While I agree that posting is the most effective way against misinformation, sometimes it's just not enough. Filtering out hoaxes, errors and plain stupidity would make moderation much more useful.
And on top that you have people modding funny comments as Insightful or Interesting, because "Funny mod doesn't give karma"
I never moderated, but I tought that the point of that was to confuse noobs taking it seriously. But this is one of the reasons I go for Funny: as ordinary jokes get modded Informative it's hard to get a +5,Funny post, only the best can do it. I don't think the absolute amount of karma is relevant here, everyone who has spent some time on/. has excellent karma anyway, you can't get better than that. There is no point in karma whoring because karma is worthless.
You can't compare/. to Reddit, as they are two different sites with different goals,/. being a technology site and Reddit being a much more general one. You see, when you use a completely automated and democratic moderation system like Reddit, with all content and moderation depending on the userbase, there is nothing keeping it a tech site, so it slowly drifts towards a general content site. And as the average Internet user is a dumbass, we get what Reddit is today. I understand that it's interesting to a lot of people, and I'm sure they have a bigger userspace than/. , but it drives geeks like me away from the site.
Comments that go immediately down? Tell informative, but bad points about the current state of Linux, dislike Google, try to be reasonable about copyrights and DRM or say that Microsoft's Visual Studio still kicks ass any other IDE out there.
So what's the problem with posts raising bad points modded down? We still have too much failing to grasp basic logic.
If you post a comment, even a really insightful and interesting one that the general user base doesn't like, it will be modded down.
I have a very different experience. If you write in an intelligent way, even if most people disagree with you, you are likely to be modded up. And you won't get modded down unless you are genuinely trolling, the/. moderators are very forgiving. I have seen comments in all the topics you have mentioned modded up.
I can't find the old post now because it was long time ago, but it went something like this. Every user are given some amount of moderation points, that affect the moderation as a whole. In addition to that, it affects the moderation you see favorable to the likes of you. If they are on your friend lists, their moderation carries more value. If they have moderated similarly to you, their moderation weights more to you.
I believe there is a similarly working "friend" system, although it's not automatic. But I don't think it's a good idea as it creates some sort of distorted reality, and you will be trapped in your own bubble.
There are some problems with the moderation system but not these.
I don't think this requires a jewel-grade diamond, and small synthetic ones are fairly cheap. And those cards could also be used in servers, which is a much more plausible market.
If that were true, then someone else's implementation of a patented device wouldn't infringe.
A device is, by definition, an implementation. And yes, this is how it works theoretically and how it DID worke in the good old days. This is, for example, why Edison couldn't ban the gramophone as it was different from his phonograph, or couldn't ban AC devices as they were different than his DC ones.
The US should stop putting such stupid people in top military positions, this is extremely dangerous. Is my country going to be nuked the next time a Chinese hacker decides to use a proxy from here?
Cyberwarfare is a fearmongering buzzword so the military types can get all the permissions they need. Just because an exploit is often called an 'attack' , it has nothing to do with a physical attack. Most attacks have a much better real-life analogy:
Cyber espionage
99% of the attacks is actually analogous to some form of espionage. Most attacks aim to get information, which could hardly be classified as warfare. And even the ones that cause informational or physical damage are actually acts of sabotage, a part of espionage.
Cyber espionage has three main properties: it is anonymous, it can be done by a single person or very few people and it can be defended against perfectly.
Thus, a counterattack in case of cyber espionage is impossible as you can't ever be sure who the attacker is, and they might be just a few independent hackers messing around. The optimal course of action is to prepare the defences to resist such an attack, by securing the networks, not placing critical infrastructure on the net, forcing employees to obey security protocols and finally hiring whitehats to test the defences.
Now on the other hand, there IS such thing that can be called:
Cyber warfare
Cyber warfare is also called a denial of service attack, and is fundamentally different from cyber espionage. It's purpose is always the same simple thing: prevent a machine to be accessed from the Internet. Its dangers are that it can disrupt and cause huge losses to companies providing services through the Internet, it can block access to infrastructures that can only be controlled online, and it can prevent the public from accessing certain pieces of information.
Cyber warfare is not anonymous, done by a large number of IP addresses, and can't be defended against. While it can be done by a national "cyber army", even in this case physical retaliation is not advised. It's much easier to just not accept incoming connections from said country untilthe problem is resolved in a diplomatic way. Also, a DoS attack can be done by a group of insurgents/activists or a single botnet controller. In the first case, they should be reported to their country, asking them for action in a form of "cyber ultimatum": if they don't disconnect and investigate those users, connections from the whole country will be blocked. In the case of hacked computers, the owner of the Internet connection should be held responsible for securing it. Thus, even a cyber warfare scenario could be handled without resorting to violence.
Sadly, the Pentagon is full of these aggressive lunatics, and it's even more said that the American government does little against this nonsense.
Big advantages of this is that it requires no outside information source, inexpensive and could be miniaturized to fit on an extension card. Then we all could put a random card next to our graphics card in our machines.
Slashdot Mirror
While I agree that posting is the most effective way against misinformation, sometimes it's just not enough. Filtering out hoaxes, errors and plain stupidity would make moderation much more useful.
And on top that you have people modding funny comments as Insightful or Interesting, because "Funny mod doesn't give karma"
I never moderated, but I tought that the point of that was to confuse noobs taking it seriously. But this is one of the reasons I go for Funny: as ordinary jokes get modded Informative it's hard to get a +5,Funny post, only the best can do it. I don't think the absolute amount of karma is relevant here, everyone who has spent some time on /. has excellent karma anyway, you can't get better than that. There is no point in karma whoring because karma is worthless.
