OSNews

Hahah that slipped my mind completely. Thanks, fixed.

I'm not against this. Is this something other readers would like to see?

Edit: I also agree with Eugenia below. People do often get polarized and vote by agreement vs. quality.

Edited 2007-02-12 22:07

I provided commentary and suggestions about such a system (Good/Bad Journalism) but the rest of the team didn't provide any feedback on the ideas).

"Recommendations are ambiguous; What part of this am I recommending? The article, the linked article, the idea or event? And who am I recommending to? Why can I not-recommend something? A better way of doing this would be to express in the shortest way possible something to say about the article, that's not self-centric. I think articles should have links for "Journalism? Good or Bad". Thus we can state simply if we feel that an article is misinformed, trolling, or of poor quality; but importantly, it's asking us to rate the quality of the news, and not just whether I like something or not - because as we've seen on digg, poor quality articles get on the front page because of the abiguity of 'Digging' something."

I don't think re-organising the order of articles based on user response is the right thing to do, but the 'recommend' system is very weak and pointless atm.

I agree. With current system, I might think that an article is well written and worth reading but disagree with the sentiment of the writer. I might want everyone to read to such an article so that they will debate the issue in the comments section. However, given such an article, I might be reluctant to 'recommend' the article and to endorse it by associating my name with it.


Perhaps a rating system with more than one field is the answer?

Also, when the system was introduced, I never bothered with it as I assumed that 'recommending' the article would mean emailing my recommendation to someone. Perhaps 'vote' would be a better term than 'recommend'.

This was the original take, look here for example:
http://osnews.com/story.php/13241/Interview-with-Synfigs-Robert-Qua...

It didn't work well. People were only "Voting" for the articles they served their own zealotry purposes for.

This is why we removed the "voting" thing, and we introduced the "Recommend" thing. This is not going to change back.

People do often get polarized and vote by agreement vs. quality.

It has crossed my mind a few times that the "Score:" part of a post should be split into
"Agree:" and "Quality:" (or suitable names).

They will not honor this. If for example if an article is anti-apple the Apple fans they will vote "no" and 1/10. This will be the case for 90% of the time. Humans are like that...

Maybe. But I was thinking about comments rather than articles though.

I don't personally agree with this. Besides, the articles will be out in the open via RSS, so even if locally an article is modded down, people will still have it in their RSS readers.

It will also be abused depending if a person is anti-apple or pro-apple (for example). Modding articles is a bad idea. OSNews is not digg.

Edited 2007-02-12 22:06

I agree, I would rather be the judge of what I think is worth reading rather than my peers deciding for me. If it's news it's news, besides Thom's PDF clearly states that the goal of OSNews is not to be biased so no reason to open the doors for it and we all know deep down someone is going to mod down stuff other folks think is interesting and worth a read.

'nuff said.

Digg has this problem because people who aren't trusted can start voting things willy-nilly. This encourages wide-spread abuse. Here, it would go south immediately; especially since the the OS debate is such a polarized argument.

Exactly! Well said!

Modding articles is a bad idea. OSNews is not digg.

I completely agree. Digg is good at what it does, OSNews should keep doing its own thing.

I personally think the recommendation feature should stay as it is.

It had a number of security holes, so we took it down IIRC. This is why we don't use third party source code anymore, neither we share ours. Better safe than sorry.

Edited 2007-02-12 22:12

OSNews Editor In Open Source Is Insecure Dev Model Scandal.

Stay tuned. I promise you'll like one of the features I already built into v4.

V4 is looking good. You might want to password protect the dev site tho, or do some better blurring of the screenies on your site, unless you want the public to view it

Will v4 continue to proactively hide OSNews features from browsers like Links that would work perfectly fine were they not being explicitly singled out by the current OSNews code?

There's nothing more frustrating than having to hack my browser in order to get the site to work properly. If you folks would leave it alone, it would just WORK.

Such as....??

A comment that contains an unpopular opinion should not be voted down, but rather, should warrant a response....

[i]How will this problem be solved this time?[i]

It won't. It's a losing battle to fight moderation abuse on websites. But we will be implmenting better rules and eventually, metamoderation/peer moderation review.

You know Adam, you could add an icon that shows who moderated a post.

I disagree. Voting should be anonymous. Besides, if an admin will vote -5 for a bad comment, it is 100% certain that the user will start spouting ugly stuff against that editor/admin, trying to make the admin look bad or biased or whatever.

Edited 2007-02-12 22:35

That comment would most probably be deleted.

Not that I disagree with you about anonymous voting, but if you're worried about someone calling you an asshat because you nuked their post to -5 just because you disagree, well maybe you shouldn't be doing that.

No way. That encourages people to retaliate. I can't think of any site that allows you to see who modded you.

But feel free to try to convince me... I'll be open minded.

No way. That encourages people to retaliate. I can't think of any site that allows you to see who modded you.

I don't see the connection towards "retaliating."

IMO it would encourage less emotional moderating. Which is the problem. People operate on thinking that being anonymous they can do whatever they FEEL like. It would also cut the number of pre-school comment.

