At first, this seems like a perfectly sensible suggestion, and makes a lot of sense. However, there is a disadvantage to it which ought to be considered. Mind you, the benefits may outweigh the disadvantages, but the disadvantages do need to be recognized.
The big picture here is the "Alignment" attribute (anyone having D&D flashbacks yet?). It seems that Alignment is becoming an important quantity for/. users, which so far determines both (to some extent) one's moderation power, and (with the new system) one's voice and visibility in discussions. This, to my mind, is no bad thing. Alignment is a nice, democratic way of semi-formalizing what is already a foundational principle of our community- your contributions, and their value, determine your status. Hence people listen to Bruce Perens a lot more than they listen to, well, me for example. There is a problem of a possible dictatordhip of the majority, but that's a whole separate issue.
The genius of this new system is both that it gives people who contribute more constructively (i.e. have a higher alignment) a louder voice, and it regulates alignment. Under the old system, a coherent, somewhat intelligent user could easily rack up an astronomical alignment: If I post something that won't get a -1 (which really isn't that hard at all), it won't hurt my alignment, but could, if I'm moderately eloquent, help. With no correction mechanism, one could with some effort build up an impressive alignment out of a whole lot of unimpressive but inoffensive posts. If we later attach even more priveledges to alignment, this could become a serious problem.
This new system, however, corrects this. Say I build up an alignment of 35 or so. Suddenly my comments start with a score of 4. Thus moderators are not only very unlikely to moderate me up unless I really deserve it, they actually can't moderate it up more than once, because 5 is the cap. Furthermore, if my post is something more like a 2, they're going to see that and moderate it back down pretty darn fast. Thus, although my comment is deserving of a 2, it still costs me in terms of alignment, because my alignment is way out of step with the actual quality of comments I'm posting. In short, one's alignment naturally self-corrects to a level consistent with the quality of one's comments, rather than the quantity. Kudos to Rob for setting it up so nicely.
Which brings me to Perens' proposed alteration. If I'm a level 2 poster (my comments have an "actual" score of about 2, more or less), as described above, all I have to do is always self-moderate to 1. Thus, even as my alignment grows to astronomical heights, Perens' proposal allows me to escape the self-correction mechanism. Thus, even if my comments are only mediocre, I can frequently "spend" a little of that astronomical alignment in a posting which is not self-moderated, and thus gets a starting 4, a score which I have definitely not earned through the quality of my posts.
Thus, despite its advantages, I am inclined against Perens' proposed alteration to the system.
All of this, by the way, also points to the fact that users should be able to determine their own alignments on their user-info page. Think of it as the right to face one's accuser, or benefactor as the case may be.
As I understand it, the 3-day limit refers to the ability to moderate, not the actual moderated score. Thus someone whose alignment is, say, 15, would not drop back to 0 after 3 days, and so long-term behavior will be rewarded. Keep in mind, the power (such as it is) of moderation is not a reward at all, precisely because it is random and unpredictable.
If you will forgive a little complexity theory, too much chaos leads to disorder and disaster, but too little leaves a system stagnant and unresponsive. The key is to maintain a balance of change and stability that makes the system complex, but not totally chaotic. I think the current scheme achieves that balance remarkably.
> If you could only get Q3 Arena on Linux, you could bet that market share would increase.
You can. Or, at least, you will. id is releasing Q3A concurrently on Linux, Mac, and Win9x. Thus, not only will playing on Linux be possible, it will be official and supported.
Much as I hate to side with "the moneymakers," there is one advantage to the OEM's current business model as described in the article: as long as the OEMs are basing their income on the periodic-upgrade model, they have a direct incentive to provide quality systems and support: the better your experience with owning a Micron, the more likely your next computer will also be a Micron. If this changes, OEMs will be less interested in customer experience of quality, and much more interested in the *perception* of quality, which in turn means (gasp) marketing.
This is all assuming that this article is accurate in its description of the OEM business, which I am not 100% convinced of. Among other things, in a business with that kind of growth rate, wouldn't new users be at least as important, if not more so, than returning users?
How will the move to 4k moderators affect the enforcement of the moderator rules already in place? In particular, the rule of secrecy, that a moderator cannot reveal herself to be a moderator, strikes me as agonizing to enforce with 400 moderators, and nearly impossible with 10 times that many. (perhaps an e-mail address to report alleged moderation violations?)
Two suggestions: First of all, I'm starting to have a little difficulty keeping track of all the changes to the system. Is there any page or FAQ or something which thoroughly explains the moderation system as it currently stands, and if not, could there be one?
Secondly, would it be possible for the user-info page to report the user's 'alignment'? I know I, for one, would be curious to know my alignment, (although I post so seldom that I could probably work it out by hand). This might even have a beneficial effect on the community. Ratings of this sort have a way of stimulating the competitive spirit, and if/.ers began competing for high alignments, it would probably have a substantial positive effect on the intellectual level of the comments. If nothing else, folks who consistently get moderated down might shut up. On the other hand, this would have no effect on ACs, and might cause people to post any random B.S. if they thought they could get it moderated up even a point.
