Paul Allen Confirmed as SpaceShipOne's Sponsor

Shafe writes "Space.com confirmed suspicions that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was the secret investor in Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, which completed a successful supersonic flight on the same day as the centennial of flight. Allen hopes Rutan's ship will win the $10 million X-Prize to help kickstart private manned space flight."

Comments

Re:Moderation System -- my experience

[anantherous coward]

I have had a +5 informative moderation once, but mostly I have been left with a default of +1 -- and justly so. My first post was moderated down to a -1. It was part of an off-topic thread, and I felt at the time that the moderation was unfair.

The +5 post was the first post with some links and a perspective that no one else had yet persented and it was on topic. It merited being modded up.

Do you realize that most of the moderation is done by people members of the community? -- i.e. people who have signed up and have made posts? I have gotten moderation points two times now. I don't know why. My karma is still just 1, but I have tried to be judicious in my use of the points and follow the guidelines. Yes, it is true -- Posts that I modded up were most often modded up by others. Perhaps this is because those particular posts actually merited being modded up. That might explain why a post that gets modded up at all, often gets modded up to a 5. Or maybe it is just because we are all Nazi's as you say.

My conclusion from my experience is that Slashdot's solution is the best I know of.

• No one is restricted from making any kind of post no matter how offensive -- witness your GNAA reference or the running gag about goatse. Anyone who gets restricted in the limited ways you describe earns that restriction. Have you experienced BBS's with no censorship? Even with spam removed, they get ruined by trolls and worthless arguments. But -- these arguments are allowed to go on here at slashdot! You are free to engage in all the public discussion you want! And all using slahsdot's, not your, resources. The only difference is that your discussions are made less visible by means of the collective judgment of the community.
• Thanks to this moderation system, it is possible for someone like myself to view read through the comments and glean a lot that I find interesting and useful. Yes, I might miss something that has been overlooked, but in fact I have found the collective mind to have excellent judgment. I don't think it fails much at all in bringing the best stuff to the top. Needless to say, I don't agree with your assessment of the content.
• Slashdot's system preserves free speech while also respecting the wishes of the majority. Slashdot does not need to be fair -- it is not in business to be fair, but, with the system they have, they are very fair over all. Over time "unfair" treatment gets balanced out. A person who participates in the community in good faith will find that they will get modded up when the community finds what they say to be interesting and timely. Not all judgments will be absoloutely fair or just, but on the average it is as fair and as just as one can reasonably expect.

Slashdot's system may not be perfect. But, please take my advice -- if you find a perfect system, don't join it, you will mess it up due to one fatal flaw -- your human.