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.
Because of our moderation system, we have access to a wealth of information regarding how our users moderate, what they moderate, and who they moderate. Obviously, we admins have access to that information via OSNews’ backend, but you guys didn’t get to see any of that information. A few days ago, we decided to change that, and create a page full of statistics regarding moderation, commenting, users, and stories. You can find it at osnews.com/statistics/.
Let’s walk through some of these figures. It’s good to see that there are three times as many “up” votes as there are “down” votes – meaning most comments are actually rated positive. This reflects upon the average comment score, which is 1.77, and only 13500 comments are rated below 0. Some people claim that down-modding affects the flow of comments in a negative fashion, but from the figures we can deduct that only 0.01% of the total amount of comments falls below the average view threshold, which means that there are very, very few ‘broken’ comment threads.
Often, the OSNews staff gets accused of heavy-handed moderation, heavily influencing the comment and trust scores of users. As you can see in the figures, this is absolute bogus. All admin moderation together accounts for only 0.79% of the total amount of moderation points given. Limiting the OSNews staff to David, Eugenia, Adam, and myself, it means that each of us only account for 0.197% of total moderation points given. Also interesting is to see how many comments we actually removed (designated as “invisible” – we can’t actually remove comments) – 578. Of a total of 730000 comments. That’s 0.08%. The conclusion we can draw from this is that the influence of the staff on the moderation system is not even remotely significant.
I also want to say a few words about the little tantrum OSNews user kaiwai placed in our conversations section. As it turns out, he was indeed systematically moderated down by two people – which sucks balls. However, the interesting thing here is that this blatant abuse actually showed how well the moderation and trust systems work: despite systematic downmodding, kaiwai’s trust rate was the third highest of all our users – the abuse didn’t affect him at all. Trust rates are calculated using all sorts of fancy algorithms (Adam knows all about those), and among other things, it shields users from this kind of abuse. The key here is to not be blinded by the scores of your individual comments – you have to look at the bigger picture.
Rests me to say that we are always tweaking our moderation system and the algorithms at work, and of course, there’s still enough area to improve. Suggestions are always welcome, and if you would like to see a certain statistic added to the new statistics page, drop us a comment or email.
Does my 1 comment from over 2 years ago make me a participating commenter? Or am I lumped in the non-commenting reg users?
Thought I would break my silence for this news…
Crawl back under the rock you’ve been living under for 2 years, you turd!
Seriously, though, welcome to OSNews.
It’s just a bit hard to believe that someone could read the crap we sometimes spew here for 2 whole years without commenting. 😉
-Steve
Lurking at times is its own reward. Better to be silent and thought an idiot than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt. (Not that I think trpn is an idiot. In this case the post was self referential.)
LOL yea although sometimes I do get abit worried about Linux unix posts I make due to the abuse of the system by some members of the community. But usable someone will come along and bump your post back up so it can be viewed.
Rants are quite common here but I hope to see a good level of even keal by the community when it comes to modding posts by the community.
Also most comments on page 12 don’t have a chance of being upped no matter how good they are unless a admin bumps it which is good.
Nice to see some stats regarding whats happening I hope it becomes a regular feature (once a year) or as a link somewhere on the site.
Hahaha, I was about to ask the same thing. As a matter of fact I was in the habit of rarely logging-in at all. Maybe I had better re-think that…..
I would only say 4 of the 15 highest trusted users regularly post informative comments. 5 of the biggest trolls on this site are also the most trusted.
The highest rated comment on the site is a flame at eugenia. Whether she deserved it or not is irrelivent, the comment itself was not anywhere near to be what I would consider the best ever on the site. The lowest rated is spam, which while rating spam down is a good thing, past the point of reducing visibility becomes sort of redundant.
Trust is very aware of negative votes and only discards in a manner consistent with up-votes. So trolls or not, these people participate and ARE up-voted.
It was up-voted 51 times by 51 users. That’s all the stat indicates.
But it worked. Spam was filtered by users, not admins, who only took a few minutes to do so.