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At first, this seems like a perfectly sensible suggestion, and makes a lot of sense. However, there is a disadvantage to it which ought to be considered. Mind you, the benefits may outweigh the disadvantages, but the disadvantages do need to be recognized.
The big picture here is the "Alignment" attribute (anyone having D&D flashbacks yet?). It seems that Alignment is becoming an important quantity for /. users, which so far determines both (to some extent) one's moderation power, and (with the new system) one's voice and visibility in discussions. This, to my mind, is no bad thing. Alignment is a nice, democratic way of semi-formalizing what is already a foundational principle of our community- your contributions, and their value, determine your status. Hence people listen to Bruce Perens a lot more than they listen to, well, me for example. There is a problem of a possible dictatordhip of the majority, but that's a whole separate issue.
The genius of this new system is both that it gives people who contribute more constructively (i.e. have a higher alignment) a louder voice, and it regulates alignment. Under the old system, a coherent, somewhat intelligent user could easily rack up an astronomical alignment: If I post something that won't get a -1 (which really isn't that hard at all), it won't hurt my alignment, but could, if I'm moderately eloquent, help. With no correction mechanism, one could with some effort build up an impressive alignment out of a whole lot of unimpressive but inoffensive posts. If we later attach even more priveledges to alignment, this could become a serious problem.
This new system, however, corrects this. Say I build up an alignment of 35 or so. Suddenly my comments start with a score of 4. Thus moderators are not only very unlikely to moderate me up unless I really deserve it, they actually can't moderate it up more than once, because 5 is the cap. Furthermore, if my post is something more like a 2, they're going to see that and moderate it back down pretty darn fast. Thus, although my comment is deserving of a 2, it still costs me in terms of alignment, because my alignment is way out of step with the actual quality of comments I'm posting. In short, one's alignment naturally self-corrects to a level consistent with the quality of one's comments, rather than the quantity. Kudos to Rob for setting it up so nicely.
Which brings me to Perens' proposed alteration. If I'm a level 2 poster (my comments have an "actual" score of about 2, more or less), as described above, all I have to do is always self-moderate to 1. Thus, even as my alignment grows to astronomical heights, Perens' proposal allows me to escape the self-correction mechanism. Thus, even if my comments are only mediocre, I can frequently "spend" a little of that astronomical alignment in a posting which is not self-moderated, and thus gets a starting 4, a score which I have definitely not earned through the quality of my posts.
Thus, despite its advantages, I am inclined against Perens' proposed alteration to the system.
All of this, by the way, also points to the fact that users should be able to determine their own alignments on their user-info page. Think of it as the right to face one's accuser, or benefactor as the case may be.
If you will forgive a little complexity theory, too much chaos leads to disorder and disaster, but too little leaves a system stagnant and unresponsive. The key is to maintain a balance of change and stability that makes the system complex, but not totally chaotic. I think the current scheme achieves that balance remarkably.
> If you could only get Q3 Arena on Linux, you could bet that market share would increase.
You can. Or, at least, you will. id is releasing Q3A concurrently on Linux, Mac, and Win9x. Thus, not only will playing on Linux be possible, it will be official and supported.
Much as I hate to side with "the moneymakers," there is one advantage to the OEM's current business model as described in the article: as long as the OEMs are basing their income on the periodic-upgrade model, they have a direct incentive to provide quality systems and support: the better your experience with owning a Micron, the more likely your next computer will also be a Micron. If this changes, OEMs will be less interested in customer experience of quality, and much more interested in the *perception* of quality, which in turn means (gasp) marketing.
This is all assuming that this article is accurate in its description of the OEM business, which I am not 100% convinced of. Among other things, in a business with that kind of growth rate, wouldn't new users be at least as important, if not more so, than returning users?
How will the move to 4k moderators affect the enforcement of the moderator rules already in place? In particular, the rule of secrecy, that a moderator cannot reveal herself to be a moderator, strikes me as agonizing to enforce with 400 moderators, and nearly impossible with 10 times that many. (perhaps an e-mail address to report alleged moderation violations?)
/.ers began competing for high alignments, it would probably have a substantial positive effect on the intellectual level of the comments. If nothing else, folks who consistently get moderated down might shut up. On the other hand, this would have no effect on ACs, and might cause people to post any random B.S. if they thought they could get it moderated up even a point.
Two suggestions: First of all, I'm starting to have a little difficulty keeping track of all the changes to the system. Is there any page or FAQ or something which thoroughly explains the moderation system as it currently stands, and if not, could there be one?
Secondly, would it be possible for the user-info page to report the user's 'alignment'? I know I, for one, would be curious to know my alignment, (although I post so seldom that I could probably work it out by hand). This might even have a beneficial effect on the community. Ratings of this sort have a way of stimulating the competitive spirit, and if
Nice job! It's made me decide to actually use my account, after all :-)
Is there any way to control the order in which the boxen are displayed? (e.g. I want Q3Arena news, but not as the first item at the top of the page).
A couple other potential boxen, but I don't think they have backends:
The Coming Attractions (http://corona.bc.ca/films/)
Movie news site, somewhat like AICN
The Digital Bits (http://www.thedigitalbits.com/)
DVD news site