Comments About Comments 276
theodp writes "This weekend's NY Times is all-about-the-comments. First, Michael Erard recounts the history of Web site comments and explains how their technical origins have shaped the actual commentary we've come to expect as usual today. On dealing with people-behaving-badly, Erard writes, 'Only a few [high-traffic sites] seem to have tried user-moderation systems like the one developed by Slashdot's creator, Rob Malda. Founded in 1997, Slashdot rapidly began to suffer from what Malda called 'signal-to-noise-ratio problems' as tens of thousands of users showed up. Rather than embracing the chaos (which was a hallmark of Usenet, another digital channel of communications) or locking things down with moderators (which e-mail lists did), Malda figured out a way for users to moderate one another. Moderation became like jury duty, something you were called to do.' Next, NY Times community manager Bassey Etim, who oversees 13 comment moderators, offers up his comments on comments, agreeing that 'the comments are where the real America is.' Finally, there's Gawker's next-generation Kinja, which aims to further blur the lines between stories, blog entries, and comments."
Like this? (Score:4, Funny)
Personally, I like making comments on comments. I especially like self-referencing ones.
C(C(S(C(C())))) (Score:5, Funny)
I like making comments about comments about a story about comments about comments.
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Re:C(C(S(C(C())))) (Score:5, Funny)
> 20 goto 10
>
Re:C(C(S(C(C())))) (Score:5, Funny)
/*This is a comment in a comment.*/
Re:C(C(S(C(C())))) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:C(C(S(C(C())))) (Score:5, Informative)
You capitalized "Without," you didn't misspell any words, you didn't mistake loose for lose or there for their... grammar fail big time, dude. All you did was use grocer's apostrophes. You didn't even use an apostropheless "aint".
You're not even trying! Real retarded aliterates do a lot better.
Re:C(C(S(C(C())))) (Score:5, Insightful)
He misspelled "grammar".
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All aliterates are annoying ape-arse aficionados.
Re:Like this? (Score:5, Funny)
Moderation is important, otherwise discussion is reduced to inane blather. #yolo #swag #grits
No More Anoymous Moderating. (Score:3, Interesting)
Moderators should be identified.
If you are going to moderate, you should be willing to stand behind your moderation. Anonymous moderation leads to people down modding things they simple disagree with rather than flagging actual abuse.
Re:No More Anoymous Moderating. (Score:5, Insightful)
Moderators should be identified.
I disagree. Moderators who must be identified would just lead to harassment of moderators. There's always going to be asshats who moderate stuff down they disagree with (and I doubt every asshat who does that being exposed for doing that would change their tune), but I'd foresee that exposing the handles of moderators would be like not allowing anonymous posting; it'd try to cut down on the problem, but also cut out a lot of moderation that doesn't follow the conventional groupthink.
Much like commenting, at least the choice of moderating anonymously should still be kept (at least for Slashdot's method). Similar to non-anonymous posting, though, non-anonymous moderations being weighted differently could be a possible avenue for improvement.
So many (Score:3, Funny)
I've got 14 mod points (Score:4, Funny)
Earn my blessing, or my wrath!
Re:I've got 14 mod points (Score:5, Funny)
except you can't use them in this thread...
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Not in this thread (unless things have changed since I last had mod points), that's another good thing about user-moderation. You can prevent people from using them as a weapon in discussions they themselves have posted in.
Re:I've got 14 mod points (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, but there's the evil metamoderation. I've had my own comments come up when metamoderating!
Muahahahaha!!!
Re:I've got 14 mod points (Score:4, Interesting)
You can prevent people from using them as a weapon in discussions they themselves have posted in.
Bah, no competent Slashtroll has less than 4 accounts to cycle. One to post, two to upmod, a fourth to badly argue against the initial post, and two anonymous comments mocking everyone.
I've thought about setting up a second, sock-puppet account with which to argue with myself, but haven't yet, either due to laziness or a general lack of self-interest; not sure which, and really don't care enough to bother with it.
PS yes, that sounded as insane in my head as it does on the screen. Fuck it, it's Monday - posting anyway :)
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I've thought about setting up a second, sock-puppet account with which to argue with myself...
So, sort of like an Aron Sorkin screenplay?
Re:I've got 14 mod points (Score:5, Funny)
I've thought about setting up a second, sock-puppet account with which to argue with myself, but haven't yet, either due to laziness or a general lack of self-interest...
