concern.

Another good example was a troll who was pimping his humor site (ridiculopathy.com -- delibrately left unlinked to reduce traffic). At times, he would pass off the site's postings as legitimate articles related to the current Slashdot article. It got old fast, but your average mod was occasionally suckered in. I would've loved to have been able to killfile the guy and be done with it.

My final example is one of my biggest pet peeves -- anti-DMCA jokes. Now I dislike the DMCA, so on a raw opinion level, I agree with the posters. The problem, however, is the raging stupidity inherent in the jokes. 99% of them are the exact same premise, something similar to "Oh no! I'm violating the DMCA by opening a can of Coke." Besides being painfully repititious, these jokes generally have nothing to do with circumvention of a copy control device. Given the number of legitimate grievances people have against the DMCA, I'm unable to figure out why people insist on diluting their credibility by protesting fictional ones.

People who disagree with me on an issue, on the other hand, are usually quite interesting. If they're capable of substantiating their point with actual reasoning, it's a valuable post. For example, even though I'm disagreeing with the post that this is in response to, I have no reason to tag the poster as a foe. The poster raises a very interesting question, and the moderation of that post up to a 5 is, in my mind, legitimate.

Re:Ability to tag friend or foe

[Lars T.]

You mean like the JavaScript/VisualBasic AI dude? Yes, he's at -1 (or so it seems), but he still pops up as "insightfull" from time to time. Or what about those who spend half their time Karma whoring and the other half with FPs? Or those who only Karmawhore - often with the top 5 returns from Google? They may have the right of "Free Speach" (more like in "free beer"), but I have the right to ignore them, yes even to not be bothered at all.

Re:Ability to tag friend or foe

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

No, this is not a good example. Noam Chomsky doesn't have a daily syndicated radio show.

In fact I defy you to name *one* left wing commentator who does within the USA.

And the right wing still bleats about "liberal bias....".

Jeremy.

Conflict with Anonymous Posting?

[idonotexist]

I understand the intent of this feature, but really see no need for it with the ability of a user to post anonymous. Of course anonymous posting should stick around imo. But let's say for instance I hate mwmseeksbillgates and add him to my ban list. What stops mwmseeksbillgates from posting as an anonymous user? With mwmseeksbillgates on my ban list, I will continue to view messages from him (maybe he'll use the same signature or post the same type of messages I'll despise... though mwmseeksbillgates is not listed as the user who posted the message; the satanic content remains).
I don't see the point of this new feature --- too many loopholes exist.

Re:Conflict with Anonymous Posting?

[Roto-Rooter Man]

God forbid you have to see a couple posts you don't like. If it's so atrocious, it will get modded down to -1 anyway, and you won't have to wound your eyes with it.

Seriously, what kind of people are so sensitive that they get worked up over having to scroll past someone's posts? I think Katz is a bozo, but I don't cry when his stories pop up; I just don't read them. To me, avoiding Katz is not even worth setting the prefs to ignore him. Did mwmseeksbillgates run away with your wife or something? Why all this emotional trauma over possibly seeing something written by a person you don't like?

Re:AC, Foe, -5 -- why not?

[Johnny00]

Because you can simply give all anonymous posts a -1 and filter them all out. Check out your 'Comments' preferences, their's all kinds of fun stuff in there.

I thought we were all friends :O/

[_aa_]

I stand before you tonight asking myself one question! "What does 'Foe' mean?". I, being a blithering fool, have a limited vocabulary and cannot define this word. Now 'Friend' on the other hand, I am aware of it's meaning. A friend is someone who beats you up prior to school and confiscates your lunch allowance. I had several friends throughout my childhood, all of whom took great joy at depriving me of a wholesome mid-day meal. Thankfully today, within my fortress of solitude, I am impervious to such attacks and have all my meals delivered to me by this fantastic 'Meals on Wheels' service. Both a clever name, and a pleasant dining experience. However, i was unaware, untill just now, that these 'Friends' have penetrated my computer! Whatever shall I do!? This tragic turn of events mimmics the tradgedy that befell me not more than 7 years ago when my Television Set was invaded by 'Friends'. Six 20-somethings that every Thursday evening conspire to keep me from my salsbury steak. I have written countless letters to Her Majesty but she is yet to reply. I fear her delay in correspondence would be due mal-nutrition brought about by a similar invasion of 'Friends'.