Print the person's home address and photo too. That way the retaliation might spill over into real life. A real life flame war killing incident would put the OSNews' traffic stats through the roof!

Seeing who modded what is utterly pointless and will only create a whole slur of posts about "why did you mod me?" and more of that nonsense. There is absolutelty NOTHING to gain from seeing who modded who.

I agree, but perhaps there is something to gain from the system checking who is modding whom. For example, there have been occasions where I replied to a comment in disagreement, this was interpreted (presumably by the person to whom I replied) as a personal attack, and the post was modded down. I don't have a problem with this. But then this person (presumably) went through the rest of the comment section and modded down my other posts, even though they didn't have anything to do with him, and they had been modded up by other readers.

Some suggestions for reasonably simple to implement moderation rules, to be applied on a per-story basis:

1) You may not mod the comments of a user who replied to you
2) You may not mod a comment to which you replied
3) You may not reply to a comment which you modded

Rule 1 directly addresses the situation described above. It eliminates the ability to retaliate against a known user via anonymous modding.

Rules 2 and 3 have to go together, since the lack of one provides a loophole for the other. The idea comes from Slashdot. Basically there are two ways to respond to a comment, either by replying or by modding, but not both.

I think that these rules, especially Rule 1, will significantly decrease the abuse of the mod system.

It won't. It's a losing battle to fight moderation abuse on websites. But we will be implmenting better rules and eventually, metamoderation/peer moderation review.

I agree, meta-moderation *would* be a welcome feature.

Why do we need comment moderation at all? This feature is so abused that I always browse at -5 just because I'd easily miss a comment that was voted down due to opinion. There is no spam here, and the few trolls don't care about their score anyway.

I'm glad you're happy browsing at -5. But most users don't. So you can ignore moderation and be happy, and the users that use their threshold to filter out noise can use it and be happy.

Where's the problem?

"I'm glad you're happy browsing at -5. But most users don't."

Really? That's actually kind of suprising. I would expect most people to browse at -5 by default just so they don't "miss anything." That's why I do it. Got any numbers? I'd be interested in knowing when a comment will generally stop being seen.

I'm glad you're happy browsing at -5. But most users don't. So you can ignore moderation and be happy, and the users that use their threshold to filter out noise can use it and be happy.

Where's the problem?

Here's the problem.
The problem is in your assumption that browsing at a higher score filters out noise. It doesn't necessarily work well. Like a spam filter it often contains false positives, simply because people often moderate emotionally. Important posts that give coherence to a thread (but happen to be unpopular viewpoints) are filtered out.

How is this a problem? OK, so there is abuse, but on the whole, the system works well.

I did a quick review of your comments. Only a few of your comments were modded down, and in most of them, you are complaining about being previously modded down. As the Style Guide mentions, this is not useful, or interesting to read. So is calling people OSS Fundies, or Fanatics.

I don't see that you CAN have a review system without some abuse, the osnews system is pretty good, IMHO.

I just wish that it started at 5 out of 10. This would mean that people could mod you down because they disagree with you.

As it stands, the system is non-symmetrical in that you can mod up for agreement but you can't mod down for disagreement. This leads to misuse. I often see comments that have been modded down even though they break non of the rules. I'm sick of seeing posts modded down simply because they are critical of Linux or RMS, for example.

I agree 100%.

I've read threads about Linux DEs where there the tone of the posts were at KDE vs GNOME posts charging at each other and yet every poster had a score of 5.

Edited, for being an off-topic rant caused by mis-reading the original commenter.

Edited 2007-02-12 23:59

I often see comments that have been modded down even though they break non of the rules. I'm sick of seeing posts modded down simply because they are critical of Linux or RMS, for example.

So mod them back up. I routinely do this for posts I think have been modded down unfairly and I don't think I'm the only one doing this.

As it stands, the system is non-symmetrical in that you can mod up for agreement but you can't mod down for disagreement. This leads to misuse.

Here I somewhat agree. Misuse is a bit too strong of a word, but perhaps OSNews could use a "-1 overrated"-option (maybe only available for modding down to a score of 1.) Could make for more balanced scores.

Consider one such rule. Unbiased and balanced presentation of news is stated as a central goal, and yet Rule 11 prohibits criticism of editorial policy in comments.

Criticism of editorial policy is usually off topic. Hence, it is not allowed.

The biases and imbalances that have already occurred on OSNews have been spotted by too few readers

Or, OSNews is simply very unbiased and balanced, and there is little to spot.

Edited 2007-02-12 23:00

Criticism of editorial policy is usually off topic. Hence, it is not allowed.

If it directly involves the news story commented upon, it is on-topic.

Or, OSNews is simply very unbiased and balanced, and there is little to spot.

Or, somewhere in between. The asymmetry of power in the media will keep me skeptical.

This was never a secret link.

What about this one? http://v4.osnews.com/

This was just an early test by a third party AFAIK. This is NOT the site that Adam is working on. It shares no code or looks with what is going to go live in the coming months.

Edited 2007-02-12 23:03

Old and very outdated. Irrelevant. Not even close.

