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Emissions Scandal Expands: Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda, and Mitsubishi (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Volkswagen has taken some serious heat for deliberately circumventing emissions tests with "defeat devices" in some of their vehicles. While no other cars have been found to use specific devices to fool tests in the same way, we're now learning that many manufacturers still mysteriously perform worse in the real world. Last week, the Guardian revealed that diesel cars from Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, and Renault emitted significantly more pollution in realistic driving conditions than the tests supposedly allow. Now, we learn that vehicles from Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda, and Mitsubishi emit substantially more than they should as well. For example: "Mercedes-Benz's diesel cars produced an average of 0.406g/km of NOx on the road, at least 2.2 times more than the official Euro 5 level and five times higher than the Euro 6 level. Honda's diesel cars emitted 0.484g/km of NOx on average, between 2.6 and six times the official levels." This provides clear evidence that the automotive industry is designing its cars to follow the letter of the law (passing tests), but not the spirit (actually reducing pollution).
Good grief. "-1 I wouldn't have said it that way" isn't a valid mod option either.
Face it. Moderation here is pitifully lame because there is zero relevant accountability. No after-the-fact hand slapping does anything at all to recover a ruined post. I almost always end up spending my mod points trying to undo asshat "I disagree", "I'm offended", "I'm republican", "I'm shedding SJW tears of the eyelash forest", "I'm democrat", "I'm libertarian" moderation malfuckery. Not to mention having to spend mod points correcting mod stalking, where those with mod points go around modding their "enemies" down. It's obvious, but it's a real waste of a very scarce resource -- there are tons of good AC posts, for instance, that deserve more than a zero. Not to mention interesting opinion and true bit, pieces and whole blobs of good information mods clearly "don't like" something about, such as your "I don't like the way you put that" concept. Another problem that arises is that when a mod point has to be spent correcting a pernicious or wrongheaded moderation, it can't be spent bringing a good post into higher profile. And mod points are scarce, so this really has an impact.
Some moderation is also astonishingly deficient in dealing with humor and wordplay (case in point, look up at first few posts in this story.)
The only *possible* way these problems can be remediated under the current system is to get someone sane, or several someone's, into a position where they can moderate continuously (and without crippling their ability to participate -- for instance, although I have the time, and I like spending time on slashdot, I wouldn't be the least interested in such a position if it meant I could only comment anonymously anywhere I moderated. I can barely tolerate it now, with it only impacting me every few days, for only one story.)
As always, the posts represent a large portion of the site's actual value; the moderation system as it stands reduces that value more often than it increases it.
My own partial solution to the broken moderation system here is to browse at -1 all the time so that irresponsible (and worse) moderation can't hide things from me. It doesn't solve the problem of good posts being excised from some (or all) of the conversation, but at least I get to read what they said in the first place.
I know, I know. First rule of moderation club is "-1 offtopic, don't talk about moderation." That's likely a large part of why it never gets fixed, too.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.