On a final note, I urge you to reconsider your addition of 'Friends' and 'Friendliness' and 'Friendlies' to your periodical. As for 'Foes', i beleive that any enemy of 'Friends' is a commrade of mine. Thank you.

all this code...

[nickm]

...and you STILL can't say "show me only messages I haven't already read".

YEssirree, kids, we're still DECADES behind Usenet.

Re:all this code...

[Yakman]

Well, you could have this "mode" only display new comments since last time you refreshed the page.

ie. You load the page and see 50 comments, when you've finished you hit refresh and see only the 5 posted while you were reading.

To do this you'd only for each person need to keep track of the last message id they've seen for each story. Still a fair bit of data, but a lot less.

You could maybe only keep track for stories that are on the front page and purge from the db after that?

Re:all this code...

[CProgrammer98]

How about just storing the fact that a user has read a comment. This would take a lot less data - of those 2 million users, how many log in on any one day? 1 %? less? I dunno - and of those that do, how many read every story ? I probably am interested in half the articles. So, assuming 1% users log in on any one day and read 1/2 the comments - 9 billion rows drops to 45 million rows. Hmmmm. Still a lot, but I dunno what the horsepower of slashdot's databases are, or if they have enough processing power to check comment by comment if a row for this user exists - that would slow retrieval down a bit. But still, maybe it's do-able? Especially if data for any one user is only retained for say, 24 hours...

.

Re:Usenet Gateway

[Frizzle Fry]

There's no incentive for them to provide such a service since they make their money on (web) ads.

This is neat, but...

[Hollinger]

Hey, this is neat, and may prove useful. For the moment, however, I'd like to turn off the gumdrops, no matter how cute they are.

Maybe an option somewhere in my Comments Preferences should let me turn off the friend / foe system, just like that OSDN Navbar.

Re:All i have to say is...

[ringbarer]

How would you guys describe the character alignments of our esteemed editors?

Chaotic Stupid

Re:Woohoo.

[EasyTarget]

I don't want editing as such, revisionism is a bad thing.. and would definitely be abused by many of the trolls and lamers that crawl out of the woodwork on /. like forums.

But an ability to annotate your -own- posts (i.e. an ability to add timestamped, limited length comments to the text of the post so they are visible to everyone viewing the post) would be very cool. Allowing for apologies/corrections/additional info to be placed in the comment by it's author, without despoiling the original comment..

Stopping front page being in all italics

[wackybrit]

How about an update to Slash which means we don't have the entire front page being in italics every week? Even diary scripts can automatically close tags now, why not this amazing system? Easy feature to add...

Re:Woohoo.

[rosewood]

The problem with this is making a fairly decent comment (or stealing one from a semi related story) and then going back once it is +5'd and adding some goatse.cx links to it

I think as is - being able to reply to yourself works about the same ... although not perfect

Maybe loose all mod points on the post when edited. Id like to be able to delete some posts too if no replys have been posted...

Re:More Walls for Divide and Conqure!

[igaborf]

Now we have a friend, neutral, foe system on top of a moderating system

*plonk*

Re:"Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien"

[Juggler cant juggle]

See that grey pearl besides your comment's details ?

I'd love to be able to see this pearl in Light Mode

Whose idea was this anyway?

[GeneOff]

Rob,

Did lots of /. users clamor for this? What prompted this latest change?

I really think this will eventually make the forum an exclusive clique, even more than it is now with the karma system.