Slashdot Mirror
Several Slashdot Notes
ACs post at 0. Logged in users post at 1. When you break the following alignments (I played a lot of Tradewars 2002, can ya tell?) your default score will be as follows:
-1 at -30
0 at -10
1 (Normal)
2 at +5
3 at +10
4 at +25
I suggest that this system will encourage posting of good comments. Currently it actually is only affecting about 1% of the comment posters. But extreme comment scores (-1 or 3 or more) tend to draw much more attention from moderators, so they will likely get knocked back towards the median unless they are consistantly high quality. Assuming that moderators are doing a good job anyway.
I've been fiddling with those numbers for the past few days. I've been making them pretty high, but we'll likely need to make them higher as more moderation occurs, but I'll need a few weeks of moderation to determine what those numbers are. Sorry to the people who have been surprised by these changes.
The mass moderation system is actually running now. I'm tweaking numbers, but it'll probably be a few days before any readers actually start getting moderator points. The system is basically what I discussed last week with a few numbers tweaked. We'll have to see how it works.
By far the most controversial change to the moderation is the new restriction against posting & moderating the same discussion. Let me try to defend this decision a bit. First, I think this prevents people from getting to play the judge and the prosecution at the same time. Many people argue that this will discourage moderators from posting comments. That might be true, but since the new moderation system will have more moderators, there will be people available to pick up the slack. Plus, currently the moderators have an abundance of moderator points- the new system will make them much more scarce (they'll expire after 3 days too!) so most of the time, people won't even have an option to moderate. Plus, if someone moderates and then decides to post, they can do that. Sure the moderation is undone, but that isn't the end of the world. The workload is distributed, hopefully (!) other people will pick up the slack.
The most important factor however is that our initial batch of 400 moderators were selected from the comment posters. The new batch will still have that element, but there will be many more lurkers as well- and since these guys don't post, this point is moot for them. I think that these 2 groups will offset each other and give us a good scoring system.
Finally, I added an option to the user preferences to allow users to say "I don't wanna be a moderator". By default all users will be flagged to be moderators. Remember that unused points will simply disappear after 3 days, so if you don't want them, just don't use them. A lot of people suggest that people ought to be required to turn moderation on, but I want to give this a try for now simply because I'm trying to get as large of a body as possible. Realistically, moderation is fairly easy. And since you'll only have a few points every few weeks, it won't be a major problem.
Anyway, I'll have a bit more on the subject soon. I'm sure this is a lot of stuff to talk about for now *grin*.
I like letting good posters choose how to spend their alignment rather than simply bumping up their scores automatically. It would allow a user to "Get on the Soapbox" occasionally if they've proven that they have something to say in the past.
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
Pants are Optional
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
If you don't like it, turn it off. No sweat off anyones back. Its totally at your discretion.
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
Pants are Optional
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
I think a user should be able to "nice" his or her comments. Let's say I want to post a joke that is vaguely related to the subject at hand. I dont want my alignment to go down a point from someone bumping it down to 0 or -1. So, I could "nice" it to 0. Or, let's say my alignment is so high that my default score is 2. I want to post a "me too" post that doesn't have any value to the discussion. I should be able to "nice" it down to 1 or 0 because it doesn't deserve to be above the pack.
Anyways.. besides a nice option.. I think there should be an option to post as an AC without having to log out.
I've noticed that /. has the same tendency as Usenet groups to have occasional threads which got stupid at some point and all subsequent replies (i.e. everything in the subtree rooted at the stupid post) are stupid as well. I treasure the ',' command in trn, which allows me to junk the subtree of posts below the post I am currently reading. Perhaps such a thing should be available for moderators so that they can demote an entire subtree. I realize that this is a lot of power, but there should be some way of adjusting for it.
By the way, I would be delighted if the color of the subject bar of a post corresponded to its score, darkening for higher score. Or maybe the user prefs could have a color choice for each score level. Yeah, it's eye candy, but if used well it could be effective visual feedback.
Earlier today I found that I was defaulting at 2, and I thought to myself, "Hmm...that's strange, I guess I'll have to make sure all my comments are worth that two."
Let me tell you all, right before I hit the submit button I think really hard if what I'm writing needs to be said. Perhaps it has already been said, or it's flamebait, or I'm coming down a little hard on somebody. Usually about half the time I write out an entire comment, think about it for 30 seconds and hit the back button. I'm sure that if a lot of people do this (and they might, who can tell?) then the overall comment quality will rise.
Speaking of which, I want to voice my support for the alignment system. I figure it can have two effects. One: People will abuse the system and use their Alignment to boost up bad comments. These comments will get moderated down and you will lose alignment points. Two: People will tend to write comments that deserve their default rating. I know that's my reaction to the whole thing. Perhaps Bruce Perens shouldn't be posting things that aren't worth the 3 default points? Just maybe we all don't need to see his latest tidbit of humor.
Time can only tell, but in the past week, I'd say the overall quality of the posts that I see has definitely risen. I think it only aspires people to think originally and creatively so that their comments get moderated up and their voices get heard.
