OSNews

For some period of time, I will be watching the reports like a hawk. If it's overused, I may flat out delete the reports, ban users from reports, etc. I'm hoping it works well.

I've also been considering that if a "report" is judged fair, good, but if they are judged "unfair," it costs the "reportER" in trust. We'll see.

I never understood why OSNews treated a negative vote like it was any more special or weighty than a positive vote.

If somebody says something offensive, or posts a comment that contains personal attacks, of course they should be moderated; however, there are many occasions where users post in utter ignorance and those comments should be moderated down as well, even though OSNews doesn't have a policy against ignorance.

My reason for thinking this way is that while some people who read OSNews are very knowledeable, others are not. It is not fair to those readers to have somebody post inaccurate or misleading information about an OS or some technology, and have that information remain at a 1 or 2, as far as moderation goes.

I certainly don't want OSNews's moderation system to become like Digg. I hate Digg because of its moderation system. At the same time, I think OSNews should make accomodations for negatively moderating comments that are either ignorant on a given topic, or purposely misleading.

What is it about Digg's moderation system you dislike?

Digg's system makes it possible for people with very good points and ideas to be buried for no other reason than some people disagree with them. Their system is heavily abused, in my opinion.

Personally I don't see much of a need for voting comments down. It gives too much 'power' to people whom band together with an agenda against an individual, company or technology preference (e.g. linux vs. windows).

I'd rather see a situation whereby comments can only be marked up or reported, and then people can filter out 'bad comments' by changing their minimum comment vote threshold to be shown. Reported comments should be immediately removed from view in the article pending review.

I'd also like to see some action against the folks who have a tendency to report inappropriately, such as temporary account suspention that increases by a day or so per offense.

For instance, once someone is flagged as, basically a bad 'reporter', their account is suspended for 1 day. For every report after that which is deemed 'bad', a day is added to which their account is suspended again. This not only increases the penalty but also would discourage bogus reporting against comments.

It should also be publically viewable whos accounts get temporarily disabled and for what comment they are being punished for.

Anyways, there's probably a lot of fine tuning to my ideas, but they are just that, ideas.

I really, really like and agree with flanque's ideas. Specifically, that it should only be a mod-up system for well-thought out or articulated ideas, with a reporting system for flat-out abusive comments.

I will echo his, and Adam's idea of punishing bad reporters, but I think there's different degrees of inappropriate reporting. Obviously, those who report a comment just because they disagree with it should be punished for wasting the moderators' time. If the comment is hostile, and confrontational, (the word vitriolic applies well here,) but the comment does not explicitly violate the terms of use, perhaps there should be little or no punishment for the reporter. And if a comment does violate the terms of use, the reporter should be given some positive level of trust. (Unknown to them or anyone else but OSNews staff.)

Of course, only the first person to report would be rewarded or punished, and though some may jump at the occasion to moderate a bad comment just to win favor with the site, this impulse should be tempered by the risk of punishment that would come from reporting incorrectly.

All staff decisions, including allocation of trust would be final. If there is a problem with someone's reporting habits, it could be taken up on an individual basis through email.

A final point to address would be the repercussions from habitual misbehavior. Of course those who flame others, who attempt to sabotage the thread, etc. might first lose their mod points for the day, then have their account suspended for a day or two, then possibly longer, with an eventual ban. I'm not quite sure what a punishment for rogue reporters would be. Maybe losing the ability to mod for the day, losing mod points, etc., and if it is determined through comparison with old comments, that they have an agenda, they could be given a warning and have their account suspended for a day or two.

I also like NOT having the average score next to your name, because I'm not interested in having any sort of contest. It's a bit more comfortable when you don't have some sort of tag attached to your name.

One last thing: 5 mod points per day.

Edited with one more idea.

Edited 2008-02-20 03:29 UTC

I agree. I see no point in even having minus. Report makes sense, for abuse, but as much as I can ignore it, it does disturb me sometimes to see people modded down by groups of people with an agenda.

Very few sites do this - have only positive moderation, but I'd like to see one that does that.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said.

I just dugg you up for that comment. :-D

My mod points have always hovered in the teens...



That's how it's done.

I've had ZERO votes since I got modded down once. As an infrequent poster, I effectively lost my voice.

You have only left 11 comments total - you've never given yourself a chance to earn any actual "trust," which is how we distribute mod points.

Once you comment, you cannot moderate. The loophole, for now, is that you can moderate and THEN comment. I've been watching it, that's not really being abused.

Am I special? I just tried it in the KDE 3.5.9 posting. I replied, then moderated.

That shouldn't happen. Try again.

I shouldn't have said anything. There goes my special power.

I think this is a really bad idea. What you're saying in effect here is that you're either allowed to comment or moderate.

I really don't see why this is being restricted. I've made suggestions above, but then found someone else's comments were also worth voting up, but I cannot, even though it's on a completely different thread.

It seems as though it's per article now. Is this right?

Yes, that's right. We have enough moderation-enabled accounts and enough available mod points that commenters - those participating - should not have to do any rewarding or cleanup.

Anyway, this may change as we explore this new moderation aspect.

I still think it's a bad idea. You're limited users way too much, particularly 'trusted users'.

Edited 2008-02-20 11:10 UTC

I totally agree.



Exactly!
It happens quite often that one adds to a discussion and then, later on, someone like butters shows up and posts a really, really good comment which should be visible for people who have set their score filter to a high value to avoid the noise.