Or are you afraid that the sock-puppet account will get moderated more favorably than your original account?
Re:I've got 14 mod points (Score:5, Funny)
At first, it was just the other account made way too many stupid arguments, but it soon escalated to threats of physical violence. I had to keep a close watch on myself to keep me from slashing my own tires. (I tried hiding, but I quickly learned that I knew where I lived and where I liked to hide.)
After two or three "unfortunate incidents" I decided to close all but one of the accounts. Things settled down for a while, but I still have to keep a close eye on me in case I go back and login to one of the "closed" accounts.
---
Only two of my personalities have delusions, but one of them is paranoid and the other is out to get him.
The most valuable part of some sites (Score:5, Insightful)
In Slashdot I usually find very interesting what other people think about the news. Sometimes, there're some jewels: Comments about people who really know what the news is about and offer their perspective. I same those comments as bookmarks. I wonder why there's not a "favorite" option to save them.
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And the rest of the time, we're subjected to people shouting how much they disagree with the parent, usually in the most uninteresting manner possible, usually focusing on a tangential piece of the parent post, really beating the drum on how wrong it is. This post is almost certainly no exception, because while I agree with the premise of your post, I find that it misses the massive amount of chaff(that gets modded up, no less) that hides the wheat.
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That is quite occasionally true.
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You would not believe how often I am wrong.
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Thanks for the paradox, asshole.
Re:The most valuable part of some sites (Score:5, Insightful)
chaff(that gets modded up, no less)
That's a self-sustaining mechanism of the Slashdot hivemind.
Despite our best wishes to the contrary, Slashdotters are terribly biased humans. We just know what's right, because we are all of such high intelligence and scientific mind, so we are blind to our own biases. Of course, anyone who agrees with us is probably coming to the same conclusion only because they are smart and rational, too... so we should mod them up, of course, for being such a fine, upstanding Slashdotter like ourselves. Should we then ever need to examine our own judgement, we have the karma system and our comment history showing that we were modded up, reinforcing the consensus regardless of truth.
This is painfully obvious on any thread concerning law, privacy, Big Data, religion, or economics. The hivemind has made up its mind on most aspects of these matters, so any comment parroting the approved opinion will be modded up, while any comment that opposes will be modded down, regardless of fact. Interestingly, these are fields in which the majority of Slashdotters are not experts, or even likely to be professionally involved in.
Consider law, for instance. There are very few actual lawyers regularly on Slashdot, and also very few who have any sort of legal education at all, but any story discussing the intricacies of patents or free speech is bound to have hundreds of comments, mostly along the lines of "patents are bad" or "I can say anything, anytime, anywhere, to anyone", and the mods will happily push such comments up to +5, Insightful. Occasionally a real lawyer will stumble in and offer some actual insight, but even if their post is well-received, it is limited to being only equal to the popular drivel, so it is quickly drowned out.
A system I've seen work well elsewhere is to have admin-promoted "top comments" for each story, where the admins doing the selection are encouraged to pick comments that are relevant, accurate, and unusual. a dozen comments repeating the same sentiment won't be picked, but one that puts forth a well-reasoned argument to the contrary is more likely.
Re:The most valuable part of some sites (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you simply replace hivemind, for Dice Holdings Approved Minds. That doesn't seem superior on the face of it.
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You're missing the aim here - it's not to pick one, two or three "best" comments, it's to discount things that are not worth reading. In a article, you end up with hundreds of posts that are moderated as high as they can be (+5). As long as you have that minimal number of moderators who appreciated that comment, it will rise. That's as much input from the moderators as one should want - reduce noise, but don't shape the conversation.
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And I acknowledged that directly in a way that would be utterly transparent to anyone reading it. Your post was so helpful drawing attention to something that was already clearly stated.
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You have some kind of mental issues.
FWIW, I'm thoroughly convinced that statement applies to the human race in general.
Not that I'm defending anyone's comments, it's just... well, we're all mad here.
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Certainly not,
See what I mean? :)
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Of course I see what you mean. I wouldn't disagree if I didn't understand. I know some people would, but I wouldn't.
Re:The most valuable part of some sites (Score:4, Funny)
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Re:The most valuable part of some sites (Score:5, Interesting)
I same those comments as bookmarks. I wonder why there's not a "favorite" option to save them.