That was my point, and that was kaiwais point. The userbase has hit a critical mass of imbeciles where the most inane things get up modded. And by inane I am not talking about stuff I don’t agree with, I am talking about stuff that contributes nothing but derails the conversation. I very rarely agree with steve bergman about things except on a very high level, but he is one of the main reasons I stay on this site, and I have enjoyed the numerous discussions i have had with him both in the comments section and the PMs. I won’t name names, but a significant portion of the people there do the exact opposite.
The stats indicate the way people use the mod system. The highest rated comment ever was a flame.
Agreed. A good mod system means that the cream rises and the chaff falls. Spam is chaff, so it should fall.
BUT the whole point of something falling is to increase the signal to noise ratio, the fact that it got voted down 26 more times past the point of invisibility means that people don’t really trust the visibility threshold that much.
I agree with you that kaiwai threw a tantrum about the mod system, the little number next to your name in an online forum is not the sort of thing that really matters. But that does not mean the moderation system isn’t broken. The problem with any sort of system like this is that it attracts a certain kind of person who treats it like a game (aka the karma whore). This kind of person rarely has anything of value to contribute, and only really does what they do to get points, even though the points don’t really have any sort of value.
I understand you guys don’t want to moderate, but by making this system you have accomplished what happened on digg and slashdot, which is attracting karma whores who have driven away most of the good aspect of the community. Compare digg to lifehacker, one has a complex mod system, the other has none to speak of + anonymous commenting. The quality of the digg community is absolutely abysmal, the quality of the lifehacker community is one of the best I have seen.
Honestly, I would say go back to the +5/-5 days. It wouldn’t fix it, but at least it would limit the gaming aspect that attracts the karma whores. At the end of the day, I would rather have to read a spam message here and there then have the community overrun by people who just want to manipulate the echo chamber into giving them a good score.
Edited 2008-10-20 17:19 UTC
Why are the ratings important? (I am not asking argumentatively in case someone reads something into my tone accidentally)
I don’t really pay attention to the ratings. I see a title that is interesting, I read the article and comment on it. The ratings don’t really sway me one way or another.
At least I don’t think they do.
But could someone mod me up a few?
Your posts, Google_Ninja, are *always* of notable quality. (Even though we disagree upon some significant points.) Your average score should be about 5 in my opinion. I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to any statistics that OSNews provides, because those statistics have such little relevance to the real world. I browse at -5 and *try* to pay attention to what everyone is saying. Cyclops, of all people, sometimes makes some very insiteful comments.
Edited 2008-10-20 16:50 UTC
see here http://osnews.com/thread?334273
Cyclops is one of the people I didn’t want to name. He is not stupid, and does occasionally contribute to unix/linux discussions in a constructive way. On the other hand, I would say at least 90% of his comments are there to totally derail constructive dialog (at least back when he was active). If the system trusts someone like him more then, for example, someone like SReilly who is not on that list, there is a problem with the system.
And there is your problem.
It’s not the system that trusts him. It’s you.
Ok, granted that my view is going to be subjective. You wrote not that long ago that pointless “+1, Insightful” comments will be deleted. In my opinion, some of the big offenders of that kind of silliness are in the most trusted users on the site, and I think that illustrates a failure in the system. Do you agree with that?
He’s got you there, Thom. You can’t turn the moderation over to the users, publicize the “fact”, and then go right back to arbitrary, dictatorial moderation whenever you feel like it. And that is what you, Thom, do. And you really need to stop it. For the good of OSNews.
He hasn’t got me at all. “+1, informative” comments fall squarely within the definition of spam, and as such, I remove them. As simple as that. Read the OSNews forum rules, and they’re pretty clear.
As for dictatorial moderation – get over it already, dude. The stats don’t lie: the OSNews staff doesn’t affect moderation IN ANY WAY. There is no dictatorial moderation – only in your head.
“””
There is no dictatorial moderation – only in your head.
“””
You responded with lightning speed to that. I wonder why you felt the need? I suspect that you recognized the truth in my observations. You do moderate in a dictatorial fashion, or at least you threaten to. I’m not certain that you actually do it. And I’m not sure threatening vs doing makes a difference.
If Thom’s a dictator, I’d say he’s a pretty benevolent one.
Nice that you think of me.