--Peter
I've been pondering late posting since the 'Expanded Moderation System' took effect. Some thoughts:
What happens to a late post? Like this one? Does it dry up like a rasin in the sun? I have the feeling that by now (some 10 hours after the origional story was posted) nearly all the moderators have moved on to other articles.
Back when posts were ordered oldest-first, (ahh the old days) late posters always got the bottom of the page. So there was incentive to post early. But at the same time I think that more people read further down the page because there could be some real jems down there.
Now days, readers have less reason to surf to the bottom (I'm assuming that most people view their comments by rank- I could be wrong about this). I guess I'm whining about something that can't be helped. What we really need are more moderators in Australia!
I'll check back tomorrow, but I don't think that this post will have any replys or be moderated. (Note: this is not a challenge! Please don't reply or moderate just to be contrary ;) If you do reply I would be interested in discovering where geographically you are from.
One final thought: How cool would it be to have stats on stuff like how people choose to format their page (oldest 1st, highest score, etc) or what threshold most people prefer. Or which statboxes are most popular. Are you getting all this Rob? ;)
Final thought two: Have you ever wondered if Rob has a page where he can view all the posts with his name in the body? Or even better- how cool would it be if you could easily search posts not just stories? Bah. Enough of this stream of consciousness. Im out.
2^5
Personally, I think that the auto-moderation is just going to make things a bigger mess... I believe that it's best to keep things simple, and I prefer it if one of my posts have high ratings because the moderators like that post, as opposed to, because they liked my previous posts.
-----------
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100% pure freak
All these user settings that have been added recently have been wonderful. But, could you add an Expires: line in the HTTP header? As it is currently, the page has to reload with every click of the back button, and proxies aren't caching the pages. A brief expiration time, say 10-15 minutes would be perfect. It would allow one to quickly go back and forth with less stress on the Slashbox(es?), and it'll reload fairly often so one can pick up the latest articles and comments.
So, what do yas think?
Hmm, not a bad idea. Perhaps some sort of filter based personal setting. Posts by certain people, subject lines, etc, could automatically start at what you want, then add/subtract points appropriately.
You should really email these requests to Rob himself instead of posting them here... odds are pretty high that nobody is gonna be reading them, particularly the person you're aiming it to - Rob. Understand that he's very busy :) Must suck to be so busy you can't read slashdot... hehe... ;)
It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
For people who do not like the idea of the pre-alignments, perhaps there could be an option under preferences to allow users to ignore the alignments when filtering comments? Dunno if that'd be hard to implement, but then again I don't know much PERL so I can't really say. Not sure whether I'd filter the alignments or not... I think that it's a good idea, but it will require a little toying with. But really, that's not a bad thing. Everything needs a little ironing out before it works right. Part of life.
It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
Sounds like a good idea to me - this would prevent one of the problems I see with the current alignment system, that users with high alignments would be discouraged from posting anything small or somewhat trivial, since those posts would be moderated down (not being deserving of a 3). This moderating down would then kick them down from their higher alignment, so the users would be discouraged from posting anything but long, likely-to-be-kept-at-3 posts in order to keep their high alignemtn. The good posters would therefore in effect be constrained because of their own merits, which isn't such a good thing.
Anyway, your proposal solves all of these problems by allowing the user to say "yes, i know this doesn't deserve a 3, but i want to say it anyway, so i'll give it a 1."
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I find I'm less likely to get a 2 if I post to a thread later. That's OK per post, but if I'm lowering my average by doing it it means I'm best off only posting if I can get my comment in early enough. I suspect this is only one of many biases in alignent calculation that (a) throw it further away from a good indication of someone's posting form, and (b) bias people towards strange behaviour directed towards maintaining a good alignment. Running more than one account could also be used towards this end.
If I've misunderstood and it's a total rather than an average, biases the other way happen: very frequent posting is encouraged, and those who post only the best are discriminated against.
I think this stuff is really difficult to get right. I'm surprised that there's no bazaar development around Slashdot so you don't have the same pressure to implement ideas before suggesting them.
--
Xenu loves you!
I might be repeating a few things out there, but here it goes:
First, I don't like the way the new alignment works. What happens if a user with alignment posts 50 comments, each at +3. They would then be posting at +5. Oops.
Second, this encourages frequent posters and discourages new users. This is the biggest problem IMHO. Why should a newbie post a good message if it will automatically be rated down?
Finally, I have found that an easy way to get moderated up is to segment your post into points, with a paragraph or two for each point. Then all you have to do is ramble and make sense, and then poof! You are moderated upwards.
-Ben
I hate to me too, but I agree with this completely.
(And if you moderate me down, please mod the parent article up.)
As I started reading the comments in this post I came to the conclusion I came to during the last discussion. I unchecked the "can be moderator" button in my prefs last time. I read the posts high to low with a threshold of -1. If something intelligent was said, I'll eventually see it. I may have to go back to flat.
Rob, this system is completely whacked. You want to encourage good writing. Thus, all posts should start out at 0. Like the stock market, past behavior in not an indication of future performance. The system you have proposed is designed for creating elites. (I'M A THREE!!!)
Don't worry about the judge and jury problem. Someone else will come along and raise that opposing viewpoint back up. Why? Because there will be another moderator who agrees with the other guy. Allow moderators to post.