Everyone should have a single "Supermod" point once per month that would work as a normal mod point except it would allow going past +5.
So after the holidays we could quickly read the articles with only the very few +6+ posts.
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Everyone should have a single "Supermod" point once per month that would work as a normal mod point except it would allow going past +5.
So after the holidays we could quickly read the articles with only the very few +6+ posts.
Unless it goes to 11, I'm not impressed.
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Re:The most valuable part of some sites (Score:5, Funny)
"It's obvious that comments are what make some websites attractive. This is one of them."
It's sure as hell not the unique, timely stories with well-edited summaries that keeps people coming back to Slashdot.
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It's obvious that comments are what make some websites attractive. This is one of them.
Not a bad comment, but come on, hardly enough to make this website attractive.
"only a few"? (Score:2)
>> Only a few [high-traffic sites] seem to have tried user-moderation systems
Haven't been to YouTube lately, have you?
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YouTube doesn't go far enough. I'd like to see better features for screening out the "noise" like dupes (har har) some click whore reposted as well as those annoying videos that have been flagged down, yet continue to pull in users based on misleading titles, descriptions, etc.
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This:
MartinJrMakesPoopVideos: hi everybody i just started my onw chanel, its really awsome even tho their arn't any videos on it, click on my name and check it out cuz as a looser i base my personal validation on how many people look at my channel! I only subscribned to this sooper popular chanel so i could solicit my own garbace in the commnts
Seriously, can we do something about these kids? Like, send Tonya Harding over to break their shins? I hear she could use the money.
Sorry, didn't read TFA.... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but (Score:2)
The more moderated, the less honest (Score:4, Insightful)
The more you moderate a forum, or prevent users from posting anonymously, the less honest it will be. If you really must moderate, do like Slashdot and let the users do it.
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:4, Insightful)
The more you moderate a forum, or prevent users from posting anonymously, the less honest it will be.
And dishonest too - it clips both ends of the curve.
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I have a lifetime ban on moderating, because I up-voted "The First Slashdot Troll Post Investigation"!
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Me too. I like to think of it as a kind of "get-out-of-jury-duty-for-life" benefit!
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:5, Insightful)
More moderated = more groupthink.
That is not a good thing.
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:5, Insightful)
However, without moderation, the noise often overtakes the signal and you're left without any discussion, debate, or sharing of useful information whatsoever. Also not a good thing.
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With excessive moderation you're left without any discussion or debate because dissension gets modded down.
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Unfortunately it will always depend on the honesty of the moderators. Spreading the power among many moderators is no solution either as the assumption that a group of people is less biased than a single person is wrong and dangerous. People don't arrive at opinions by carefully and rationally weighing all the evidence (not enough time in the world) etc. but by picking them up from other people. 99% of our 'opinions' are memes and we are just carriers. A well picked individual with some effort can overcome
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not a good thing.
Nor is it a bad thing since unpopular opinions are in general unpopular for good reason.. Groupthink exists with or without moderation, in fact if moderation fails to highlight the group's main opinion(s) then it has failed to do what it was designed to do. It's simple really, if you want to know what the group thinks then browse at +4/5, if you want to know what everyone thinks browse at -1.
Now if we look at your current +5 score, we can deduce that "groupthink==BadThing(TM)" is a popular opinion on Slashdot, not one that I hold myself but never the less it does represent a significant and popular "group thought".
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The exception is, of course, companies that can afford to monitor comments. So anything I write about goggle that doesn't imply they are g-d will be modded down. OTOH, such comments will often be modded up by others. I have seen up to 10 mod points being used to argue over my Google comments. Not to isolate google. MS and Åpple also appear to have a contingent
Which come
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Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot's system only lets users mod a comment one point at a time, they can't mod a comment higher than 5, they can't use all their mod point on one comment, they can't mod their own comments, and enough people are given mod points at any one time that the biases should reflect those of the users.
You can also read the FAQ [slashdot.org].
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet it still doesn't work very well. Take a look at any story involving, say, US politics or copyright issues and you will find that any post that strongly disagrees with the groupthink of the majority gets modded as Troll or Flamebait even when it is clearly not.
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that says more about the general discussion around things like politics than anything else.
People dont want to discuss it, they want to yell it at one another loudly. The louder voices tend to 'win' more.