The harsh reality is that any moderation system is subject to abuse; unfairness; Suggest any method and it suffers from its own pros and cons and hopefully the system chosen should have more pro’s than cons…something that all osnews *posters* should be familiar with.
Woooo! I win! Suck on THAT! I guess I can stop commenting now?
Seriously though, I agree that comment is WAY over-rated and I guess that says something about the value of the vote system.
She deserved it, by the way.
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.
Amen.
OSN’s average comment is still an order of magnitude above digg’s.
Ain’t that the truth. With Digg, if you don’t follow the popular trend you get dugg down. On OSNews, they debate it without modding down, or at least that’s the way it seems to me.
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.
I found the number of lurkers to be low, is there a total number of registered users for this site or is that kept as a secret for advertising and the such? Just curious at the ratio of registered commenters vs. the lurkers.
I had the same question, so I figured it out by guessing the ID of the last user via URL. It’s just under 9,000.
No, it’s not. It’s WAY more.
Here’s a taste.
http://osnews.com/user/uid:15000
The new system seems to be working great. Spam, nonsense, and crap posts get modded down quickly, which is a benefit to all readers, members, and staff.
One change I’d like to see, and I’m not sure why it’s set up the way it is, the ability to dish out points after making a post within a topic.
Edited 2008-10-20 16:52 UTC
I understand the reason behind this restriction, but would also like in favor of removing it.
Often for example, somebody adds valuable insights to another’s post, or gives important corrections. I would like to give an up-vote for somebody doing this to my comments.
Another case is where people uses comments to ask questions and are not able to reward answering comments.
So there are several reasons of voting on comments which are part of your discussion not connected to your opinion at all.
I agree, please remove this pointless restriction.
So many times I’ve made a post, read some more comments and said to myself “Hey, this is a good point, I should mod this up” (not necessarily something I agree with, but a good point anyway), and found out that I cant since I already commented.
There’s no correlation between making a comment and not being able to distinguish a good point from a bad one.
It’s not pointless, as it serves a to prevent a previously very common form of abuse: post a comment in a thread, possibly inflammatory, and then moderate all those who agree/disagree with you. This abuse is now over.
Of course you can possibly still do it the other way ’round, but the point here is that trolls generally post first, and most often an opinion that hasn’t been posted before in the thread (else it wouldn’t be trolling).
This “feature”, while understandably annoying, serves a very good purpose.
and then moderate all those who agree/disagree with you.
Is that a real concern? Each person can still only vote once per comment, and each member has a limited number of votes allowed.
Personally, I’d be more likely to vote Up someone who took the time to reply to my comment, even if they were disagreeing.
Ok, you got it. You should now be able to vote up people after you’ve commented.
Score inflation, here we come! Scores will, in the future, have even less meaning than they do today. Hurray?
You are micromanaging, Adam. And badly.
Edited 2008-10-20 18:42 UTC
You have singlehandedly reminded me why I stopped listening to users regarding moderation. This is my last post of the thread.
You are presenting the perfect example of why we ought to just cease all discussion of moderation, because after people call for change, no change is ever the right chance. We have the benefit of hundreds of thousands of data points to make decisions. You have your own subjective experience, and yet, you stand in judgment as though your opinion is based on something other than the imaginary idea that everyone always behaves as you would.
As much as I value many of our users – and I REALLY do, users like you are why I continue to visit the site multi-times daily myself – you have all made a great case for hiding all evidence of moderation other than the vote box. The score means nothing. Zero, zilch, nada. Nobody cares. The mod system works as we intended it to – crap is modded down. That’s all that matters. I don’t know why you’re so attached to the number, score inflation or not.
You heard it, people. The OSNews folks have stopped listening to users and do not want to hear from us anymore. I do not think that there is anymore that needs to be said on this count.
sbergman, you’ve gone too far. Seriously.
Accusing US of not listening to our users is so out-of-this-world, so completely void of any sense of reality, it’s just mindblowing. Seriously. The ENTIRE site you’re looking at right now is based on user feedback. Take a look at the first version of v4, and then take a look at how it is now. The biggest part of all those changes are done after USER feedback – heck, some of it was even DONE by users (you go, kroc).