Indeed, there is no weapon to fight hoaxes, which could be the greatest blessing of the moderating system.
You can't compare /. to Reddit, as they are two different sites with different goals, /. being a technology site and Reddit being a much more general one. You see, when you use a completely automated and democratic moderation system like Reddit, with all content and moderation depending on the userbase, there is nothing keeping it a tech site, so it slowly drifts towards a general content site. And as the average Internet user is a dumbass, we get what Reddit is today. I understand that it's interesting to a lot of people, and I'm sure they have a bigger userspace than /. , but it drives geeks like me away from the site.
Comments that go immediately down? Tell informative, but bad points about the current state of Linux, dislike Google, try to be reasonable about copyrights and DRM or say that Microsoft's Visual Studio still kicks ass any other IDE out there.
So what's the problem with posts raising bad points modded down? We still have too much failing to grasp basic logic.
If you post a comment, even a really insightful and interesting one that the general user base doesn't like, it will be modded down.
I have a very different experience. If you write in an intelligent way, even if most people disagree with you, you are likely to be modded up. And you won't get modded down unless you are genuinely trolling, the /. moderators are very forgiving. I have seen comments in all the topics you have mentioned modded up.
I can't find the old post now because it was long time ago, but it went something like this. Every user are given some amount of moderation points, that affect the moderation as a whole. In addition to that, it affects the moderation you see favorable to the likes of you. If they are on your friend lists, their moderation carries more value. If they have moderated similarly to you, their moderation weights more to you.
I believe there is a similarly working "friend" system, although it's not automatic. But I don't think it's a good idea as it creates some sort of distorted reality, and you will be trapped in your own bubble.
There are some problems with the moderation system but not these.
Most people use Overrated on things they disagree with. Although it could be solved by limiting the use of Overrated to posts with score>1.
If they recorded only events that weren't keystrokes, then it wouldn't be a lie. But that is not the case.
that's
This is exactly the effect driving /. .
I think it's an example of cyber sabotage, not warfare.
I don't think this requires a jewel-grade diamond, and small synthetic ones are fairly cheap. And those cards could also be used in servers, which is a much more plausible market.
If that were true, then someone else's implementation of a patented device wouldn't infringe.
A device is, by definition, an implementation. And yes, this is how it works theoretically and how it DID worke in the good old days. This is, for example, why Edison couldn't ban the gramophone as it was different from his phonograph, or couldn't ban AC devices as they were different than his DC ones.
Well, provided they have a shuffled deck they can use it to get a random card.
The US should stop putting such stupid people in top military positions, this is extremely dangerous. Is my country going to be nuked the next time a Chinese hacker decides to use a proxy from here?
Cyberwarfare is a fearmongering buzzword so the military types can get all the permissions they need. Just because an exploit is often called an 'attack' , it has nothing to do with a physical attack. Most attacks have a much better real-life analogy:
Cyber espionage
99% of the attacks is actually analogous to some form of espionage. Most attacks aim to get information, which could hardly be classified as warfare. And even the ones that cause informational or physical damage are actually acts of sabotage, a part of espionage.
Cyber espionage has three main properties: it is anonymous, it can be done by a single person or very few people and it can be defended against perfectly.
Thus, a counterattack in case of cyber espionage is impossible as you can't ever be sure who the attacker is, and they might be just a few independent hackers messing around. The optimal course of action is to prepare the defences to resist such an attack, by securing the networks, not placing critical infrastructure on the net, forcing employees to obey security protocols and finally hiring whitehats to test the defences.
Now on the other hand, there IS such thing that can be called:
Cyber warfare
Cyber warfare is also called a denial of service attack, and is fundamentally different from cyber espionage. It's purpose is always the same simple thing: prevent a machine to be accessed from the Internet. Its dangers are that it can disrupt and cause huge losses to companies providing services through the Internet, it can block access to infrastructures that can only be controlled online, and it can prevent the public from accessing certain pieces of information.
Cyber warfare is not anonymous, done by a large number of IP addresses, and can't be defended against. While it can be done by a national "cyber army", even in this case physical retaliation is not advised. It's much easier to just not accept incoming connections from said country untilthe problem is resolved in a diplomatic way. Also, a DoS attack can be done by a group of insurgents/activists or a single botnet controller. In the first case, they should be reported to their country, asking them for action in a form of "cyber ultimatum": if they don't disconnect and investigate those users, connections from the whole country will be blocked. In the case of hacked computers, the owner of the Internet connection should be held responsible for securing it. Thus, even a cyber warfare scenario could be handled without resorting to violence.
Sadly, the Pentagon is full of these aggressive lunatics, and it's even more said that the American government does little against this nonsense.
You dirty criminal pirate, how dare you link to the Site Which Shall Not Be Named?! Now they are going to sue /. too!
Big advantages of this is that it requires no outside information source, inexpensive and could be miniaturized to fit on an extension card. Then we all could put a random card next to our graphics card in our machines.
A lot of tools have diamond blades.
They can sail under US flag, a US ship is permitted to house non-US people.
Chill dude, I was just kidding :-)
Overnight tournaments of Magic?
Except that they don't want to declare their own nation, just dodge immigration laws. And immigration laws don't apply in international waters.
Theoretically issuing software patents is forbidden but the EPO will happily ignore that if you have deep enough pockets.
Software is still protected by copyright. "Ideas" are not software.
You can copyright a piece of software in the EU as well, what you can't do is copyright an unimplemented "idea" .
This is not a visibility issue but common bribery. Noone has the heart to complain about someone handing out free chocolate.
Well the problem was exactly that they couldn't get it any cooler. They tried to blow on it and turn it off, but it was still red-hot.
Problem is, with two shorter URLs both companies would win.