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:5, Interesting)
The simple answer is that there is no perfect moderation system; they all suck in different ways. Democratic systems like that on Reddit give the power of moderation to the users, and democracy is frequently called "tyranny of the majority" for a good reason: unpopular, minority opinions are always suppressed because the majority doesn't like them. The alternative is non-democratic moderation, where the moderation is done by a group of elites, which is what you usually see on sites like newpaper sites. The problem there, of course, is that you're subject not to the biases of the majority of the users, but the biases of the elites or the owners of the websites (so comments the newpaper owners don't like get deleted). Or, you can try to have a hybrid system somewhat like Slashdot has, where there's some elites who have super-moderation capabilities but the users also have powers, and also some of the users are given more powers (metamoderation). This sounds good in theory, but doesn't seem to work out in practice any better than the alternatives, it's just different.
Personally, I think the big problems with moderation on Slashdot are 1) users don't have many opportunities to moderate (they're only given points once in a while), unlike on Reddit where any user can mod any post at any time, and 2) users aren't allowed to moderate posts in the same discussion as one they post in, which leads to many users (like myself) not bothering to use the moderation points they're given. I don't feel like being restricted from speaking my mind just because I tried to mod up someone's post.
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and enough people are given mod points at any one time that the biases should reflect those of the users
So there will be bias but it is the bias that reflects the users.
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Serious question: What ideology or opinion constitutes, in your eyes, "the groupthink of the majority"?
The reason I ask is that I've had people complain about "groupthink" when they encounter resistance to ideas that are demonstrably absurd, e.g. "UFOs piloted by gray-skinned aliens visited Earth, abducting random people out of their beds."
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:5, Insightful)
See, the funny thing about that is that I've had many very liberal opinions modded into oblivion solely for their conclusions. So I'm having a hard time getting convinced that there's some sort of liberal effort to mod down your posts.
I took the liberty of reviewing the recent posts of yours that had been modded down. In some cases, you indeed have a legitimate gripe: Reasonable people can differ about the correct way to handle the Syrian civil war, for example. But here's something else you wrote that got modded to -1 quickly:
Spending money on a bullshit "green" scams does not benefit mankind either. Green energy with Democrats in power is like defense with Republicans in power, a buzzword to facilitate transfer of taxpayer money to private hands.
Here are some legitimate reasons to mod that down:
1. The use of the words like "bullshit" and "scam" were unnecessarily abusive. You can argue that the programs in question are a poor use of funds without language like that.
2. You provided no evidence or logical argument for your position. Among other things, nothing in your post refuted the idea that the green energy programs were exactly what they said they were.
3. Since green energy programs cost taxpayers approximately 3.5% of the amount we spend on the military, equating them is misleading. (The 3.5% number comes from the $90 billion cited by the Romney campaign divided by approximately $2600 billion reportedly spent on the military over the same period.)
A non-troll post that would probably not get the same treatment would have been written something like this:
"Green energy programs in the past have not been very effective. After spending $90 billion on them, green sources still account for only 7.3% of energy consumption. This will be just yet another waste of money."
Re:The more moderated, the less honest (Score:4, Interesting)
How is moderation by site-users more honest than moderation by site-operators? You get biases either way.
A blessed and approved site admin has ultimate authority to delete viewpoints that disagree with his. It's won't have a community feel - it is simply an opinion portal for the admin. And frankly, most people have so many biases that they're unable to pull it off and keep their site both interesting and relevant. The internet's history is littered with these kinds of failures; see kuro5hin for a dramatic example.
By contrast, on Slashdot each user is given very few mod points, and then only when they participate positively, and is further prevented from moderating in a thread where they've posted. It limits one person's ability to really sway a discussion. Instead, you get a general overall idea of which comments are worth more according to the entire community. (There's also the flag mechanism for notifying an admin of true spam and racist copy pasta trolls, but the admins still have to answer to each other for wielding that weapon.)
Sure, you could probably farm a bunch of sock puppets and mod-bomb people you disagree with, but there's no payoff. You get no personal benefit or gain out of out-trolling someone, certainly not enough to make it worth the effort.
It's an elegant solution to a really, really hard problem.
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Discussion isn't useless when everyone already has a bias and a predetermined opinion. There's always a chance a minority member will be able to sway the opinion of the majority. Otherwise, the majority can at least discuss among themselves why they feel that way and further explore their opinions on the issue, in greater depth and detail. Suppose a bunch of concentration camp survivors get together to discuss their experience; they sure as hell don't want to hear the opposite "side", the guards and othe
'the comments are where the real America is.' (Score:5, Funny)
Horribly depressing.