How you pick the moderator is probably a better use for the delta system you just came up with. Just as long as it isn't me. I waste enough of my time here as it is.
I don't know. From what Rob has said, I think he's moving toward the goal of making moderation like jury duty and picking different people from the Slashdot readership on different days. If he's doing that, then the posting/moderation exclusion is a good balance. It prevents people from moderating others when they may have a stake in the results, it forces people to think carefully about whether posting or moderating is more important to the for that story, and it only affects the person when they've been chosen as a moderator.
--Phil (I'd just like some sort of selt-moderation option, for when I want to be off-topic.)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
Simple really. Get a good job, make a lot of money, live on the cheap so you can save a lot, put it all in mutual funds, and retire in a few years. Presto -- unemployment.
Job search sites are a poor way to find a job. Here's a recent quote from Ask The Headhunter over at the EE times:
It should be no surprise to you that the big career sites where you can post jobs and resumes are owned by advertising companies. The objective is not matching people with jobs; the objective is selling as many ads as possible. That's why none of these sites (that I know of) can or will report on hiring rates resulting from those postings.
If I'm wrong, and this site is different, then prove it. Show them stats!
it seems a bit twisted imho... you can become a moderator by posting a lot of good comments (emphasis on "good", not on "a lot"), but then you practically prevent moderators from posting. moderators are by definition the people who generally have something interesting to say, but you put them in the dilemma of posting or moderating.
on one side, the rule will prevent people from moderating posts that may oppose or advocate their vision, but I think the average moderator is intelligent enough not to do that. and the fact that there are a lot of moderators also works here, because a post that is valued too high or too low will be re-evaluated by other moderators and put back where it belongs, while still allowing moderators to post there on average good comments. or am I completely mistaken about this?
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
How about this as a method of normalizing alignment: every week, go through all the registered users' alignments, divide by some constant (say, 2), and add another constant (say, 1/2). This gives users a chance to "rehabilitate", but also doesn't give posters who've been inactive for a while good default scores. This sort of exponential decay would encourage posters to be consistently good. The down side is that it would punish those who post irregularly, but are always good. That could be solved by decay of average moderation, rather than the total amount of moderation, plus judicious selection of the constants. A few test cases would probably work to determine those better.
You have a choice: tax and spend Democrats, or borrow and spend Republicans. Choose wisely.
The minute sombody posts a comment to try and up thier point tally, even if it is extremely intelligent.. ?
/.
If the comment IS extremely intelligent, then I would LIKE it to be posted. That's what I'm here for. If someone trys to up thier score by posting "whee... first", they will fail, and possibly lose a point or two if they had it. This would discourage bad posts and encourage good posts. Plus, it would allow those posters that we know have insightful comments (regardless of if they are right or not) to boost the score of the posts they want, instead of having ALL thier posts boosted.
If we stick with this system (which I personally don't like all that much), then a person with 2 good comments will start showing up at the top of my list with thier regular insipid ones. (If I understand correctly). I'd rather the pool.
Remember, because this forum is very open to the public, you can't stop stupid posts. I'd rather keep the system open, then try to eliminate ALL the ways a clever idiot (heh) can abuse
Heh. Now watch and see if the moderators adjust your score on that post. Wouldn't it be ironic? :)
I think that each comment should stand on its own and be judged as such. I think that I have written some really good comments and also some really bad comments. I try to post good comments, but I don't think that they all could ever qualify as "5" material (if I ever got to that point). Also, if I knew that all my posts were always going to be seen, I would probably be too scared of posting a "bad" comment because everyone would always see it. If you are going to have auto scoring, I would say that you can get to up to a 3 with auto scoring but for a *really* good comment, it takes moderation to make it a 5.
Gordon
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
That actually is a valid point... But it takes a lot to get a 0 or -1 score, so if you continuously post shabby posts, then its easier for the moderators. But I do think it is pointless to give -1 to users, because, im assuming few people look at -1 posts (i for one dont), but it can get some fairly good comments never read...
:-)
Whatever
Stan "Myconid" Brinkerhoff
SB.
I've used the internet since 1987 and love any trick which will increase the signal-to-noise ratio. Some people post because they can, and others post because they have something worth saying. If someone builds a reputation for wisdom and credibility, their remarks should initially carry more weight. Anyone abusing this will eventually get moderated down to where they belong.
Whenever you post in a public forum, your post is judged by all who read it, even if the judgment is fairly superficial, such as "reading this post (was|was not) worth my time." Of course, judging the relevance and worth of a post is somewhat different than judging the person that's posting.
The point-pool idea doesn't create a currency in the typical sense, since posters cannot exchange this currency directly. The closest thing to such an exchange is the fact that moderation actions on a post will affect someone's pool. I, as a poster, would not be able to exchange points for favors, etc. with other people. And with moderators turning over every few days, it'd be very hard to make a black-market in moderation points.
Given that all of the "currency" comes from and is ultimately controlled by the moderators, and given that the moderators come from a large subset of the posting population, this sounds alot more like a meritocracy with a touch of democratic socialism than the "invisible groping hand" of capitalism.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Just look at this here discussion for instance. Bzztzpht! Noise!