The entire moderation system was instated because USERS asked for it. They were sick of admin moderation, so we introduced peer moderation, and kept on improving it over time after user feedback. We consulted users in items like this, read the emails, and even right in THIS thread, we made an important change after USER feedback.
You, sir, are an ungrateful ass.
I agree, but he has an impulsive kind of behavior so that can be forgiven I guess.
I am glad you finally see sbergman27 for what he is truly.
I have had the same experience with down moderation even if my comment offers accurate and factual information.
I am cutting my time on OSNews as a result as well.
A valued member who 99% of the time post worhtwhile and interesting comments?
Good thing you’re flawless and around to throw the first stone, Arun.
Don’t hold back, Tom. Tell me what you *really* think.
I quoted Adam’s post and that has apparently upset some people. (And given Arun an opportunity to pownce, as well. Have fun, Arun.) Anyway, as a reminder, here is what was quoted:
That is a direct and literal quote. It pretty well speaks for itself. Perhaps it was *misspoken*, in which case OSNews could simply say that’s not what we meant rather than attacking its users publicly. Certainly, I do appreciate the work that goes into making OSNews function on a daily basis. But too often, you, Adam, and Eugenia take a You owe us! attitude which is not particularly appreciated.
Actually, I’d suggest that we have created a “what can we do for you?” community that solicits feedback to a fault and that you have taken advantage of that by suggesting loudly and, frankly, quite obnoxiously, that we intentionally somehow manipulate the site or want to implement a system that causes problems. This site has so much meta-chatter it’s amazing.
It still amazes me that you feel your subjective experience is a better barometer for a mod system that the data we’ve amassed. Incidentally, Steve, your crusade here is about modding after you’ve commented, which we say encourages people to maliciously thread mod-bomb. Contact me via PM and I’ll prove to you that you yourself are guilty of that exact thing.
I shall do so, Adam. I am curious as to just what you might claim.
Edited 2008-10-21 17:42 UTC
You, sir, are an ungrateful ass.
Amen on this one.
Nice manipulation. You’ve trolled the forums and pretended that our reaction to your condescending tantrum is our stance.
Fortunately, not only does the crazy amount of participation spit in the face of your argument, but I think everyone will see through your weak “They aren’t implementing exactly what I want, therefore, they hate their users” act.
Most people, I think, get the point sufficiently well now.
This comment is currently modded at -2. Why is it locked? I wanted to mod it up.
The new system does not allow comments modded below 0 to be modded up?
I’m not sure whether that is system wide, or whether it only applies to me. The OSNews staff is hopping mad at me right now, it would seem.
sbergman27 wrote:
-“You heard it, people. The OSNews folks have stopped listening to users and do not want to hear from us anymore. I do not think that there is anymore that needs to be said on this count.”
No, actually he said he’d stop listening to users regarding moderation. Personally I don’t like the limitation of not being able to moderate after submitting a comment (not that I comment much these days, I think the tone here has become overall aggressive which isn’t really the best environment for fruitful discussion). That said, I trust that the staff had good reasons for setting this limitation, as they described in the case of people using it to moderate opposive views simply for disagreeing, particularly responses to their own comments.
Looking at sbergmans stats it says: Number of Comment Votes Applied: 1771 (48% positive moderations)
If I understand that correctly it means that of the 1771 comment votes he has applied, 52% of them were used to mod comments down, which I can’t help sounds like someone trying to smother opposing views using moderation rather than having discussion. Obviously not knowing the exact comments he modded down I could be way off here, and if so I apologize.
If that is the case however (and if not in this case I’m sure it’s true in many others) not allowing people to moderate after commenting makes sense.
Aawwhh… please. Adam is working hard to get it right, and asking for small changes and then complain about “micromanaging” when you get the small changes just isn’t fair.
And to you, Adam. Thank you.
I’m glad for that, only for when I want to check root-level comments for new threads.
I would still keep some kind of restriction though, like not being able to moderate replies to your own comment.
Wouldn’t it be possible to limit it by threads within topics? You cannot mod anybody in a thread you’re participating in, but you can mod in other threads in the same topic. Surely that would be the best balance.
