Slashdot Mirror
Dealing With Venom on the Web
theodp writes "In a world where nastiness online can erupt and go global overnight, BusinessWeek finds Corporate America woefully unprepared and offers suggestions for how to cope, including shelling out $10,000 to companies like ReputationDefender.com to promote the info you want and suppress the news you don't. And in what must be a sign of the Apocalypse, BW holds Slashdot's moderation system up as a model for maintaining civility in message boards."
Queue the modding up of blatant trolling and such silliness.
You must admit, Slashdot's moderation system is infinitely more successful than Digg's system.
That's not to say that /.'s moderation system completely keeps the nasty posts out, either... it only buries them way out of view. It's still a pretty effective system, though, especially in the way that it automatically picks out the people with the best reputations to handle the moderation. Without manually lowering the viewing threshold, I almost never see rude, disgusting or otherwise insulting posts on here.
/. were even more serious about keeping the crap out, they could disable the anonymous coward. But as you can see, it is still open to anybody's input, even without requiring a login.
If
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If by Maintaining Civility they mean "Only showing what the majority agrees with while everything else is downmodded" then yes, that is a good description. I'm not saying /.'s mod system doesn't have its merits, but it does suffer from groupthink.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
In the real world, slanderers will face penalties. In certain countries falsely accusing anyone is punishable by death. In the internet world, people are not bound by such physical punishments. You can kick people off temporarily, but you cannot actually prevent them from returning under a different name - just as you cannot ban a paying player from MMORPGs because of offensive behaviors. The part that needs changing is reception, and most people who read net news are not ready for such.
You can probably tell from my UID I've been coming here a long while. In fact I was a slashdot visitor back before it even had a domain name and was hosted on Rob Maldas University server. That said, slashdot has gotten a lot better than it was and I think in part it's because of the moderation system. People who continuously get modded down for the flamebaiting and trolling eventually get frustrated and leave. Some remain, others are just burning karma, but all in all the system is a solution, regardless of how imperfect it is. Yes some group think comes into play but it's generally only on political matters.
The bottom line, to me, is that when dealing with humans who by nature are imperfect, no system can possibly be perfect.
At least it can help weed out the most abusive moderators. I seldom call a mod unfair, but when I do I suspect I'm not alone.
No tell me exactly how they are going to remove my old website from archive.org, my embarrassing posts in news groups from google groups, or porn pics done in my youth shared by millions on p2p networks ?
Short of bombing every server on the planet you cannot do anything. Once things are out, there are out, you cannot take them back.
I have been reading /. for years and never fully understood how it friggin works ..
Digg is OK for churning news links to the surface that one would otherwise not see but as a place to hold civilized, rational discussion on important topics, it's useless.
Anytime someone says something useful and productive on Digg, it gets buried.
That is unless it's about tits, condoms or illegal drugs, all of which seem to be priority #1 on Digg.
Commenting on Digg is a total waste of time. Unless you're a teenager.
Just goes to show the level of maturity of the average, typical Digg member.
The lack of nesting makes it harder to filter out irrelevant discussion subtrees; in short, with Digg, you display all messages or you miss out. Slashdot's moderation may be far from perfect, but it's outstanding compared to the adolescent pack mentality on Digg.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Groupthink is just disparaging term for what happens in the real world, which most people think is a good thing.
If I participate in a real-world discussion, whether in a social or academic context, and just start behaving disrespectfully (or present an extreme view and don't make a good case for it, or whatever), there are repercussions, which can range from mild social disapproval to being dragged outside and getting my ass kicked.
Moderation systems, in my opinion, do the same thing online, where otherwise anonymity removes those repercussions. I don't see it as a bad thing. I just wish there were more "groups" to choose from with good moderation systems.
The more I think of it, the more I think that's a bonus. A huge problem on digg is that people will go through and mod up or down anything that they either agree with or disagree with, without regard to the actual content of the post. At least when mod points are scarce, users generally only use them on posts that are actually deserving.
As has already been said, there's a great difference in the userbases of each site. I'd be willing to bet that the average Slashdot user is better educated, has more experience (in industry, in life, ...), and is older. Digg is just in it's infancy compared to Slashdot; I think there could be a lot of improvement when they fix their commenting system and their user base ages a bit.
