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."
Clearly, they must be new here.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
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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This is great for a big corporation. But the real damage is done when one vindictive person freaks out on the internet and takes it out on a small business. The small business can't afford legal actions and they can't afford to pay some firm $10k to deal with their reputation. However, there are plenty of websites where you can register and file complaints in the public about a specific company. Even if you've never actually done business with them. Or even if you're just going nuts on the company because you forgot your medication.
I have personally dealt with this where I refused service to someone for harassing my other members on my online business. It's actually less a business than just a hobby, but my name and business name are out there and involved nonetheless. This underage person freaked out and spent months inventing various things to complain about and posting them on every recommendation site possible. They even went so far as death threats and attempting to extort getting their account back or else they'd spread rumors about improper discussions with said person by myself (the owner). Now, again, I never did any actual business with this individual and I knew nothing about them other than they were harassing my users so I shut down their account. That was the extend of it. Yet they have been a thorn in my side for two years now and there is nothing I can do about it. Anyone searching for my company online will find the most horrendous things said about me by a completely anonymous nutjob.
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'd be amazed what kind of crazy-ass posts you can find if you browse at -1.
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
An author over-hyping a situation for his new book. How
If you've ever worked for or with a PR company, you'll know how wrong that is. "Transparency" is exactly what they do NOT want.
And so on. This is nothing more than an ad piece.
1) Treat your customers, partners, and employees fairly.
2) Empower your employees to deal with problems when they arise and make things right
3) Obey laws (for instance don't cook the books, backdate stock options, spy on employees and the press).
4) Have contact information for problem resolution on your web site.
5) Admit problems when they occur, publicly state what you're going to do to fix them, never cover things up.
[Insert pithy quote here]
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 ..
As everyone was walking out, I talked to the asshole and said "You fucking pig, shouldn't you be helping in NYC, not fucking harassing innocent students who are trying to make a difference?" I got arrested, charged with felony riot, disobeying a peace officer, summary harassment, and disorderly conduct. The two most serious charges (riot and disobeying...) were dropped the next day. The two other ones, I plead no contest to in exchange for 48 hrs. community service and a year's probation with the informal understanding that I leave the state after graduating that spring and completing the 48 hrs. In retrospect, I should have fought it and plead not guilty, but I was young, naive, and had a stupid attorney.
Anyway, after two years, my record was expunged. However, the original newspaper article; written before I was interviewed but NOT before the police chief was interviewed, remained the first thing that appeared under a Google search of my name for another year or two. Was kind of interesting to explain when I was interviewing for jobs!
For some reason, this no longer appears at all when you search for my name (I think the campus and local newspapers have put up a robots.txt file, and, anyway, there's more recent stuff by me and my business website on the web).
-b.
Let's suppose scox does not like what is posted on groklaw. So scox signs up for "ReputationDefender." What can ReputationDefender really do? Ask somebody to remove the content?
Accord to the website: "Our trained and expert online reputation advocates use an array of proprietary techniques developed in-house to correct and/or completely remove the selected unwanted content from the web."
Yeah, okay. And that would be what? Send an email to the website maintainer? For $15.95 a month, I doubt that ReputationDefender will be filing any lawsuits.
I think the very worst I have seen is FreeRepublic. Libertarians get banned there from posting all of the time for having the wrong views. Hell, even many conservatives get in trouble there for pissing off the wrong people. The "Admin Moderator" user/users will basically just yank your posting privileges if you buck the status quo. You don't have to be a troll or "mobying" (pretending to be a conservative for liberal causes, to manipulate right wing media). You just piss off the wrong people and instead of getting moderated down, you're silenced.
It was always for the comments.
:)
Slashdot's moderation and meta-moderation system was carefully thought out, and kept ahead of the wave of forum-spam and general "hey look maw ahm on the interweb" disruption that you find in every other forum. For that, it should be held up as an excellent example of the ThinkAboutItCarefully pattern.
Oh, and my UID's lower so thhhhppppt.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
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.
Many years ago I was threatened with a lawsuit over some comments I made on-line. I'd posted under my name and wasn't hiding anything. (The dispute was with a company, not a person). The next day I got a call from their lawyer; fortunately the matter ended up being settled out of court and I didn't lose anything. If I'd only said the factual matter of the case there probably wouldn't have been any question, but I blew my top about every bad thing I felt about them, all statements I would had to have defended. I also had found out just how expensive legal proceedings are; even if you win you lose.
So today I usually think twice about whatever I post, and there's many times I decide it's better to just hit the delete button. I've been shocked at what some people post online in their blogs; or anywhere on the web with the same user name over and over. They never seem to think that it's very easy today to link it all together and see all the things they assume no one will ever know. You could say I'm just being paranoid, but in today's world it's better safe than sorry.
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.
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
...and I have personally renounced it.
I unchecked "Willing to Moderate" in my account preferences, because I know I'm an intensely biased, flawed person, and I would happily ostracize my enemies and laud my friends regardless of the quality, or lack thereof of their posts. I hate a lot of people. A lot of the people on here, come to mention it. Having mod points gives me the power to act on the desire to do something about it, and power (even the power to demote your post because I think you're an idiot, or meta-moderating with an agenda) corrupts. I, apparently, am quite easily corruptible. I couldn't enjoy reading this site, because I was looking to deal with people I thought should be pushed down. Now that I can't do anything about it, it's a lot less frustrating to read things here.
However, I've set my highlight threshold to +4, because experience has taught me that even a bunch of my fellow random idiots on the internet can't be wrong all the time. Approximately 90% of the stuff that gets modded that high, I can only assume as a result of some kind of emergent reasonableness from a sea of unreasonable stupidity. The other 10% is easily skipped, and doesn't enrage me like reading the vast sea of idiocy those posts have somehow risen above does.
It's a bit hypocritical of me, to take the product of the moderation system without contributing to it, but if that matters, you shouldn't allow people not to opt out. I don't contribute to any open source projects, either financially or by helping at all, and use the hell out of their software either, and that doesn't trouble me much either.
While there are imbeciles for the most part here too, the Slashdot crowd tends to be in the industry and/or college and seems a tad experienced in the ways of the world.
/.ers with diggers? That's like comparing six year olds with two year olds. Or six year olds with Fark-ers. Or six year olds with Fox News.
Sorry, just clarifying the sentence for you.
And comparing
Clearly the six year olds are more intelligent, but they're still six years old...
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
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 have almost the inverse of his problem. I post anonymously, but only when posting from work.
:]
Why? I don't want them to learn my Slashdot username. Not that I really have anything to hide, but it's more out of trying to retain some semblance of privacy. And they do have that annoying censor firewall in place, though my boss is nice enough not to care what I do online so long as I get done what he wants done.
Oddly, I end up submitting almost as many stories as comments, and waiting an hour to post another anonymous comment is kind of annoying, but that's somewhat better, because it makes me think about which comments are the most useful, rather than dashing off every post that comes to mind
Slashdot moderation is *far* from perfect... but it's a hell of a lot better than elsewhere. You have to wade through a lot less crap to get to the good stuff than you do anywhere else. Fark comments aren't worth reading, although the photoshop contest pics can be cool. I don't even read Digg, and sites like Groklaw are nice enough, but it's really time consuming to find the interesting posts. Unless PJ reposts them as a story, you'd never know that the 39th post in that huge thread was the interesting one, while all the rest just said "when will SCO get delisted?" (Short answer? They'll hit bankruptcy first.)