Am I the only one who sees all of this moderation stuff as incredibly silly and ultimately futile? Rob's getting himself into a never-ending arms race with the trolls. He adds moderation functionality to slashdot. The trolls fight back. He adds restrictions on who can moderate what, and when. The trolls don't give up. He adds karma points and moderation of moderation. My educated guess, based on slashdot's track record, is that the trolls keep it up.
This War on Trolls is a lot like the War on Drugs. At a certain point, the effort you must expend to eradicate that last 1% of perceived evil is so great, and so harmful to "society," that's it's really not worth it.
Having said that, I can't say that I blame Rob. As slashdot's popularity grew, the small community-based discussions turned into a frothing troll-ridden free-for-all. And he saw moderation as his only choice in trying to combat the trolls. However, in the long run, moderation is a losing proposition. Try to squelch the trolls, and they'll be that much more determined to screw with the system. Sure, the casual trolls might give up, but the small percentage of sick people who get off by insulting dead people they don't know.. will be back with a vengeance. And no reasonable amount of moderation will silence them. That is unless you're willing to silence many good, reasonable posts in the process. And that seems to be exactly what you're doing.
Sure, with all these new moderation features, most of the trolls get moderated down, but the price is that many non-troll polls are mismoderated, both up and down. And if the same general group of people are doing moderation and meta moderation and meta meta moderation, whether or not they're trolls, you're going to get the same exact sort of abuses and mismoderations and poor judgement across the board.
So what I'd like people to think about is this: At what point is the cure worse than the disease? When you keep piling up the rules and regulations and meta moderation and percentages and sliding scales and point ratings, what are you really accomplishing, in the long run? (If I want scads of arbitrary rules and magic points, I'll go play Nethack.)
I know this isn't really constructive criticism. However, I'm not intending it as flat-out flamage of moderation, either. I'm merely wondering, is this all really worth it? I don't have a better solution, but this ever-increasing moderation simply doesn't feel right. In fact, it feels futile. And harmful. But hey, I'm just one voice in the crowd.
And now due to the beauty of moderation, this post, which expresses a dissenting opinion, will be moderated right through the floor. And no amount of meta meta meta moderation will change that. Sigh.
In the above comments, I have seen several people come out in support of the rather large NASA budget cuts, claiming that space exploration would do better in the hands of a privately-held corporation anyway.
Okay. Let's think about this. Put aside for a moment the fact that no business in their right profit-seeking mind would spend the kind of money on basic research that NASA does, because most of NASA's payoffs are long-term or non-monetary. Forget for now that many of NASA's programs, such as the educational and highly-beneficial Quest project would have no place in a profit-oriented enterprise. Ignore the fact that no business would be able to raise enough money for certain exploration missions even if they wanted to...
Even then, what possible use does it serve to cripple NASA's space programs? The money saved by the budget cuts doesn't go to private space exploration! There is no logical reason to gut NASA in the name of building a Hilton on the moon. Even if some company wants to launch an orbital golf course, complete with casino and luxury hotel, there is nothing about NASA's existence or funding that prevents that! Think, people!
And another thing. Some posters above have complained that the linked articles merely whine about all the space exploration programs that will be killed off. They say that most of NASA's plans should still be feasible with only a 10% budget cut, and that NASA is simply trying to exaggerate the situation to stir up public sympathy.
To that, all I've got to say is: work on your reading comprehension. The article specifically mentions that the budget cuts are targetted at specific programs. The shuttle missions shouldn't be effected much, but the Mars exploration program is essentially dead.
And as far as I'm concerned, that's unquestionably obscene, for all the reasons others have already mentioned in greater detail: Just plain exploring our universe and learning, for all your idealists. Technological spinoffs that directly benefit our quality of life, for all you pragmatists. Who in their right mind would want to cut the funding for an organization that contributes directly to both of these goals?
There are internationally accepted guidelines that NASA has adopted as rules that govern the number and distribution of Earth "spores" (bacteria or other biological contaminate) that we can sprinkle (intentionlly or otherwise) on the surface of another planet (or moon) believed to have had the potential of harboring life in the past or present.
The two Viking landers were sterilized in a large oven and then encapsulated just before they were rocketed to Mars. This means that there were minimal concerns about the spacecraft inadvertantly crashing onto the Martian surface and spraying Earth spores everywhere. Baking the Viking spacecraft was considered very controversial in its day however. The builders were very concerned that the high temperatures would damage or degrade the materials used in the construction. On Pathfinder we were very reluctant to bake the whole spacecraft. Instead, we opted for baking bits and pieces (low gain antenna, parachute, etc.), and cleaning the rest (wiping or immersing in cleaning solvents).
