Here at OSNews, we use a moderation system where your peers rate your comments, and where the OSNews staff rarely intervene. This system was put in place after realising that the editorial moderation was failing miserably; it had become too much work. Sifting through ten reported comments a day is one thing, sifting through 100 of them each day is another. The result was that editorial moderation had become willy-nilly, which led to understandable user frustration, and pointless email rants back and forth between users and staff members (mea culpa). The answer to this problem turned out to be a two-step process: banning anonymous commenting, and our peer moderation system. While the moderation system has its flaws, it has exceeded all of our expectations in making sure that our comments' sections are free of spam, and relatively fun to read. Still, we realise problems exist, but we also see a lot of misinformation floating around. The treat we have in store for you today will help in fixing some of that.
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Member since:2005-04-01
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-04-06
Indeed. Slashdot's as well. OSNews is the only tech news aggregator I bother reading anymore, simply because I -can't- not read the comments. I want to know what people think about a topic, see if there's any aspects of it I didn't think of, maybe learn something new.
While I do agree that the quality of commentary on OSNews has declined over the past years, probably due to increasing popularity, it does remain light years heard of pretty much anything else you will find on the Internet. (Personally, I blame anonymity, but that's another story.)
And, I will confess, that the moderation system, and a desire to maintain a high 'average' has caused me to hesitate to comment on more than one occasion, especially lately. I haven't made a comment since Eugenia quit OSNews. For better or worse, I usually don't bother speaking up unless I think I have something -really- worth saying. More of a pity, I think, than a blessing, but I'm a bit biased to seeing my opinion as being AWESOME. 
Member since:
2006-09-22
So that's how the trust value works.
Regarding the commenting system, I don't think it's all that bad. Despite what kaiwai might say, OSN's average comment is still an order of magnitude above digg's. And I'm in no way condoning such trollery, but kaiwai could get pretty unreasonable regarding Linux discussions. I'm not really surprised he got himself a pair of "fans". Getting touchy doesn't help here in the internet.
Anyway, I don't really give a damn about my ratings, as long as the rating system prevents me from wasting my time reading crap, then it's OK for me.