Object Lesson in Non-Transparency At Energy.gov

Harperdog writes "Dawn Stover recounts her attempts to access information at energy.gov, the U.S. Energy Department's 'cutting-edge, interactive information platform,' which apparently isn't any of those things. Especially frustrating were her attempts to locate important documents related to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. An interesting read for anyone interested in true government transparency."

Comments

The Slashdot troll post investigation

[Anonymous Coward]

The last few months I have been doing some research into the trolling phenomenon on Slashdot. In order to do this as thoroughly as possible, I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results:

* More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up. Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4.

* Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards. Presumably these Nazi Moderators think it's more important to burn a user's existing karma, to silence that individual for the future, than to use the moderation system for what it's meant for : identifying "good" and "bad" posts (Notice how nearly all oppressive governments in the past and present do the same thing : marking individuals as bad and untrustworthy because they have conflicting opinions, instead of engaging in a public discussion about these opinions)

* Once you have a karma of -4 or -5, your posts have a score of -1 by default. When this is the case, no-one bothers to mod you down anymore. This means a logged in user can keep on trolling as much as he (or she) likes, without risking a ban to post on slashdot. When trolling as an anonymous user, every post starts at score 0, and you will be modded down to -1 ON EVERY POST. When you are modded down a certain number of times in 24 hour, you cannot post anymore from your current IP for a day or so. So, for successful trolling, ALWAYS log in.

* A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever, funny, etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic. Now, on a news site like slashdot, where the number of different topics of discussion can be counted on 1 hand, I must say I quite like the distraction these posts offer. But no, when the topic is yet another minor version change of the Linux kernel, they only expect ooohs and aaahs about this great feat of engineering. Look at the moderation done in this thread to see what I mean.

* Digging deep into the history of Slashdot, I found this poll, which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.

Feel free to use this information to your advantage. I thank you for your time.

Anonymous cowards are... well, cowards.

Re:The Slashdot troll post investigation

[PeterM from Berkeley]

Funny, as a moderator I do pretty much exactly the opposite of everything you said moderators do, with one exception:

I do NOT, generally, like to engage in "moderation fights" where I mod down what someone has modded up, or vice versa, except in really egregious cases of mis-moderation.

I rarely mod down.

I like to mod posts that haven't been modded already, to lift up interesting/deserving posts so that they can be seen.

I'm not a stickler on modding down off-topic posts, but I will in really egregious cases.

I would say 80% of my mods are used for "+1 interesting", another 15% are "+1 insightful", and all others are 5% or less.

Of course, my karma is also very high, and not mostly because of my own comments.

--PM

Re:Perhaps a less sensitive subject?

[Archangel Michael]

Which is way Government should be the LAST resort for anything like ... you know ... HEALTHCARE.

Seriously, there is a HUGE disconnect between some people's brains (not necissarily yours), where on the one hand, they can complain about DMV, Post Office, Social Security Services, etc and etc, and then turn around and say "Government Run Health Care is going to be AWESOME Woot!"

Boggles the mind.