The end result is that the outside of Pathfinder is clean to within the allotment set by the international guidelines (we know this because we were continously taking bio-assays to count the bugs). But what if we inadvertantly put it onto a collision course with Mars and then somehow lost control of the spacecraft? Wouldn't the Earth-bacteria sealed on the inside escape onto the surface when it crash landed?
We don't know, but we could avoid the issue altogether by putting the spacecraft on a collision course in the first place. By keeping the trajectory near the edge (limb) of Mars we could make sure that, if the spacecraft is lost control of, either it misses Mars altogether, or crash lands with a velocity slow enough so it doesn't spew the bugs all over the surface. Of course, this won't happen!
I can tell you right now that this study will be highly biased, without having to wait "at least a generation" to see the results. I'm a current UCLA student, and every indication I've seen here points to the fact that UCLA is in Microsoft's back pocket (save for a few small holdouts in the Computer Science and Physics departments). The people who run the dorm network are so pro-Windows and anti-Unix, that they even at one point considered banning Linux from the dorms altogether. Nearly all of the school's administrative web sites run on NT, and many of its labs do, too.
So basically, consider this study completely irrelevent.
This is a little off-topic, but I felt that I had to respond to all the people criticizing the use of computers in education.
I agree that a computer is not magical and won't instantly lead to better education. The fact that school administrators throw money into buying a bunch of over-powered computers and over-priced software doesn't mean that students will learn any better.
And yet, the fact that this often happens does not mean that computers have no value at all in the classroom. Computers, when properly used, can actually provide many educational opportunities that you simply can't get without them.
Here's an example. I work for the NASA Quest team (URL above). One of the many services we offer is regular web chats for school children to talk to real NASA scientists. Often, kids get excited about science as a result of these chats and become a lot more interested in their schoolwork. This is the kind of thing that simply cannot be done with more traditional means (slide projectors, VCRs, blackboards).
I'm simply suggesting that computers are neither magical solutions to education problems, nor are they useless and unnecessary in schools. Computers have their place. They can be very helpful in furthering a kid's education, especially when used alongside more traditional means of teaching.
I think it's kinda funny that UCLA touts itself as "the birthplace of the internet," and yet it doesn't let its students run Linux or any internet-based network services on its dorm network. Check out the URL above if you're interested in this whole deal.
I found this Q&A (and many others) at the URL above:
QUESTION: How do you know that the meteorite came from Mars?
ANSWER from Cheick Diarra on September 19, l996: Most Martian meteorites are 1.3 billion years old or less, much younger than typical igneous meteorites from asteroids which are 4.5 billion years old. They also have higher contents of volatiles than igneous meteorites. The conclusive evidence that this meteorite originated on Mars comes from the measurement of gases trapped in its interior. The trapped gases match those that Viking measured in the Martian atmosphere.
For more information, go to URL http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/flash/marslife/index .html
ANSWER from Jeff Plescia on March 10, 1997: There are now about a dozen meteorites we believe came from Mars. All of them are igneous rocks (which means they formed by the cooling of molten rock - either lava erupted onto the surface or injected into the subsurface).
We believe they are from Mars for a number of reasons:
1. Age. These meteorites solidified from a liquid state between about 200 Million years ago to over 4 billion years ago. The younger age (200 Million years) indicates they come from a body that was able to produce lava that recently. Asteroids and the Moon are geologically inactive 200 million years ago, which suggests are large planet (but not necessarily Mars).
2. Trapped Gas. When they rocks were ejected from Mars, some of the atmosphere was trapped in the rocks. When the meteorites were studied on earth it was discovered that the gas had a composition identical to that of the Mars atmosphere (as indicated by the measurements from the Viking lander missions in 1976).
3. Isotopic Composition. Each element has a specific set of cousins which are very similar, have the same basic chemical properties, but are slightly different in mass (in this case the number of neutrons) - these different cousins are called isotopes (e.g., oxygen 16, oxygen 17, oxygen 18). The ratio of the various isotopes in the martian meteorites was different from any earth rocks or any of the lunar samples or any of the other meteorites.
All of this led to the conclusion that these rocks came from Mars.