It seems to be. Which is even worse since there are usually more than one thread per article.

I would understand if one couldn't mod down people who post into a thread originating at one's own comment or at worst in the whole thread, but a restriction voting up?

What's preventing people from just creating a second account and use that for mod'ing only?

Absolutely nothing. If you're that desperate for approval that you'd go to that much trouble just to bump yourself up a single point of ego boost - especially now that it's essentially meaningless, go for it. We can't police everything.

That was my point. Those who are prone to abusing the current system are usually those kind of people which means the abuse will just continue.




If it's essentially meaningless why not just allow moderation AND commenting?

The loophole, for now, is that you can moderate and THEN comment.
Isn't that loophole enough to say that the idea isn't a good one ?

I like the idea to get voted up comments before being able to vote.

(edit : quoted the parent)

Edited 2008-02-21 22:15 UTC

Yes, I have dont that a few times.
I do not let it annoy me though, I know that if it is a bad post, someone else will come along and mod it down again... and, if it is a good post that I had unintentionally modded down, other people will see it is a good one, and mod it back up again.

swings and roundabouts.

"in the interests of debate I wondered what an argument in favour of abolishing them might sound like!"

I have just written my arguments in favour of abolishing mod points both in this thread and in this conversation:

http://www.osnews.com/conversation/47ba3d6c/Why_this_place_is_not_a......

See how you feel about it.

I strongly disagree. We are just discussing why peer moderation doesn't always work, far from it.

I also strongly disagree. That would mean that people would be *unable* to post, just because their ideas are unpopular.

Edited 2008-02-23 10:29 UTC

hehehee and have the whole thing back the way it was when I first found the site in the late 90's

/me drops whiskey glass, rocks on chair, tips hat back and gazes at the sunset before saying....

way back then we only had two ways to show disapproval to what them ornery cusses were saying....

/me spits out chawing baccy...

there was the option to reply to the offending criter, or the "Report Abuse" button

I only one or twice had to press the report abuse button.

I think it would make the site a bit better if we went back to that ancient custom and tried it out for a few weeks. Is this possible ?

I think it is a mixture of a bad and a good idea.

I dont know which one to pick though as I am scared I will never be able to go back and use the other option

Exactly. So if there's a topic I'm interested in, I can either hand out points for others' posts that I think are especially thoughtful, or I can post something myself. But I can't do both?

That's no good...

Maybe I should only vote in topics that I have no interest in?

I agree, and in fact that's one of the things I really *hate* about Slashdot (that you can't mod a story you commented on). I'm glad OSNews has a more participative-encouraging system than Slashdot in that it gives more mod points, and I also think it should err to the side of less restriction when it comes to modding comments. It just doesn't feel natural to be told you can't mod comments any more just because you already commented on a story.... In fact, it's rather counterintuitive.... Those who comment usually have more interest/knowledge about a topic than those who don't, so why shouldn't they be allowed to mod as well?

I agree.

I was sad when OSNews adopted the voting system as I knew it was going to turn into other web forums like slashdot where instead of discussion about the topic it turns into a game to see who can get modded up or down the most. OSNews hasn't gotten as bad as slashdot or digg but still going that way

People figure out quickly what way the wind is blowing and will adjust what they say in order to score more points. Even if they disagree 100% with what they are saying but sense its virtually anonymous and the goal is to score more points they do it.

Take digg for example a not to long ago Ron Paul was the fad anything positive about him was voted way up and anything positive about Obama was voted down. But now that Obama is the fad things have switched

In theory voting systems reduce the workload of the staff, reduce trolls and increase the number of "insightful" posts. In reality it mostly creates a forum of nearly identical posts agreeing with the status quo

"2) the real weakness of the OSNews forums has been that it has not properly dealt with voting down posts. For years you could only vote a post down by trying to associate a particular post with some violation. Nonsense. People have a right to their opinion and that includes the right to vote others down."

There is a fundamental difference between a minus vote which means "I disagree" and a minus vote which means "this poster has broken the forum rules", especially when the latter is used to mean the former.
That is why I wrote that this change feels like a step in the right direction. Having said that, personally I prefer forums where there is nothing like the system here. I am and I have been a (often very respected) member of plenty of forums where you could express your consent/dissent only with a reply.
Normally such forums work very well, there is a sense of community, and a well working sense of hierarchy as well. If you have entered 2,000 useful posts you won't count the same as somebody who has entered 10 silly or trolling posts.
In such a forum a respected user can be even above an immature moderator, as it has happened to me recently.

I have said it countless times and I am going to say it once more: a forum with a minus/plus voting system promotes subgroups and fanboyism.
With other words, if I am a Linux user and there is a Windows topic (just an example) I'll do one of the following:
1)Avoid participating (that this what I'd probably do, personally)
2)Participate anyway, but not express my true feelings.
3)Risk being modded down to hell. Now nobody come and tell me that it doesn't hurt, you know that yours was only an opinion after all.

It gets even worse: you risk being modded down even by people who feel almost exactly like you, if you aren't a cheerleader all the time. Example, openSUSE is my favorite distro. A few days ago I wrote something people didn't want to hear about KDE4 and I was modded down twice.
Now somebody please explain me how this is beneficial to a discussion which is nothing but an exchange of pats on the back.