I have my threshold set to 3+ (has worked fine until now) but today all I see (right away anyway) is some "low-quality" chit-chat between the selected few. a.k.a. the Slashdot Elite.
I don't care who's hip on the /. discussion forums, and who's not. I just want insightful and interesting comments on todays news. Personally I don't care who posted what.
I have a suggestion:
smuModerators should by default not be allowed to see who posted what. So that we don't have to trust them not to moderate up only their friends.
Make the moderators person-blind and have some sort of setup to help them review only the newest postings on a thread. The system today only moderates the first few postings, and then the rest is left unread by the moderators, nomatter how insightful or otherwise interesting they may be... this sucks
I only see one potential problem with this:
One person could self moderate their messages very low in order to gain global ranking when he is going to be moderated back up. I think that if there is self moderation (and I like the ides), the adjustment to the global ranking should be:
Let f be the final rank of the message,
Let d be the default rank of the writer
Lef m be the self moderation
(with m = d)
if m d, add f-d to global ranking.
That way, if a person over-estimates his message, he loses point, if he is being modest, but the message doesnt exceed his average, the score doesn't change, and if he is better than his default ranking, he gains points, regardless of his self-moderation. I think it's important that gaining points do not depend on the self moderation.
-- Slef
Running, ducking, and hidding.... ;-)
- Sam Ruby
Yeah I'd like to know mine as well.
Also I find myself agreeing with a number of the
comments on this page. *SOMETHING* should be done
to change the default score on the comments.
Bruce's idea of self-imposed moderation is nice,
but requires too much action on the part of the
user. I prefer the other idea of seperating
"reputation" from "commentValue", and allowing the
viewers to sort the comments according to either
(OR, better yet, allow the user to type in their
own evaluation function, like
rating = 2*commentValue + reputation
Whaddya think?
finally, re: the restriction on commenting and
moderating in the same article, I'd fear that the
moderators would stop *Moderating*, not
commenting. Is there any known abuse of the
system with friends pumping up each others
comments?
Perhaps we could even allow the user to
parameterize this, with an option like
- Ignore moderation from commentors.
That way all moderators can moderate freely, but
they know that abusing the system won't always
work. And, of course, Rob's alignment function
will automatically have this Ignore function
turned on.
-Felix Klock
arvind rulez
My guesses:
;-)
1. You're off-topic posts were repetition of the other off-topics,
and you should have been on their thread.
(moderators tend not to lower the score of big threads)
2. Have you ended all of your comments' subjects in the word "sucks"?
---
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
I believe he was suggesting that he be able to moderate it down. I'm at 2 default, and I thought it was a good idea, until Taco explained that those high-score comments will draw more attention and will get bumped down if they're not great (if they see a so-so 5, it'll become a 4). This lowers their overall rating, and they may become a lower score by default. Of course, the original author in this thread had a good point: I wouldn't want to post something stupid if it's going to be a 5, but then again, I might still want to post something stupid. I guess this doesn't work well for people who were moderated up in the old system (me included), but for new people, this will create diminishing marginal returns (i.e. my posts start at 2, and I've never had anything moderated above a 3. Under this new system, I would have gotten only 1 point for each of those 3's, as opposed to getting 2 both times; and I doubt the moderators would have thought my petty witicisms were worth 4). So it may not work too well in the short run, and I think the option of self-moderation without penalty would be a good idea, but in the long run I think this will work out.
nt
Hmm, not a bad idea. Perhaps some sort of filter based personal setting. Posts by certain people, subject lines, etc, could automatically start at what you want, then add/subtract points appropriately.
Damn! I don't know why no-one thought of this before... it's so blindingly obvious (and simple)!
This is the perfect solution... in combination with the existing system... in that people should be able to "pre-modify" the moderation points of any article based on the poster.
Therefore people who don't particularly like/want to hear about Bruce Perens (for example -- it happens to be a good one) can set his particular modification to, say, -3.
So. By default, Mr. Perens has a score of 4. Someone who doesn't particularly want to read his stuff can add -3 to that, making a default of 1. And, of course, set their threshold to 2, or something. So an "average" Perens article wouldn't show up. If Bruce has said something "really" worthwhile, it would be moderated up, and get a 5. Add -3 and you get 2, which would show up. (Note I'm not conscientiously ragging on Bruce; I just happened to read a post complaining about him recently, and it's still on my mind).
On the other hand, someone who doesn't particularly mind Bruce could just leave his modification at default (0), so an "average" Bruce post would be 4 + 0 = 4, a good one would be 5, and so on (as things are now).
In theory, someone who really likes him, could assign a + modifier, so he would always get scores of 6, 7, whatever (for that person). Pretty much guaranteeing that that person would always catch Mr. Perens' posts. This would still apply if Bruce made a quick, "off-the-cuff" remark, that got demoted to 1, but 1 + 3 (for example) would still be 4, and still be seen.
Now, this system would automagically apply to anyone. The same would happen if people did/didn't like my posts (which I believe default to 2 at the moment), or (and here's the beauty of it), our old favourites, the Anonymous Cowards!