ANSWER from Bruce Jakosky on April 27, 1997: There are twelve different meteorites that are thought to have come from Mars. Two of them have strong evidence tying them to Mars. In these two, there is a glassy component of rock that is made up of rock that was partly melted by the force of the impact that must have ejected them from Mars. There is a gas trapped within this glass, and this gas has a composition that is identical to the composition of the martian atmosphere and different from any other source of gas in the solar system. This gas is thought to have been "implanted" into the glass, also during the impact that ejected it from the martian surface. The presence of this gas is a very convincing tie to Mars. In fact, if they turn out not to be from Mars, then there is no place in the solar system where they can be from--there are only a few planets big enough to have had active volcanism so late in history (and these rocks are pieces of volcanic rock), the Earth and Moon are ruled out by the meteorites' chemical behavior, and Venus (the only other possible place) has a very different atmosphere.
So, what about the other ten meteorites (since only two of the twelve have the trapped gas)? They are tied to the first two by their composition. It is very likely that they come from the same planet, but not absolutely certain.
You're right. Rocks don't just fly away from Mars or any other planet. But when there is a huge impact on the Martian surface, all kinds of debris is thrown up into the atmosphere. And Mars has a weak gravitational field, so some of it is bound to escape. And then some of it might even find its way to other planets, like Earth.
NASA *does* send machines to Mars already. (One every 26 months.) The reason that a lot of scientists want to send humans is because there is a definite limit as to how smart a machine can be. You can only program so much AI into a given rover or probe.
So you might suggest to operate the machine via remote control instead of letting it run around with its own AI. Sure, operating it remotely via telepresence sounds nice, but that's not very viable when it takes over 20 minutes for a round-trip signal to go from earth to Mars. Try playing Quake with multi-minute lag, and then imagine trying to drive a rover or drill for samples. It would take a very, very long time to get anything useful done.
So the solution is to send humans. Even if the humans are merely in an underground living area on Mars driving rovers and digging for samples remotely via telepresence, that would work very nicely. And then they could even take the rocks to a Martian lab and analyze them right then and there, instead of having to fly them all the way back to Earth.
So basically, there are a lot of benefits to sending humans to Mars instead of just machines. Yeah, it's expensive. But I think it's worth it.
The chances that Earth bacteria infiltrated the meteorite once it landed here are pretty slim, as the distribution of the bacteria-like structures are mostly concentrated around the center of the meteorite. But you're right, there is still not enough convincing evidence either way. Check out the URL above for lots of more info on this subject.
From the site: "So this is anti-corporatism, and watch the reaction to this lyrical swirl...."
And at the bottom of the page: "DOWNLOAD NOW! [Windows 95/98/NT only]"
Hmm, seems like if they really supported anti-corporatism, they'd release the music in a format that everyone can use, not an EXE file that only runs on proprietary operating systems created by a particular corporation. And this isn't even an issue of porting or anything. The EXE is likely just a self-extracting archive for the MP4 file itself.
I don't know about your school, but mine doesn't let students run web servers in the dorms on their personal computers unless they sign a big paper full of restrictions: No web servers for anything but educational use. No anonymous FTP sites. No *anything* on non-standard ports. No firewalls. No portscan blockers. And on and on. If ya want, you can read about it at the Geek Oppression page under the story on UCLA.
I'm assuming you're coming from 2.0.x when upgrading to 2.2.0pre. You'll need to upgrade your ppp package before you can connect to the net. I had this same problem when upgrading from 2.0.x to 2.1.x.
Slashdot Mirror
This War on Trolls is a lot like the War on Drugs. At a certain point, the effort you must expend to eradicate that last 1% of perceived evil is so great, and so harmful to "society," that's it's really not worth it.
Having said that, I can't say that I blame Rob. As slashdot's popularity grew, the small community-based discussions turned into a frothing troll-ridden free-for-all. And he saw moderation as his only choice in trying to combat the trolls. However, in the long run, moderation is a losing proposition. Try to squelch the trolls, and they'll be that much more determined to screw with the system. Sure, the casual trolls might give up, but the small percentage of sick people who get off by insulting dead people they don't know.. will be back with a vengeance. And no reasonable amount of moderation will silence them. That is unless you're willing to silence many good, reasonable posts in the process. And that seems to be exactly what you're doing.
Sure, with all these new moderation features, most of the trolls get moderated down, but the price is that many non-troll polls are mismoderated, both up and down. And if the same general group of people are doing moderation and meta moderation and meta meta moderation, whether or not they're trolls, you're going to get the same exact sort of abuses and mismoderations and poor judgement across the board.
So what I'd like people to think about is this: At what point is the cure worse than the disease? When you keep piling up the rules and regulations and meta moderation and percentages and sliding scales and point ratings, what are you really accomplishing, in the long run? (If I want scads of arbitrary rules and magic points, I'll go play Nethack.)