What is preventing a person from getting more than one osnews login and use one to start flames and the other to fuel them? What’s preventing people from teaming up to do this?
I disagree, it serves no practical purpose. You’re just making things more frustrating for serious users while the bad apples can get around the restriction easily.
“You’re just making things more frustrating for serious users while the bad apples can get around the restriction easily.”
You mean like laws and every day life? Kind of like the gun laws..you know..the ones that outlaw having automatic weapons so only military and outlaws have them? Same thing my friend, whether on-line or off. The bad apples get around all restrictions, while the law abiding citizens get screwed. Is the way of life sadly.
They had a lot of laws in the USSR and East Germany. Would you welcome those too?
Maybe accepting status quo isn’t the right thing.
Are you seriously comparing the OSNews moderation to World War II Germany? Are you doing that with a straight face?
With as straight a face as the guy who just compared the moderation rules to gun laws.
And no, I did not compare it to WW2 Germany, I compared it to cold war East Germany and the USSR.
Edited 2008-10-21 13:02 UTC
How about I alter it so that you can only dole out up mods after posting, and only downmodding is revoked after posting?
You either trust your readers or you don’t. You are are following the wrong path.
Well then, we don’t.
The truth is, I trust almost all of our readers, but we do this specifically to prevent gaming the system. Frankly, we’ve spent WAY too much time talking about a system that works well enough. I’m very tempted to hide ALL responses and scores and just have it be visible or not. Perhaps that will get people less worked up.
Agreed.
Additionally, many times the comment I’d like to vote for (or against) is located in a completely different thread and has no relationship to my comment.
Great idea! It gives me an easy way to say thanks without actually having to write a reply. But it’s not a must have…
If there’s one feature that you should never ever cut it’s the preview.
It has prevented me from posting stupid comments so many times
What about the total number of recommendations (ratio’d by number of articles) per category? Would be interesting to see what categories OSNews readers find interesting.
Total number of votes up/down doesn’t mean anything unless you display that as an average per article. How much moderation is actually happening on an article. (Should be scaled by number of comments too so that an accurate weight of moderation can be seen)
Most active users could be better represented by avg. comments per week?
Edited 2008-10-20 17:14 UTC
Thom was so eager to disable kaiwai’s account, has anything been done about it, such as reactivating it, apologizing, I dunno? I don’t think you can suspend it yourself…
Since we’re talking about the stats, why can’t we have the browser/OS stats published?
http://osnews.com/brows_stats.php
Not exactly the stats hmm…
Edited 2008-10-20 19:22 UTC
I’d like to know what you think it would prove? (Or how it would prove useful)
That sort of information could probably be really badly mis-represented.
Why does it have to be a proof of anything? I’m just naturally curious.
Well, I’m only saying that to play devil’s advocate; people may want to wield such information to justify their own point: stats can be bent just about any way.
I was about to comment that the stats are boring. I agree, why not ad stats for os/browser/country…
Because I agree with kaiwai on the abuse of OSNews’ moderation system. Two of my last three comments were modded down more than likely because the people who modded them down more than likely didn’t like me.
What I commented on was factual in regards to the story about IBM Open Sourcing DB2:
http://osnews.com/story/19868/IBM_May_Open_Source_DB2/
I pointed out that IBM with version 4.1 of Tivoli Security Operations Manager would not support MySQL and that the only databases IBM would support was DB2 and Oracle. I essentially said that IBM is a friend of F/OSS as long as it doesn’t hurt the bottom line, well I guess supporting MySQL does. For that two comments were modded down to 0 by a couple of “users” (and I use the term loosely) because they either did not like what I had to say (don’t confuse the issue with facts) or because I have been labeled by some as the “big, bad sysadmin”. Whatever!
I wouldn’t exactly break your arms patting yourselves on the back over the “success” of your moderation system. This site is hemorrhaging users that actually bring something to the table like writing articles and discussing rather than flaming and trolling.
If anyone here hasn’t noticed, my last comment prior to this was made on July 16th. I decided to find something else to do with my free time, so like kaiwai I am out of here!