That last point, I think is a godsend... hopefully it will put to rest once and for all the "AC's should/shouldn't be allowed to post" argument. A solution was tried with automatically demoting AC posts to 0, of course, but I still see the occasional "that's like censorship!" claim, and also the occasional "They shouldn't post at all!" one.
But, if the viewer was allowed to set their own preference, those who wanted to see AC's should leave their modifier at zero (ie: 1 + 0 = 1 = default), those who like the system as-is modify to -1 (1 + -1 = 0 = as it is now), and those who don't want to see AC posts at all (unless they're really good ones) modify to -3 or something (a 1 + -3 = -2 post will never get seen if the threshold can't be below -1).
Of course, still leave the moderations in place (note I distinguish between moderation and modification). That would indicate how good/bad a post was compared to other posts by that same person. But the modification (done on a personal, not a global, level) would determine whether a "default" post by that person would show up.
(I guess this is sort of like multi-dimansional moderation, as suggested by someone else... just thought of that now...)
And of course, as you mentioned, the same thing could be applied to subject lines, helping out with alleviating the old "First Post!" syndrome, among others.
Anyway... I'm sure this would all create a hell of a lot of work for poor Rob, but hey... you can handle it, right Rob? And of course... "there is nothing that Perl cannot do! Nothing!"... hehe.
Anyway, yes... I think this is a brilliant idea. Simple, elegant, and would do the job!
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
If a whole bunch of people reading a comment in reputation + score mode find its score to be too high and moderate it down, people who come along and read the comments in score - reputation mode will see a set of scores that just isn't really that useful (they will tell you how the comments you're reading compare to other comments made by the same people -- who cares?). I think having multiple scoring "modes" in general would be a bad idea for just this reason.
Which brings us to this: At what point does the pursuit of points supercede the importance of posting insightful, relevant comments? And we know it will come to that, for some posters.
Actually, I think that's a reason why it shouldn't say your current level on your homepage. That way the only way to find out what your score is is to actually post a message, and you don't want to post a stupid message (which will probably get moderated down) just to find out your score.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
IMHO, somebody who posts 10 things a day scored zero or +1 deserves a default score of 4 less than somebody who only posts once a week but always gets scored +3. The alignment system seems to reward meidocre quantity over true quality.
Also, this would eliminate the need to be constantly adjusting the alignment thresholds over time. An average is always an average.
Apparently Rob's alignment only gives him a +1 posting bonus...I don't know why, but I'm a little surprised that it's so low.
(I'm also posting to see what my alignment is...'cuz I'm too lazy to do the math myself.)
john.
GeneHack {--(bioinfo*linux*opinion)
-Dan
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
this score pool business is just like recreating a currency where the rich have more power.
/. has reproduced a capitalist system. Even if that comment is extremely intelligent..
/. scares me these days. It's like everything you do is judged.
In the real world, someone who has more $$ can defend themselves better in a court of law despite the statement that ALL ARE EQUAL..
please please please dont start reproducing this kind of thing on slashdot, even if "intelligence" (measured in slash dot points) is the currency. It wont work. Just the same as traditionally, the concept of $$ for rewarding "work" has been completely corrupted..
does everybody realise that the minute somebody posts a comment purely to try and up their point tally then
I gotta hand it to you Rob-
I have a lot of ideas about how to take over the world/end capatalism/emancipate information, but at this rate you will have the "new world order" on your hands before I write any pseudo code:)
Its a weight off my back if you can take over the world for me:)
-dont bother flaming me about brown nosing, I dont plan on even reading the responses to this one:)
Momerath
Hey Rob,
Until you get up a way to see your default score, why not set up a "See your score" area that is unmoderated so people can see their scores?
I saw that a couple of these were already moderated.
Soooo, until then, how about people replying to this post not get moderated so they can see their scores?
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
They did. I refreshed and it was down to 1. Heh.
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Look at your post and you'll see it listed in the title bar (or whatever that's called
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
It gets harder to get better. If you go in with a score of 3, you are much less likely to get moderated up than if you went in with a score of 1. Moderators will think that you have already been bumped up! I kind of like it. As long as it doesn't result in people getting bumped down for comments that go in at a high moderation level (due to alignment) that are good, but probably aren't worthy of the high level. I think everyone should be able to make postings (especially replies) that are brief but not abusive or lame. These might be worth a 1, but if your alignment is 4, somebody might bump you down just because they think the comment is rated too high! I hope that doesn't happen.
I agree with this completely. Another recent change also introduces a bad effect in my eyes.
If I were a newbie to Slashdot, someone with a low alignment, or an infrequent poster, I would feel pushed out by the big boys who post often and therefore have a hugely positive alignment. Why would I post unless my comment will be read by others?
The effect is, I think, that we will see an increase in frequent posters, and a decrease in new posters. This is not necessarily a good thing.
-Ben
The pool idea where every +1 contributes a 1/2 point to a users score pool that can be drawn on to later "get on a soap box."
BUT, my over all opinion is this is getting chaotic already. Not the potential to, but it's there. I am very impressed with Malda's mod_perl abilities now, and what he is capable of doing. But, IMHO, we have reached the level of "overkill."
