Mob-Sourcing — the Prejudice of Crowds 178
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet takes a look at how crowd-moderation can capture and reflect the prejudice of individuals. 'As more web content is crowd-sourced and crowd-moderated, are we seeing only the wisdom of crowds? No, we're also seeing their prejudice. The Internet reflects both the good and ugly in human nature. ... Any system relying on people implicitly encodes prejudices as well. In a world where one politician with a call girl is forced to resign and another is handily reelected, there is no hope for moral or intellectual consistency in crowd-sourced or moderated content.'"
Clearly (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who needed ZDNet to tell them this clearly hasn't been on Slashdot very long.
Wow! Have they discovered Wikipedia? (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome back to reality newbs!
Who, ANYPLACE, promised you prejudice-free surfing on any site on the Internet?
And did you buy a bridge from them?
Do we need consistency? (Score:3, Insightful)
I propose... (Score:4, Insightful)
...not having RTFA, that the article is bogus.
Who's with me?
I am Shocked! (Score:4, Insightful)
Shocked, I tell you, to find humanity in here!
And another great quote: a person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
Or, how about a big plate of SPAM? (Score:3, Insightful)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/11/02/follow-the-%E2%80%9Ctruthy%E2%80%9D-tweets-to-find-twitter%E2%80%99s-political-spammers/ [discovermagazine.com]
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd hazard a guess that your karma is in the cellar because your Gallileo complex prevents you from fully thinking thru what you are saying.
Re:Why should this suprise anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think politics has its own brand of crowd sourcing. This [smbc-comics.com] sums things up nicely.
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do we need consistency? (Score:1, Insightful)
Note also that the penalty for a -1 Troll is far more damaging than a +1 Insightful is beneficial.
A post with 10 moderations, of which 5 are -1 Troll and 5 are +1 Insightful, will have +-0 points, but the poster will most likely have had his karma reduced to Bad or Terrible. Any post that pertains to any mildly controversial subject, no matter how well argued, will reduce the karma of the poster. Given this negative feedback loop, only posters who spout along the lines of this site's zeitgeist are rewarded.
One man's insightful or interesting post is another man's troll. Given the relative weightings of the current karma system, Insightful, Interesting, and Funny posts are unequally and negatively balanced by the Troll and Flamebait moderations they attract. Funny moderations are worse in that they inflate post scores without a corresponding increase in karma, so they are ripe for the Overrated moderation which cannot be remedied in metamod. This leaves only Informative posts which are not prone to negative moderations, but that is only if the poster can refrain from giving any strong opinion.
A site full of Informative posts is great for what it is. However it is not really a great conversational environment where people are able to express strong feelings or argue with any vehemency. Unfortunately that is what Slashdot's negatively weighted moderation system has created. In order to eliminate the trolls here, they have taken measures that reduce the likelihood of good posts and increase the number of lukewarm, mediocre posts.
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with people all the time and am a downright asshole on here quite often. My karma is still high.
Of course, karma is an aggregate measure of reputation in a way. If your karma is low than you're likely a useless asshole to the community who is best gotten rid off. Not always but it's a good rule of thumb I'd say. Disagreeing with people all the time across every topic also likely means you're insane and delusional. Plus not contributing anything worthwhile, trivial to gain karma in various utterly neutral discussions, indicates you're here just as an ego trip and have no desire to help the community.
In general I found slashdot users actually quite good at moderating up intelligent and logical posts.
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:5, Insightful)
That is precisely why an my karma is in the cellar. Anyone who disagrees with the crowd anywhere, even on Slashdot, will get moderated into oblivion.
The reason why you have your karma in the cellar on Slashdot is because you're a creationist with a long posting history. The first time someone is seen making posts like that, they usually get a reply explaining why they're wrong. But when they persist in posting exact same arguments, already thoroughly debunked in countless past discussions, again and again - yeah, you'll get a Troll mod or whatever pretty soon.
Not from me, since I haven't seen mod points in years now (I think I post too much). But I'm not exactly surprised.
And, yeah, it's "groupthink" for sure. I don't see a problem with it, though. "Murder is bad" is also groupthink, and I'm certainly fine with that one.
Re:QQ Less, Pew Pew More (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason we live in a Republic is because a true Democracy almost always degrades into mob rule and eventually an Oligarchy.
Any form of government where all citizens have a say can degrade into a mob rule - you can only try to increase the size of the mob that it takes to make it happen (by creating laws such as "need 3/4 votes to amend Constitution" etc), but you cannot avoid it except for a benevolent dictatorship (and those things stop being benevolent real quick IRL, even where they start as such).
Digg was a classic example of such bias. (Score:3, Insightful)
I noticed this effect the first time I saw Digg. A topic that started to trend would stay toward the top, and be seen my many more people, so it tended to trend even more, which means it stays near the top even more... and soon this bias becomes not just obvious, but enormous.
Theoretically it could happen even to a topic that was voted up by only a very few people, if they did it at about the same time. Which means that there is a certain amount of Chaotic nature to trending topics on Digg, and the eventual trends may bear very little resemblance to peoples' actual preferences, were a simple vote or some other measure taken for comparison.
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:4, Insightful)
Dissenting opinions are fine when they are substantiated. However, when the same opinion is repeatedly expressed without being substantiated, or when the arguments given in favor are obviously false (as they were reviewed and debunked when they first appeared a long time ago), and nothing new is added - such an opinion becomes mere boring drivel, and will get modded accordingly.
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting how you stretch what he said beyond it's meaning in an attempt to support your own point. Good example of how not to post.
OK, I got it - as long as the dissenting opinions are acceptable and not debunked, they are acceptable.
Yes, if it's been debunked then it's wrong and as such of low value. Glad to see we're on the same page.
Of course, if they were acceptable and had been approved by the authorities, they wouldn't be dissenting opinions, would they?
Yes, the mysterious secret alien authorities running slashdot and sucking out our brains wish to keep you in your place. Now shut up and stand still while they insert the straw.
Re:Clearly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Clearly (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:3, Insightful)
"Murder is bad" is also groupthink, and I'm certainly fine with that one.
Actually, that's not groupthink but a religious commandment.
One thing with those ten commandments, though. Of those that deal with human-human relationships and not the human-god relationship, they sure have stood the test of time. Lots of things were important then that aren't important now, but that list is pretty universal.
Re:Dead Fish always float only downstream (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess so! I must have been wrong, and the crowd here loves the Lord! Honestly though, it doesn't matter to me how it's modded - I win either way.
Re:Clearly (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is a problem how? Golden Parachutes for the win, baby!
Face it the CEO doesn't know how to run the company either, they're just better equipped to abandon ship before the consequence of their mistakes has time to bite them on the ass.