I know this isn't really constructive criticism. However, I'm not intending it as flat-out flamage of moderation, either. I'm merely wondering, is this all really worth it? I don't have a better solution, but this ever-increasing moderation simply doesn't feel right. In fact, it feels futile. And harmful. But hey, I'm just one voice in the crowd.
And now due to the beauty of moderation, this post, which expresses a dissenting opinion, will be moderated right through the floor. And no amount of meta meta meta moderation will change that. Sigh.
So if I have a Karma rating of 2, an AC of -1, and a blessed +2 broadsword, why can't I just kill the Trolls myself?
Okay. Let's think about this. Put aside for a moment the fact that no business in their right profit-seeking mind would spend the kind of money on basic research that NASA does, because most of NASA's payoffs are long-term or non-monetary. Forget for now that many of NASA's programs, such as the educational and highly-beneficial Quest project would have no place in a profit-oriented enterprise. Ignore the fact that no business would be able to raise enough money for certain exploration missions even if they wanted to...
Even then, what possible use does it serve to cripple NASA's space programs? The money saved by the budget cuts doesn't go to private space exploration! There is no logical reason to gut NASA in the name of building a Hilton on the moon. Even if some company wants to launch an orbital golf course, complete with casino and luxury hotel, there is nothing about NASA's existence or funding that prevents that! Think, people!
And another thing. Some posters above have complained that the linked articles merely whine about all the space exploration programs that will be killed off. They say that most of NASA's plans should still be feasible with only a 10% budget cut, and that NASA is simply trying to exaggerate the situation to stir up public sympathy.
To that, all I've got to say is: work on your reading comprehension. The article specifically mentions that the budget cuts are targetted at specific programs. The shuttle missions shouldn't be effected much, but the Mars exploration program is essentially dead.
And as far as I'm concerned, that's unquestionably obscene, for all the reasons others have already mentioned in greater detail: Just plain exploring our universe and learning, for all your idealists. Technological spinoffs that directly benefit our quality of life, for all you pragmatists. Who in their right mind would want to cut the funding for an organization that contributes directly to both of these goals?
These opinions are my own.
Dan
Having said that, I think that it's very unlikely that NASA will send any microbes to Mars. To quote David Dubov concerning the Mars Pathfinder:
So basically, consider this study completely irrelevent.
This is a little off-topic, but I felt that I had to respond to all the people criticizing the use of computers in education.
I agree that a computer is not magical and won't instantly lead to better education. The fact that school administrators throw money into buying a bunch of over-powered computers and over-priced software doesn't mean that students will learn any better.
And yet, the fact that this often happens does not mean that computers have no value at all in the classroom. Computers, when properly used, can actually provide many educational opportunities that you simply can't get without them.
Here's an example. I work for the NASA Quest team (URL above). One of the many services we offer is regular web chats for school children to talk to real NASA scientists. Often, kids get excited about science as a result of these chats and become a lot more interested in their schoolwork.
This is the kind of thing that simply cannot be done with more traditional means (slide projectors, VCRs, blackboards).
I'm simply suggesting that computers are neither magical solutions to education problems, nor are they useless and unnecessary in schools. Computers have their place. They can be very helpful in furthering a kid's education, especially when used alongside more traditional means of teaching.
I think it's kinda funny that UCLA touts itself as "the birthplace of the internet," and yet it doesn't let its students run Linux or any internet-based network services on its dorm network. Check out the URL above if you're interested in this whole deal.
I found this Q&A (and many others) at the URL above:
x .html
QUESTION:
How do you know that the meteorite came from Mars?
ANSWER from Cheick Diarra on September 19, l996:
Most Martian meteorites are 1.3 billion years old or less, much younger
than typical igneous meteorites from asteroids which are 4.5 billion
years old. They also have higher contents of volatiles than igneous
meteorites. The conclusive evidence that this meteorite originated on
Mars comes from the measurement of gases trapped in its interior. The
trapped gases match those that Viking measured in the Martian
atmosphere.
For more information, go to URL
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/flash/marslife/inde
ANSWER from Jeff Plescia on March 10, 1997:
There are now about a dozen meteorites we believe came from Mars.
All of them are igneous rocks (which means they formed by the
cooling of molten rock - either lava erupted onto the surface or
injected into the subsurface).