This is my opinion, but I personally liked it when there was a small pool of moderators, people started at 1 (AC's at 0), and things were streight forward.
My suggestion would be gut it all, do half points, or a 1 to 10 scale (because of the larger number of moderators, and potential for several people to +1 something). And leave everyone start on the level field again.
At first I wasn't sure I liked the idea of "earning" moderation points (the ability to moderate)... Now, I think it's probably for the best. That may be the best place to focus Rob's coding efforts.
But I don't think I like the "auto start at level X" stuff. At least not when i don't have the option to 0 or -1 myself! (I guess I wouldn't mind sticking my foot in my mouth more often if I could -1 myself and go somewhat un-noticed unless someone else found my comments interesting).
I guess I still like command line better than GUI, so maybe it's just my natural inclination to not fully apreciate this "automation in moderation" thing?
What if, in the (x posts, y moderated, etc) thing on the main page, a number (perhaps "total rating") were added. This number is simply the sum of all of the ratings of all the posts under that topic. A heavy flamewar would make that total rating very negative and warn users away, while a high rating indicates good discussion.
Notice the thing about alignment. You don't go down in score for a positive rating, even if that rating is below your current default. You only lose points for posts moderated all the way to -1. So for a +4 person who posts something mediocre, being moderated to a 2 or a 1 isn't bad at all.
At least, that's how I read the changes. Am I wrong?
... where's the source?
Sorry to be a nudge but no-one seems to have answered this. I'm curious to see how this is implemented, and (with my semiconscious perl skills) possibly augment with more features, clean up cruft, document, etc...
Please make a statement about the source. Anything would be useful:
o "it's so cruddy right now we're embarrassed to release it in this state: give us time to clean it up a bit, it'll be available X"
o "we're going to turn it into a saleable product and make some m00la off it, v0.2 is all you're gettin' and if you don't like it you can lump it"
o "oops, we forgot, here's the link to the tarball"
o "you jackass, it'll be available when it's available, just like Quake, so quit yer whinin'"
o "you jackass, we've had anonymous CVS for aeons now, here's the CVSROOT"
o "you jackass, it's at (freshmeat|rob's page|foobar), you just didn't look hard enough"
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Silly boy; it'd be designed to prevent that.
Ideally: You'd be presented with a SELECT item when you make your post, with all the scores possible less than or equal to your current default. You select the score for your post from that list, but you're barred from rising above your current default.
I've liked all of the mod improvements, until this. I clicked on a couple a folks with a default greater than 1 and found the majority of their recent comments (prior to this change) right at 1. And, for the most part, they were typical comments. Nothing amazing, but not off topic or rude or "first" or anything. With the newest changes, high-rated & nested comments spill out. This means someone else thought that the *comment* was really something people should look at (and I mostly agreed). But now it's the poster that will stick out, regardless of what he says now. It's a step backwards.
If you really MUST base something on reputation, make it separate and parallel from the comment ratings. I can then set my preferences for posters ranked at 5 to spill out and comments at 3 to spill. I could sort by poster, comment, date, etc.
My only other question is... what about AC? Does his reputation remain at 0, or will he eventually be knocked down to -1? Doesn't seem fair to knock AC down since it's not one person, and it seems even worse to knock identified posters have anything lower than AC.
Again, kudos to all the other great changes, but please consider this one a bit more...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I'd like to the Submit script to hand me back to comments when processed. Currently I have to 'back' three or four times or return to the index.
Thanks,
-matt
Firstly, I think the moderation addition and changes have all been great so far, definitely in the right direction.
I don't normally read that many comments, haven't got the time, but now I read those that spill over the 4 and this is rewarding. Previously I would scroll down searching the subject headings. So overall I am reading far more comments now than I used to.
It is also encouraging me to come into a story 'late' so that there is a decent chance of having some good comments. How about having an indicator on the front page showing where abouts the comments lie, just showing the number of comments that 'spill over' with your own settings would be enough, but there are a thousand variations along this theme that would also be useful.
Doing this would tell me when a story had 'ripe' threads.
As long as it doesn't result in people getting bumped down for comments that go in at a high moderation level (due to alignment) that are good, but probably aren't worthy of the high level.
I believe that's the point: higher scoring posters are usually of consistently higher quality (though admittedly, not always). In order for someone's alignment score (AS) to remain high, the quality of their comments must also remain high. In your example, if a poster with an AS of 4 posting a comment of only "normal" quality (AS 1) would probably have that post moderated down, with a corresponding drop in the poster's alignment factor. This could result in a high-quality poster dropping from an AS4 to AS3 as s/he posts more comments of limited value. In order to maintain the higher score, s/he would have to maintain higher quality posts.
Of course this will also result (in those to whom AS is important) in fewer posts, since it is easier to maintain a high score by not being moderated down!