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Well that's a good indication that your locality is full of racists and bigots. Maybe you should consider relocating to a new city or state.
yo dawg (Score:5, Funny)
Yo dawg, I heard you like comments, so I made a comment on your story about comments on comments, so you can comment while you comment.
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Yo dawg, I heard you like comments, so I made a comment on your story about commenting on comments, so you can comment on comments while you comment on comments.
FTFY... or I just gave Xhibit a stroke.
Meh, either way...
There's an old (by internet standards) expression, (Score:2)
'Never look at the bottom half of the internet.'
God help us! (Score:4, Insightful)
'the comments are where the real America is.'
There was this article recently on Yahoo! Finance about people giving Liberty to prevent a financial melt down.
Anyway, the article and many commentors parroted the argument that the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 caused the financial meltdown. Many commentators and pundits have "reasoned" that the law caused the meltdown because it "forced" banks to lend to poor people who couldn't afford the loans. Did they have data to back up what they said?
Fuck no! Rush, Hannity, O'Rielly and all their clones pulled it out of their ass.
Here is what some economists found out [minneapolisfed.org]
...the available evidence seems to run counter to the contention that the CRA contributed in any substantive way to the current mortgage crisis.
tl;dr; Most of "Real America" just mindlessly parrots what they see and hear in the media.
Re:God help us! (Score:4, Interesting)
I fucking pray that Yahoo comments are not "where the real America is," because if they are, we are sooooooooooooooooooo fucked.
Nothing but a bunch of idiotic, xenophobic racists over there, man, I swear. Hell, I'll go to Yahoo and stick a comment or two of pure factual information, with references, just to balance out the stupid... comments which then get modded into oblivion because I don't follow their groupthink of "Muslims bad, liberty bad, police state and genocide good."
To reiterate, I really, really fucking hope Yahoo comments are not representative of the pulse of the nation.
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Well you're sadly mistaken: those comments are representative of the pulse of a large part of the nation. That's why the country needs to break apart into separate republics, so that those of us in more progressive regions can be free of the people of that ilk who live in the more backwards regions.
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Nothing but a bunch of idiotic, xenophobic racists over there, man, I swear.
A significant portion of America are idiotic, xenophobic racists. For example:
- In 2013, approximately 15% of Americans believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya, despite lots of evidence to the contrary.
- The newly crowned Miss America has brown skin and dark hair, because her parents were from India. There was a lot of online activity complaining about how horrible it was that we were giving the Miss America award to an Arab who was a member of Al Qaida.
- Based on recent elections for governor in my home sta
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tl;dr; Most of "Real America" just mindlessly parrots what they see and hear in the media.
Yes, but that's really irrelevant: Those are the opinions of all those Americans, regardless of where they got those opinions.
This is beyond stupid. . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
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Comments about comments about comments (Score:2)
It's hard to get comment systems right . . . (Score:2)
Real America (Score:2)
Meaning: racist, misogynist, vain, hide-bound, jingoistically ignorant; all smothered in the secret sauce of the implied threat of violence.
I honestly hate the idea of "rating" comments (Score:2)
... Like on Slashdot. What usually happens is that, over time, certain behaviors or ideas end up getting reinforced within the community. For example, "government bad", "open source good", "patents and copyrights bad", "bitcoins good". Or just the general cynicism about absolutely everything.
Eventually the community becomes so polarized that anyone who disagrees on some minor point gets modded into oblivion. The rating system ends up as a popularity contest, where the most commonly-held opinion will always
Since moderation is on-topic ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Since moderation is on-topic ...
The biggest weakness with Slashdot's current system is the way that early posts get a disproportionate amount of attention, and mod-points. When a new story shows up, so long as I post within 5-10 minutes it's pretty easy to get modded to +5, even as an AC.
Try it yourself - as soon as a new story hits, quickly summarize your gut reaction to the summary, hit post, and watch the mod-points accumulate. The downside, of course, is that anybody who shows up late will struggle to get heard amongst the noise.
Oh yes, and I really dislike it when 50% of an entire comments section consists of replies to one post. This seems to happen because people want their post to get noticed.