Like I said in the item, you shouldn’t look at individual comments. You are actually quite high up in the trust ratings, and having two of your comments moderated down doesn’t change a thing about that.
Don’t stand to close to the painting. Take a few steps back, and see the bigger picture.
there has definitely been abuse of the system. i’ve felt picked on at times, as well. you have to expect that, to some degree. but, that being said, kaiwai has been regularly antagonistic for as long as i can remember. he’s might as well be daring the mod-abusers to downmod him!
i’m not condoning the bury-brigade… but, it’s pretty clear why kaiwai was singled out.
it really had gotten to the point that he just seemed like a schoolyard bully half of the time.
i have, on a number of occasions, considered leaving osnews (not that i post extremely often), but when it really comes down to it… the alternatives are certainly worse.
it makes me miss the old BBS’s of the 90s, where it actually felt like you were getting to know the people you were conversing with.
Online communities come and go. It’s the way things roll. This site hemorrhaging users you find to bring valuable contributions may or may not be the case for anyone else. Regardless, you seem to think it’s the moderation system or the trolls causing the problem(s). I’d suggest that it’s just the normal life cycle of a user driven site. People come for various reasons, people go for various reasons. I’ve been part of online communities where we actually met up with each other and had parties and barbeques. Sadly, that community has splintered and is no more.
People find other things to do, even at the expense of their online time.
yeah, I think I will be joining you on some other site too.
this one has died a death since Thom took control.
bye all
How about: a stat in every user’s profile with his/hers ranking in the trusted top, moving average top, average score top?
Edited 2008-10-20 20:05 UTC
I wonder what having a mod system brings to a site that another site not having a mod system lacks. A problem with any mod system is that it generally just expresses and reinforces majority opinion. The problem is that majority opinion isn’t always right and usually isn’t as interesting as minority opinion anyway. One could argue that the most interesting, correct, even visionary post on a topic may end up with mod points of -196. I’m not quite sure what that says but it probably isn’t very good news.
So concentrating on posts that are modded up may be a great way of getting the wrong end of the stick. And when a post is modded, I’d prefer also to see the name of the person(s) who modded it so I can send my friends round. Haha only joking.
I don’t understand why you are getting in so much trouble to prove the effectiveness of the moderation system. Points, trusts… At first, it was quite a good idea, but it only ended up screwing up the dynamics of the site.
I liked the days were where everybody could post whatever they want anonymously. Sure, there were some fires here and there, but we had benevolent dictators to put them out. They weren’t always right, but it’s better than being dictated by an homogeneous majority (or more accurately, an especially vocal minority). It was also the time where OSes, including minor ones, were the centre of attention, instead of being a complete shootout at everything, especially at controversy.
I still visit OSNews daily, but I don’t really bother with commenting. I mean, why should I? I already have to scavenge great comments among the lot. The modding system should bring these gems up, yet it’s mostly comments praised by freetards or completely beyond the topic that get to the top. Bah.
Perhaps getting back to basics wouldn’t hurt.
Edited 2008-10-20 21:36 UTC
I wonder if we could remove the ‘dialogue’ from the comments and instead make them all separate and then sort those by their ratings (i.e. better ones go on top). When there’s a “reply” button there are certainly going to be endless wars.
Well, you can already eliminate the dialogue flow by using the flat layout, which I am using. Sorting them won’t do much good though, as you’ll get the junk overrated by karma rapists right at the top!
Back in the day, I was strongly in favour of a community-moderated system, but everybody can make mistakes. Today, I would rather deal with the occasional flame, spam or troll than irrational fanboys, which are doing the same thing anyway while getting recognition by the system!
Fortunately, once in a while, there’s a gem or two popping among the load of manure in the comments section, which keeps me here. Yet, it’s still getting closer to become OSSNews everyday, which is sad since there’s no more room for serious debate or insightful information…
It never fails. All moderated sites (Digg, Slashdot, Reddit, etc.) end up being taken over by a small group or gang of regulars with a lot of time on their hands. Of course, the group never represents a fair cross section of the users. These so-called moderators simply mod down anything or anybody that they disagree with. But it does not matter. Moderation should not be about disagreement or popularity. It should be exclusively about infringement of the TOS and that’s it.