Which brings us to this: At what point does the pursuit of points supercede the importance of posting insightful, relevant comments? And we know it will come to that, for some posters. Fortunately, IMO, the moderation system Rob et al. have put in place should account for that, and the "point-pursuers" will simply have the effect of raising the bar for all posters. All in all, an elegant solution to the SNR problem.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
I REALLY liked the last change. I'm not so sure about this one. (I hereby define "reputation" as "the default score of a person's posts".) I like the idea of comments being judged on their own merits, and not on the reputation of the person who posted them. Yet, I sort of like the idea of posters having a reputation, since people who posted intelligently in the past ARE more likely to do so in the future. But there are no guarantees - if a person with a high reputation posts something silly, it will still be way up there (if you order by score). Granted, it will probably be down where it belongs in a few days, but I want to read it now! NOT LATER! NOW NOW NOW! (kidding :)
It would be nice if there was some way to separate a writer's reputation from a post's score (defined as solely what the moderators did to the post, disregarding the writer's reputation) and sort accordingly, either by reputation OR by score. Or by reputation + score (current moderation scheme). Or by score - reputation (previous moderation). Or score * reputation * 0 (no moderation). Or score * reputation, or reputation * 5 + score, or score * 5 + reputation. Of course, these last few mean there should be no non-positive scores. It would allow you to do some pretty cool customization of your sorting if there were multiple criteria and you could come up with your own formula to sort based on those criteria. But now I'm getting kind of silly.
Posters with a history of posting good comments can still post bad comments, and vice-versa. The whole point of moderation is to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, which this won't do. There are just too many variables that go into what is a good comment and what isn't. What if a good comment poster posts an irrational comment because the subject matter was sensitive to him? /. gets, the more this score-history system will break down.
;).
If you are a user that sets his threshold really high so that you only see the good stuff, you are still going to get these guys with pretty good reputations but the occasional bad comment. The more users that
In the beginning, we had no moderation. Then we got moderation through scoring. Now we have moderation through scoring + past history. Next it will be moderation through scoring + past history + grammar. Then scoring + past history + grammar + buzzwords, etc.
Let the moderators decide, not past history. Moderators are the most effective noise filters. The logic a moderator goes through determining what is a good comment and what is not is a lot more involved than something you could code in Perl
--- A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.
First off, I've had two comments now that have been moderated to -1, and I have examined them over and over and neither of them can I come up with a single reason why. In each case they may have been a teeny bit off-topic, but they were the same topic as the posts I replied to, which were NOT moderated down, so off-topic can't be the problem. What the hell happened there?
Second off, this is dumb because it is possible that someone with a bad posting history could post a pretty good comment. Then nobody reads his post - by the time some moderator gets round to reading his default -1 post and moderating it upwards, the article is old and stale and noone is reading it anymore.
The only exception is when someone obviously is a troll and is out to continually post only crap. Then there should be some other type of flag that can be set on that user, like "troll" or something.
Posted by Mike@ABC:
I was wondering why my posts were defaulting so high today. I thought they were good posts, but certainly not Pulitzer material. Now I know.
This isn't necessarily a bad system, but I think this should be the last tweak for a while. An allegorical story, if you'll permit me:
I had a friend who wrote his own role-playing system, did the points up and the skills and dice rolls and all that math stuff. It ended up being way too complex to play smoothly. Just finding out who walked away alive from a single battle took all day. The system barely survived one session before all his notes were thrown in to the fire. Literally.
I cannot help but wonder if Slashdot might eventually fall to that same phenomenon, where the bells and whistles not only drown out the static, but the pure sound as well.
That's not to say that CmdrTaco and his crew haven't done a superb job thus far. They have, and I for one am thankful for the great resource they've provided. But perhaps they should let this settle a while and see how things play out before tweaking any further.
And that's all I have to say.
The problem with that is that people will abuse it. You wouldn't, but I'm willing to bet that every flamebaiter, first-poster, spammer, l33t @01 h@x0r d00d, and MEEPT! would. They'd moderate their stuff up as high as it could go, and keep moderating it up as necessary.
It's sad that it has to be that way, but there isn't much that can be done about it. People should be rewarded for posting good stuff.
(laughing out loud) It won't be a problem. I've sure done my best to keep them in your face up until now, haven't I?
Bruce Perens.
I reply to a lot of posts, and most of my replies are not +4 material, although they may be important - for example one of my replies today was to a -1 post that displayed some easily-corrected confusion about the GPL. I might have wanted to put my reply at -1 so that only the readers of the original post would have seen it. But I was stuck with using a +4 nuclear warhead to swat a -1 fly.
I hope that makes my quandry more clear.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
There is a built-in encouragement to self-moderation. If you do it well, moderators will demote your comments less often and your score will be higher.
Maybe we are really figuring out how to do this sort of online discussion well, after years of people talking about it but not getting anywhere. I'm really intrigued.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
For the record, this is probably going to be the first post I ever make that drops below 1.
:) .
/.'ers don't understand sarcasm is a very profound way of debugging the ideological operating system.
...
/. and alienate the silent majority of truly moderate individuals, that make decisions based on facts and utility, not dogma and ideology. "Slashdot: Propaganda for Nerds. Stuff that Enlightens."
Hopefully it shouldn't be any new information for me to say that it's a fine line between including all points of view and succumbing to the line noise that mass voices can create.
