Hype Vaporware, Go To Jail?

Tim Dierks writes "The New York Times (registration required) has an article describing a federal case against executives in Enron's broadband data division, based upon the charge that Enron claimed that a software platform was more complete and more functional than it actually was. It seems to be that if this case holds up, most of the software industry is guilty. Would the world be better off or not if it was illegal to overpromote the functionality or features of software?"

Comments

Registration required ?

[FrankoBoy]

Maybe the New York Times reporters should get screened as well ;)

I agree with this post

[RLiegh]

At least the part where you mentioned that the trolls are usually the first to point out changes in slashdot. This is why I'm burning karma on what I feel is an important question. It may be FUD, it may easily be true...I'd like to know which.

The problem being, due to the nature of trolling, using them as a news source is unreliable at best because of exagerrating and fact twisting.

However, they are a better source of information than nothing. ['nothing' being the slashdot SOP ]

Re:TACO WHY DOES A FUNNY RATING NO LONGER GIVE KAR

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/~CmdrTaco/journal/14984

"In the mean time, we're making some changes to throttle the number of
points going into the system. Right now for every 10 comments posted,
7 moderation points are used. The unintended problem is a
disproportionate number of Score:5 funny comments which just aren't.
There are a few things I could try, like making Funny have a default
-1 setting (creating a ceiling of 4 for funny comments for anonymous
coward). I don't want to stretch the range outside of -1, I'd rather
make 5 harder to attain. Maybe require more mod points to push scores
higher than some threshold, like double the moderation to get from 3-4
and 4-5. The problem is that Score:5 is a great way to read Slashdot,
but to many Score:5 comments dillutes the value of reading that way.
Anyway, the short term solution is simply to cut mod points by 20-30%
and see how that helps."

Re:SEVERAL TROLLS HAVE POINTED THIS OUT TO ME

[Anonymous Coward]

See here
for CmdrTaco's opinion of +5 funny posts.

The problem is poor moderation (which is to be expected given the
group-think nature of this site). When all you've got is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail.

Guess what! start using png graphics (instead of gif), spell and fact check
stories (like a real "editor"), don't add lame-ass comments, and read
your own site, a significant chunk of offtopic posts would disappear.

The Omelette

[mobileskimo]

For those of you too lazy to click a link from the FAQ...

Let me try to give you an analogy for Slashdot's homepage... The ultimate goal is, of course, to create an omelette that I enjoy eating: by 8pm, I want to see a dozen interesting stories on Slashdot. I hope you enjoy them too. I believe that we've grown in size because we share a lot of common interests with our readers. But that doesn't mean that I'm gonna mix an omelette with all sausages, or someday throw away the tomatoes because the green peppers are really fresh.
There are many components to the Slashdot Omelette.

Hence, Slashdot content is content he feels he would enjoy. Whether we enjoy it or not may be inconsequential, although he hopes we enjoy it.

If you were in charge, and you saw comments that some found funny but you found utterly useless, would you allow them to float to the top? You may, you might not. I'm not sure myself and might subject it to my mood. Altogether, I think people pay too much attention to the mechanics, and not enough on the stories.

Re:The Omelette

[Horny Smurf]

I always thought the omelette referred to the stories, not the comments.

Your supermarket has a meat section, a dairy section, a frozen food section, a vegetable section -- ask slashdot, bsd, apple, games, yro, etc. The front page omelette has some eggs, some milk, some cheese, maybe some ham or sausage, or pepperoni, maybe some peppers, etc.

Personally, I read slashdot for the comments. CmdrTaco has stated that, according to the logs, most people do not. Evidently, when he reads slashdot (which can't be all that often), he reads at +5, and is sick of too many overrated posts.

Re:The Omelette

[mobileskimo]

I think more accurately, you are right. But does it matter?

Bell Curve

[Horny Smurf]

I'm sure a lot of slashdot readers are familiar with the bell curve...

If slashdot comments range from -1 to +5, one would expect a peak at score 2.

Let's use this story as an example, as it currently is moderated:

• 5: 19
• 4: 11
• 3: 19
• 2: 108
• 1: 79
• 0: 60
• -1: 16

Just eyeballing the numbers, they don't look like an unreasonable distribution, although 3/4 should be higher.

Perhaps moderators should be required to browse at -1 nested. If they browse at +2, they can only see the high-moderated posts. If they browse threaded, they'll see top-level and high-moderated posts.