As a community, Slashdot is pretty critical of itself--but it really is one of the best online communities out there. If you don't believe me, you spend way too much time here.
"I'd say on most days it does a fair job of at least hiding the blatant trolls from view."
Erm... if by 'blatant trolls' you mean the GNAA posts, then yes, I agree. However, I've seen quite a few cases of moderation being based on public opinion, as opposed to a more objective line of thought. Unfortunately, I think this has caused the community to develop a style about how they post here that goes against the initial wishes of this system. For example: Take ANY cell phone story and you'll find several +5 comments about how people angrily wish they could get a phone that's just a phone. Umm.. okay. So... that encourages people to make the same post in every story. Microsoft product in a car story? A mad rush to be the first to make a 'crash' joke. Sony? Hehe, you know what I mean.
I do like the moderation system, I just wish there was a better sense of objectivity. Fortunately, though, my complaints about this have gone down a LOT in the last 5 years. I'm just not sure if it's because M2 is actually working (albeit slowly) or if it's because public opinion has shifted in my favor.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The monthly fee is to perform a search of what people have been saying about you. If you find something you don't like you can ask them to perform a 'destroy' on that particular item, which incurs an additional fee of $29.95.
You pay the $29.95 to Reputation Defender even if they fail to remove the item. Legal avenues "may" incur a further fee. I expect that their business model is to harvest lots of monthly payments from paranoid people and supplement them with overpriced one-off fees for intimidating web site owners.
Slashdot does OK.
;)
Now and then, a nasty word or a Troll sneak in, but the Nazgul consume them quickly.
Groklaw does ok too. (Trolls there glow orange when they pass the door)
Those other sites though.....
Is it just me?
Also, the comments about holding /. as a template for moderation... more boring nonsense. Stop feeding the troll.
www.jmagar.com
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Slashdot, I read for the comments.
Digg I _used_to_ read for the headlines & links.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Both sites have "younger" audiences--neither represent a cross section of society. Youth are generally more liberal than older people, and thats probably why you justify the label "extremely liberal." We don't have the same audience as the 10 O'Clock News.
I'll say this: here, I'm not likely to mod up a post that I strongly disagree with (unless it's very insightful in a way I've never heard before, factually and logically sound). I guess an alternative viewpoint must meet a stronger standard than one that just seems obvious to me. Maybe thats not completely fair.
I'd be interested in you pointed out your posts that have been modded troll while being "well informed, concise, accurate and written in a professional manner." Generally the posts I see modded as troll are disrespectful and incomplete. Tone matters. If you really think there's some vast conspiracy to undermine your positions, well . . . a tin foil hat might not be thick enough.
Slashdot's moderation has instructions--bring posts deserving attention up, and get the completely unproductive stuff out of the way. Digg doesn't have this. There are no guidelines at all. What criteria should I use? If I'm participating in a thread, should I mod the people up that have agreed with me? Mod down the ones that don't? Mod up the buried comments that are well stated but not the popular opinion? If a comment is modded +20, what does that mean? It's a popularity contest. In terms of groupthink, digg's system will always be worse when everyone's opinion matters all the time.
The ReputationDefender user agreement looks dangerous.
They become your legal agent. But not your attorney. "You authorize us to be your privacy advocates. In this role, we might contact third parties, including creators of unwelcome content, hosts of unwelcome content, and other parties who might have control or authority over such content. You authorize us to take such action on your behalf, and to identify ourselves as acting on your behalf. You recognize that such contact may have unpredictable side-effects, including but not limited to negative responses from others. We are not your lawyer and cannot dispense legal advice, nor does this Agreement or the Services create any attorney-client relationship or legal representation."
Then they try to escape any liability: "You agree that you will hold harmless ReputationDefender, Inc., and its officers, directors, and employees, from all claims arising out of or related to your access or use of, or your inability to access or use, ReputationDefender's services, this Web site, or the information contained in this Web site or other web sites to which it is linked."
As your authorized agent, if they do something they shouldn't, you are liable. That's what "agent" means, legally. ReputationDefender doesn't take responsibility for its own actions. That's a dangerous position to be in contractually.