No small group should have the power to affect the free expression of ideas. The decision as to whether or not one reads a comment should be left to the reader and the reader alone. In this vein, I think it would be best for OSNews to offer a means whereby members can kill-file or privately rate commenters as they see fit. We don’t need chaperones, thank you very much.
Furthermore, why can’t moderation be automatic? Removing obscene, offensive and otherwise unacceptable comments could be automated. In my opinion, this is what OSNews should be investigating. Forget about tweaking the current algorithms in the hope of removing abuse from the current system. It will never work.
Edited 2008-10-20 22:54 UTC
Automatic? You mean word filters and such things? Maybe here on OSnews the terminology used tends to be so technological (and is in English only, mostly) that it could prevent some of the worst shortcomings of automatic filters. But still, as far as I know, automatic censorship programs never work too well, especially in multicultural and heterogenous discussion environments. They are sometimes too strict, sometimes don’t notice even most obvious cases of offensive behavior. Most typically they only censor certain words supposedly considered offensive. How could that kind of simplistic filtering prevent subtle offensive behavior where the offender may use very polite terms but still behave in a completely unfair and offensive way towards someone else?
What is offensive, obscene or otherwise unacceptable behavior is not so much about the words used only, and it depends on the context and changing human values. Computer programs, even the most advanced AI programs, have no real idea of things like the meaning of subtle cultural contexts in ethics, or ethics in general (well, sometimes I wonder if many people have much better clue about such things either, but that is another matter…).
I have an idea on how to avoid people modding others down with no good reason. You should print the user names of all down modders of a specific comment. So everybody has to back his down moderation openly, as it is judged by others.
And btw., is it still not possible to write Microsoft (Micro $ oft)?
At the end of the day, email everyone a “Participation Trophy”. If it’s good enough for the Cub Scouts, it’s good enough for OSNews!
Quoting myself from the OSNews Conversations:
It’s very annoying. I don’t mind when my posts are modded down. I like this feature that filters crap posts. When my comments are modded down, I take it that I did a bad comment and take the lesson so I try to do better posts in the future and everybody wins. This is a good system.
What I REALLY don’t like is when you post a good comment on an article that is insightful and that people appreciate, they mod your post up and all but the admins don’t like it because it is not their opinion. Then they mod you down by -20, your post goes from +10 to -10 in a second, they delete all your other posts and they ban your account.
Guys and girls, critics are always useful, use it! You make your users frustrated when you should use their input to improve your site. If you don’t agree, say it and debate, but there is really no point in deleting accounts just because of different opinion!
At the very least, if you really don’t like it and can’t stand critics, send an email, post a comment, whatever, but AT LEAST, explain to the user why you deleted his/her account! Even if you had a bad day and don’t feel like explaining, just say it and it is ok. Having your account deleted for no reason is very very frustrting and annoying.
Edited 2008-10-23 15:55 UTC
Nice try, but the stats show that pretty much never happens.
Unfortunately, I can’t answer you because you will delete my account if I do.
That is an absolute blatant troll, and really should be modded down. But nice job totally avoiding the question.
I’ve never deleted an account in my life, and I can count the number of accounts that have been banned without the user requesting it on my fingers.
Maybe you can tell me who deleted the agrouf account and why?
It’s not deleted, it’s suspended. Anyone can go back and see his comments, etc.
And no, I will not disclose who or why. He’s one of a few, and unless you are him, there may be more to the story that you don’t know.
I know him and his comments have been deleted and no explanation has been given at all. Just after you posted a comment which you didn’t agree with, although many people modded it up. And his account was suspended without explanation either.
Edited 2008-10-23 18:47 UTC
Sorry, it wasn’t me. There goes that theory.
Anyway, it is very annoying, you should do something about it. Not you specifically, but all of you.
About what? The huge problem of the 10 disabled users?
Your populist “gain points” game is driving me away from posting comments at osnews.
I was following you for some years. Nowadays, I find more more credible sources, like http://arstechnica.com, more worth my time.
Good luck to you.
My fellow Eugenia has already aborded your ship.
Exactly.