We believe they are from Mars for a number of reasons:
1. Age. These meteorites solidified from a liquid state between about
200 Million years ago to over 4 billion years ago. The younger age
(200 Million years) indicates they come from a body that was able
to produce lava that recently. Asteroids and the Moon are geologically
inactive 200 million years ago, which suggests are large planet (but
not necessarily Mars).
2. Trapped Gas. When they rocks were ejected from Mars, some of
the atmosphere was trapped in the rocks. When the meteorites were
studied on earth it was discovered that the gas had a composition
identical to that of the Mars atmosphere (as indicated by the measurements
from the Viking lander missions in 1976).
3. Isotopic Composition. Each element has a specific set of cousins which
are very similar, have the same basic chemical properties, but are slightly
different in mass (in this case the number of neutrons) - these different
cousins are called isotopes (e.g., oxygen 16, oxygen 17, oxygen 18). The
ratio of the various isotopes in the martian meteorites was different from
any earth rocks or any of the lunar samples or any of the other meteorites.
All of this led to the conclusion that these rocks came from Mars.
ANSWER from Bruce Jakosky on April 27, 1997:
There are twelve different meteorites that are thought to have come
from Mars. Two of them have strong evidence tying them to Mars. In
these two, there is a glassy component of rock that is made up of rock
that was partly melted by the force of the impact that must have
ejected them from Mars. There is a gas trapped within this glass, and
this gas has a composition that is identical to the composition of the
martian atmosphere and different from any other source of gas in the
solar system. This gas is thought to have been "implanted" into the
glass, also during the impact that ejected it from the martian surface.
The presence of this gas is a very convincing tie to Mars. In fact, if
they turn out not to be from Mars, then there is no place in the solar
system where they can be from--there are only a few planets big enough
to have had active volcanism so late in history (and these rocks are
pieces of volcanic rock), the Earth and Moon are ruled out by the
meteorites' chemical behavior, and Venus (the only other possible
place) has a very different atmosphere.
So, what about the other ten meteorites (since only two of the twelve
have the trapped gas)? They are tied to the first two by their
composition. It is very likely that they come from the same planet,
but not absolutely certain.
You're right. Rocks don't just fly away from Mars or any other planet. But when there is a huge impact on the Martian surface, all kinds of debris is thrown up into the atmosphere. And Mars has a weak gravitational field, so some of it is bound to escape. And then some of it might even find its way to other planets, like Earth.
Dan
NASA *does* send machines to Mars already. (One every 26 months.) The reason that a lot of scientists want to send humans is because there is a definite limit as to how smart a machine can be. You can only program so much AI into a given rover or probe.
So you might suggest to operate the machine via remote control instead of letting it run around with its own AI. Sure, operating it remotely via telepresence sounds nice, but that's not very viable when it takes over 20 minutes for a round-trip signal to go from earth to Mars. Try playing Quake with multi-minute lag, and then imagine trying to drive a rover or drill for samples. It would take a very, very long time to get anything useful done.
So the solution is to send humans. Even if the humans are merely in an underground living area on Mars driving rovers and digging for samples remotely via telepresence, that would work very nicely. And then they could even take the rocks to a Martian lab and analyze them right then and there, instead of having to fly them all the way back to Earth.
So basically, there are a lot of benefits to sending humans to Mars instead of just machines. Yeah, it's expensive. But I think it's worth it.
Dan
The chances that Earth bacteria infiltrated the meteorite once it landed here are pretty slim, as the distribution of the bacteria-like structures are mostly concentrated around the center of the meteorite. But you're right, there is still not enough convincing evidence either way. Check out the URL above for lots of more info on this subject.
Dan
From the site: "So this is anti-corporatism, and watch the reaction to this lyrical swirl...."
And at the bottom of the page:
"DOWNLOAD NOW! [Windows 95/98/NT only]"
Hmm, seems like if they really supported anti-corporatism, they'd release the music in a format that everyone can use, not an EXE file that only runs on proprietary operating systems created by a particular corporation. And this isn't even an issue of porting or anything. The EXE is likely just a self-extracting archive for the MP4 file itself.
I don't know about your school, but mine doesn't let students run web servers in the dorms on their personal computers unless they sign a big paper full of restrictions: No web servers for anything but educational use. No anonymous FTP sites. No *anything* on non-standard ports. No firewalls. No portscan blockers. And on and on. If ya want, you can read about it at the Geek Oppression page under the story on UCLA.
I'm assuming you're coming from 2.0.x when upgrading to 2.2.0pre. You'll need to upgrade your ppp package before you can connect to the net. I had this same problem when upgrading from 2.0.x to 2.1.x.
Dan