Can anybody think of a good solution to these problems? Or are there other moderation problems which need dealing with?
Moderate older comments (Score:5, Funny)
I like to moderate week-old comments, when I get mod points.
Imagine the poster's surprise: "Hey! I got modded up for a comment I wrote last week!"
Gives me a warm feeling: two parts happiness, one part mischief.
Problem is as the internet... (Score:4, Interesting)
... became widespread and new generations grew up with the internet, 99% of internet comments are mostly garbage. I've found that Websites run by intelligent, educated people who put their real face, name, background on the net tend to be more informative than random commenters as the net has grown. Since as more of the general population and new generation of kids begin to lurk and comment on websites comment quality goes through surges of greatness and mediocrity as generations come and go.
As an adult I find partisan comments the most uninformed, history and politics for anyone with any intelligence is IMMENSELY complex. Trying to apply black and white solutions and old out-dated 19th century political ideologies to complex problems is not sign of intelligence. Most of slashdot tends to fall into the extremely distorted american political spectrum since most slashdot commenters/moderators are american.
I find as the internet became a mass phenomenon slashdot comment quality has become almost as awful as the rest of the internet. The political comments tend to be the most uninformed since it highlights the deep indoctrination of the american public. Since most comments tend to be from the most populous country (america), 300 million vs say 30 million in canada.
So you get a massive boatload of nonsense when anyone mentions politics, anything deep and requiring serious thought and analysis can only usually be found through those who are honest and open and put a face to their opinions.
Those of us who see the world through technical eyes know many of our current values, ideals and institutions are not in line with what is actually true about the universe. We're doing all sorts of irrational bone headed shit in all areas. I find america and americans bizarre in their adherence to simple minded political and values based sloganeering. It's not the sign of an erudite mind.
In order to find solutions you have to study how institutions change over time and they must be informed by how the universe and nature actually operate, all of our institutions are totally out of line with this kind of thinking.
Comments are mostly an avenue of hate and tyranny (Score:5, Interesting)
This is likely to get modded down to "-1 Disagree", but I guess that's the point. If someone says something positive about religion, protecting their children's innocence, etc... it gets modded down. Don't think like the loud members of the group? Here's a mod down for you. Think that the teleology of the universe points to a cosmic designer? Here's a "-1 Disagree" for you and a bunch of hate to go with it. You must think like the hive mind or go unheard.
Comment moderation like that on Reddit and Slashdot censors dissension and encourages hate.
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Apparently you are mistaken, since as I reply, your comment has a score of 4.
It is true that some people mod down comments because they disagree. But there are often other cooler heads who bring balance to the moderation.
Usually, controversial comments get modded down because there is no actual substance to the comments. And since such posters often start with an attitude of paranoia and overestimate their own importance, they DO get modded down, and they think they are proved right.
Comments (Score:3)
No Comment
Re:First post! (Score:5, Insightful)
Made even more appropriate by not actually being the first post.
I never understood the desire to 'first post'. It's like saying "I've not a single useful thought in my head, and look how fast I can let everybody know it!"
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I'm pretty sure you just uncovered the secret to Slashdot's success.
Re:First post! (Score:5, Informative)
If you structured it so "last post" was a thing, people would never stop commenting. At least the race to first post is self limiting.
Re:First post! (Score:5, Funny)
Last Post!!!
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Well, it is kind of difficult to contribute to a world in which you don't exist.
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Have you tried Kinja? It is *not* a positive in any sense of the word. It is terrible, bloated software packed with bugs. It often doesn't work at all, or on some major browsers, and when it does work it often screws up any formatting the author attempts.
Worst of all, it's run by free moderation -- as in, there is no oversight or appeal process for bad moderation calls. You can get into an argument with a moderator and find yourself blocked from the entire site, with no recourse. Kinja enables overzeal
Re: (Score:2)
Also by poster, as some tend to be more interesting than opthers.
It's a shame Slashdot hasn't done anything to make its moderation system more dynamic. The +1 bonus doesn't really do much to separate from the noise when just about everyone gets to use it. It would be nice if karma could be used promote top posters even higher. Something like a +2 or +3 bonus if you've had three 5's (possibly excluding +5 funny) in the past month.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. It's less a jury and more a beauty contest, where the judges are all in the audience... and nobody has enough time to vett all the comments so the sooner you reply the more likely you are to get noticed.