Usually the people you might let be your agent, in the legal sense, are regulated in some way. Realtors, stockbrokers, accountants, private detectives, employment agents, and lawyers may act as your agent. But those are all regulated businesses, for good reasons. Such people take on liability and usually carry insurance coverage. There are established guidelines for what people in those fields can and can't do. That's not the case here. ReputationDefender, which is unregulated, wants you to take the responsibility for their actions, while being rather vague about what those actions might be. This is an open-ended risk.
It would be a very good idea to consult a lawyer before signing up with ReputationDefender.
>>In any case, services range from sending polite requests on customers behalf (automated and manual depending on context), search engine optimization techniques, arranging for legal intervention in certain cases, and more.
Okay, from your FAQ, legal stuff is rarely done, and costs more. So that leave letters and SEO. Letters are hardly some great proprietary technology. And SEO does not remove anything.
I suppose there could be some use for the service, but I'm not impressed. This article seems like a slashvertisement anyway.
How is any of this new? It's been going on for decades. Doesn't anyone remember "A Rape in Cyberspace"?
The idea that companies should ever control what the web says about them is so abhorrent I can hardly put it into words.
Slashdot moderation is seriously flawed.
/., registered people see the stories first (I infer this from what I read in the past) and ACs are de facto ignored (this I know from experience).
/. was 8 or 9 years ago. /. got older, with clogged arteries and deaf: I've written oh-so-many-times about this and nobody has done anything about it.
/. still matter?
A lot of good comments go unnoticed because they get a 0 score (for being ACs), while an entire ocean of useless babble get automatically promoted to +1 (registered users) or +2 (karma loaded jerks).
And how does a jerk get +2? Just think about how many people voted for some idiot... as one writer once said in my country: "All majorities are dumb."
Heck, I've seen a lot of +5, Insightful which are (IMO, granted) totally clueless. It really hurts to read them... automatic scores do lower the content-to-noise ratio.
Of course, it's important to avoid useless racist posts; but a lot of valuable content comes from comments -- and in those, a lot of good-willing ACs contribute with things they wouldn't otherwise say... yes, I know, there is no real anonymity on the Internet, but what is stopping ill-intentioned guys from faking names? (Good people do not want to lie, they'd rather go AC).
Some stories get 300 +1-rated posts and another 80 0-rated ones: what would go wrong in displaying these extra 80?
Say what you want. On Digg, you can get the "upcoming stories": non-voted, not-yet-manipulated. On
Digg is now what
As of the last year, I've been even refraining from posting. I may well one day surrender and register, but I'm sure to feel defeated if I do so... and, besides, will
I also find it ironic that his AC post about how AC posts get buried, is +5 insightful. Obviously the system is working as intended...
I don't think this is a failure of the moderation system; it's a failure of the human race.
Hear, hear.
There's lots of bad things that can be (and have been) said about Slashdot, but the comment system is one of the things that actually seems to work well. Shit happens on occasion, with troll comments getting modded up or legitimate (if controversial) ones getting modded down, but it's my impression that this is relatively rare and that metamoderation is taking care of it; and of course, nobody and nothing is perfect, anyway, so the fact that there are *some* errors *occasionally* doesn't mean that Slashdot's comment system isn't working.
And as others have remarked already, a good amount of the comments on Slashdot really *are* insightful, interesting, informative or funny, too. I, too, read Slashdot mostly just for the comments - if those didn't exist, I really wouldn't care much about the site, or at least not more than I care about any other news aggregation site.
butter the donkey
the Slashdot crowd tends to be in the industry and/or college and seems a tad experienced in the ways of the world
/., and unless they change how it works, it never will be.
/., the comments are primary reason to read, and the best discussions are often tangential to the original article.
This is the funniest thing I've seen in a week. Although for certain values of "ways of the world", I think you are right. Certainly compared to Digg. I've tried to add something constructive to the Digg comments, but mostly I feel like it's a waste of time. Plus, given the fact that there's no easy way to track your comments to see what others say, or to be able to respond (more than one level) Digg comments can never achieve the quality of "conversation" that appears on
I look at Digg to find interesting articles (but mostly neat photos or links to still more versions of Tower Defense, and other fluff). The comments may be worth glancing at, but are secondary. At
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.