Keep trying though.

That is not the link to the v4 code. That was a non-functional mockup.

The v4 code is near complete. I am using it full time and writing in it right now.

Do you need any beta testers? I'd gladly volunteer my time.

Great, innit. 'tho I would really like some inline JS-AJAX style comment adding, or is that still to come? That would be really cool, so that you could read the thread that you were replying to.

Also, how do I customize my avatar?

Ste

...And you can. Set your threshold to -5 and moderation is gone.

...And you can. Set your threshold to -5 and moderation is gone.

...but it isn't. It doesn't stop the endless (sometimes justified) posters whinging about abuse of the modding system. Removing this system will prevent people from playing 'the modding game' and provide one-less distraction from addressing the content of the article.

I'd never come across moderation on a forum before OSNews - quite frankly, the point of it eludes me. I certainly wouldn't miss it. I also don't see why people are encouraged not to mod someone down for merely disagreeing with them, yet they can freely mod someone up for merely agreeing with them.

I have my moderation set at -5, because often a thread will simply not make sense if the modded-down posts aren't visible.

The moderation system is no substitute for active and conscientious administrators keeping people's flaming and trolling in check.

I just modded you up simply because I agreed with you :-)

I'd never come across moderation on a forum before OSNews

I guess you'd never been to Slashdot before...moderation is used in quite a few popular site...I think people are making too big a deal out of this.

The moderation system is no substitute for active and conscientious administrators keeping people's flaming and trolling in check.

As the editors have stated before (even in this thread, I believe), they simply did not have time to go through all threads to weed out the flamebait and trolling, which was much more pervasive when there was no moderation...

It seems moderation has worked, because there is a lot less flamebaiting now. That alone is reason enough to keep it, IMHO.

I don't agree about the "doing away with the modding system" but I agree 100% on this:

"I also don't see why people are encouraged not to mod someone down for merely disagreeing with them, yet they can freely mod someone up for merely agreeing with them."

I understand that the purpose is to encourage discussion and I follow the "don't mod down just because you disagree" rule but seriously, there are posts that are not worth responding to (flamebaits), yet by being on-topic and "polite" they can't (in theory at least) be modded down by 'valid' reasons, even if they should. Yet they can be modded up with no second thoughts.

It's really simple. The moderation system has two large benefits:

I) There is now less trolling on OSNews than before. Comment quality has risen. It's obviously not perfect, but it IS better than without the moderation system.

II) Having a peer moderation system means we editors do not have to spend hours on end each day on moderating comments. OSNews is a voluntary effort, and hence we do not wish to do tedious tasks like this. Other than that, editorial moderation opens up a whole Pandora's Box worth of problems in itself (accusations of censorship, etc.).

Taking I and II in consideration, there is absolutely NO chance we will EVER discard of peer moderation in favour of editorial moderation. This discussion concerning discarding it is absolutely POINTLESS.

OSNews was so much better before modding. People should be able to ignore the flamebait without needing a nanny-system to hide it from them.

I disagree...comment quality has gone up since the moderation system has been introduced, and trolls are much less common. Sure, sometimes people get moderated for no good reason, but the posts are usually moderated back up by other, more reasonable mods.

I've been here for quite a while now, and let me tell you it was much worse before moderation was introduced.

I disagree...comment quality has gone up since the moderation system has been introduced, and trolls are much less common. Sure, sometimes people get moderated for no good reason, but the posts are usually moderated back up by other, more reasonable mods.

I've been here for quite a while now, and let me tell you it was much worse before moderation was introduced.

Well I've been here quite some time now too and I disagree with you.

How about you mod me down? !-)

Well I've been here quite some time now too and I disagree with you.

You're welcome to disagree...although I *was* here before you (and in fact some time before we could create user acccounts), and in my recollection there was much more trolling back then.

How about you mod me down? !-)

Why would I do that? You haven't been abusive, offensive or off-topic, so I have no reason to moderate you. You're welcome to disagree with me...after all, it you want to be wrong about this, you're free to do so. :-)

You're welcome to disagree...although I *was* here before you (and in fact some time before we could create user acccounts), and in my recollection there was much more trolling back then.

I'm not sure you can know who was here first, only who created an account first (and I was a passive reader long before that), but honestly, I don't care. It's irrelevant. I don't think the moderating works because:

1) It's abused. Frequently.
2) The same flamebait posts occur, but now they are accompanied by "boo hoo I was modded down" posts and smug "I'm gonna mod you up/down for that" posts.

I recently read a thread that consisted of many posts, mostly people responding to NotParker who really did litle more than defend Windows on a number of points and was responded to with down-modding and (hollow) threats of violence to his person. The modding was not in his favor at all, but taking the entire thread holistically, he held the moral highground and maintained mostly-cogent arguments whilst his detractors descended into personal insults and complaining. In my view, the modding system, just gave a group of zealots the opportunity to browbeat someone they didn't agree with.

The fact that I now can't recall even the subject of the thread (in order to link to it), says a lot about how distracting this system is.

Edited 2007-02-13 17:42