However, I subscribe to the belief that the truth doesn't neccessarily have to be phrased in eloquent, multisyllabic aphorisms. The truth is ugly, people, and often the messengers of the truth are despised for their frank talk. We don't want to hear some things. We don't want to hear that some people are stronger, better, faster, smarter than others -- unless, of course, it applies to you
What I fear this moderation alignment will do is remove many people like MEEPT!! -- who, despite his or her incoherency at times, told the truth in ways that irritated people because it was the truth about them.
It's a sad day when I find myself defending MEEPT!!, but there's something to be said about an inherent anti-bluntness bias in slashdot...
Let's take an example. Recently I read a post w/respect to Linux in a Dilbert article. Some killjoy posted his or her frustration about how Dilbert was mocking "The cause" and how Scott Adams was "like a weapons dealer", appeasing both the management and (in his/her words) "us peons".
A couple posts were put in response to it, more or less politely telling the poster to lighten up, that he had a lot of bitterness locked up, etc. All of them were moderated down, because the posters had the audacity to draw a correlation between the tone of a post and probable experiences in the personal or work life of this poster. The truth was ugly, but it's something we can all recognize in a grade school sandbox: the bitter poster had a stunted sense of fun and felt trampled on, and was ruining someone else's fun. I don't particularly believe that everyone's posts have equal merit -- neither does Rob, if we have moderation to begin with --, but I find it grimly amusing that it's easier to bitch about the decline of Slashdot as if it were the fall of the Roman Empire, than it is to take the truth that someone's social skills cast a bias on their statements and add a pompous air to Slashdot.
On the Internet, no one knows if you're a dog, unless you talk a lot about bones.
There gradually is a PC -- Politically Correct, not Personal Computer or Program Counter -- mobocracy when it comes to approval of posts and the like. This leads to a spiraling affect, the articles which please hoi polloi tend to go up in score, and the ugly truths, the insightful posts that no one wants to hear, the laments that only become appreciated after their time are covered by the posturing of killjoys. What kind of moderation is this that only the virulently PC posts, the posts that kiss the ass of our ego, the posts that pat us all on the back because nobody makes mistakes, can get a high score, and the posts that tell people to suck it up and face the facts objectively get shot down? Moderation? Try Extremism.
Other examples include the recent slew of articles about the so-called "Future of Open Source." -- I happen to like these articles very much, but something doesn't seem right. Open Source is all about putting your code where your mouth is; you don't talk, you don't spew, you do. Why the sudden overload of articles on Open Source when there's no need to promote it? There is no need to promote it, people. The sheer fact that Open Source hinges on volunteerism means that no matter how hostile the climate, it's still going to be done. But if someone were to point out that the majority of these so-called essays on the future of open source were made because it's "cool" to be associated with open source, they would be shot down.
"Oh no! Someone dared accuse us of jumping on the bandwagon! Someone spotted us trying to steal a little credit we never had before in our lives! No matter, Open Source is my credo, (as long as it's convenient,) and I'm an individual, just like everyone else!"
The irony of the above paragraph is that a good deal of
Here I sit in the face of the mobocracy with the brazenness to call them animals, twisting real ideals into pop culture. How dare I stand up for materialism, and moderation (of behavior, not posts), and the fact that the same criticism told you when you were five still applies if you haven't changed? At least you have to respect me for trying
Allowing mass moderation is going to galvanize
-- my $0.05. Keep the change.
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
People with stupid comments, that may have had good ones before, can expolit the system.
(intentionaly or unintentionaly).
I have a good idea.
For every point someone's comment have got,
he will get half a point on the pool.
When he posts a comment,
he can boost it up according to his pool.
If someone wants to say something stupid, like "agreed, blah blah",
he can choose the score for the comment to stay 1.
but, if he had an enlightenment, and has a very good point (and he knows it), he can pull from the pool,
and get attention.
but, if the moderators thinks the comment is bad, they can lower it down, thus lowering the amount of score in his pool to spend at other times.
(and ofcourse, when he posts the comment, he lowers the pool by himself).
negative pools will FORCE users to post at bad score of 0 (no choice for the user).
the user will rely on moderator to give him thumbs-up to normal score and higher his pool.
he will get a score for the act of posting,
if a poster post "this is meant to higher my score" he will get thumbsdown,
and it won't change anything.
however, positive pools cannot be set for such a thing, and may not recieve score in such a way.
also, an extra 1/2 point should be given to a user who got 4 points.
a point for going to 5 points,
and -1 points for getting to -1.
(and the reverse on the opposite direction)
---
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
Consider that people will lose moderation points semi-randomly: if there's a three day weekend when they're offline, or few interesting stories, etc -- it rewards only extremely recent behavior, yet it's people's long term behavior that you want to reward.
It's also true that, the more capricious and unpredictable a reward system, the less it is perceived as a reward system, and therefore the less it tends to motivate behavior.
(I don't mean "reward" here necessarily in a moral sense, just in a behavior modulation sense.)
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
Not everything I write is a 4, and the posting form should have an option if I'd like to self-moderate it to a 1, 2, or 3, rather than wait for a moderator to come along and do it for me.
The way it's set up now, I feel as if I should never post unless it's golden prose :-)
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.