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Journal Surak's Journal: Changes Slashdot doesn't want YOU to know about! 78

Journal by Surak

Several changes have been made rather unannounced recently.

1. There is a limit of 10 AC posts per IP address per day. (Unconfirmed)
2. A Funny moderation no longer earns you karma. Taco's words: "Note that being moderated Funny doesn't help your karma. You have to be smart, not just a smart-ass." (Confirmed)
3. Comments moderated down twice lose karma bonus. The second major reason is more social. The karma bonus is designed to accelerate the moderation system. The bonus is given to trusted users who have a history of positive contribution. Essentially, the karma bonus lets the user moderate their own comment, nudging it from Score:1 to 2. Normal moderation has the balance of meta moderation, but since the karma bonus is not subject to normal M2, we decided 2 moderators could counteract the bonus. (Confirmed)

The last one I understand, but the first two...well...the problems I have are:

1. Taco said that this would *never* happen, but it has. This was done specifically to censor ACs.

2. I don't have a problem with this per se, it makes sense to me, *but* -- you still LOSE karma if your "Funny" post gets modded DOWN after it gets modded up, but you don't GAIN karma if your post gets modded up as +1 Funny. This may ultimately cut down on the number 'funny' posts, eliminating half the reason I read Slashdot.

Update: #1 is now confirmed by two independent sources. See the thread below.

Update: Taco has now spoken on what I believe to be his reasons for #1. Perhaps he saw this journal entry and decided to comment? He doesn't admit it anyway, but interestingly enough, he does say "Ya know a very common problem on Slashdot is users who use multiple accounts and multiple AC posts to inflate the size of their viewpoint. We've seen discussions with a dozen user accounts participating, and many AC posts, but all coming from two or three IPs. Certainly these could be proxy servers or corporate firewalls, but I've seen discussions where it was quite obvious that a dozen "Personalities" involved in a discussion were actually the same person."

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Changes Slashdot doesn't want YOU to know about! More

Changes Slashdot doesn't want YOU to know about!

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  • What do you mean by unannounced? (Score:3, Informative)

    by turg ( 19864 ) * <turg@winst o n . org> on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @11:19AM (#6161157) Journal
    For #2, you quote Taco -- does this not constitute an announcement? It certainly doesn't seem to be something they "don't want you to know about" if it's in the FAQ.

    Anyway, thanks for the notice. This is interesting stuff.

    I wonder about the 10 AC posts per IP, though. I'll bet it's more complicated than that -- perhaps there are some IP's that are limited to 10, but I doubt that all of them are. (If you don't mind, I'm going to test this right here in your journal)

    • For #2, you quote Taco -- does this not constitute an announcement?

      Not really. It's buried in the FAQ. It was not announced at all, and it's been in place for almost a week now. Did *you* know about it until I told you?

      • So only front-page stories constitute announcements?
        • So only front-page stories constitute announcements?

          Not per se, no. But how many Slashdot users regularly check the FAQ for updates? I think if you're going to make a change *that* large in the moderation system, then it should deserve to be noticed by the Slashdot populace at large. Worse than it not being on the main page, it's buried in an *existing* FAQ item, rather than having a new FAQ item created for it. How many Slashdot users go back and read FAQ questions they've *already* read? That's t
          • But how many Slashdot users regularly check the FAQ for updates?

            More to the point, how many users actually care? And if they do care, and have a question about it, where would the first place be that they would look for an answer? The FAQ, maybe.

            So I really don't see an issue here. cmdrtaco made a change to improve slashdot, noted it in the FAQ, and life goes on.

            -Brent
          • I would have liked to be notified of this. What really cheeses me though is the fact that I have no idea what my Karma really is anymore. It's "excellent", but what does that really mean?

            And here I was getting into massive flamewars last night, thinking that my +5 Funny comments were going to buffer any negative moderation.

            Also, I hate the redundant and "overrated" moderation options. They are rarely used right.

  • Seems unfair to me, too (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SolemnDragon ( 593956 ) <solemndragon.gmail@com> on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @11:24AM (#6161210) Homepage Journal
    mind, i never really post as an AC, but i thoroughly approve of the right of people to do so. It goes against the slashdot grain to do otherwise; why else would we have a Your Rights Online section? Are we now denying other people the rights that we defend?



    I agree with the funny karma being a problem. You can lose Karma but not gain it, that's unfair. I have had excellent karma thus far, with a minimum of posting article text (I have no clue why, but i'll go with it...) And i do use karma as a measure of how well my posts are received, and i do use i in filtering. But i want the funy posts modded up where i can see them, and i want the consistently outrageously funny to receive karma bonuses so that i can see them, too. You take a high risk of being troll-branded when you crack a joke on /. , and that should be rewarded when it actually comes across as funny. If your karma can be pounded down when you make a joke that no-one gets, even if it's inoffensive, your karma should go up when they figure out the next one.



    I'm finding that i don't tune in to the new games section much. I'm resisting the subscription push right now mainly because i prefer to pay for things by check (one little idiosyncracy per person, all the rest must be MASSIVE idiosyncracies...) and because i don't see how looking at ad-free pages will help slashdot when i actually read the ads. I'm wondering how much more things will change as they go more and more member-exclusive, and how much farther thay'll push before they hit the collective fed-up point. I like the slashdot that i first came here for. It's changing and not all for the better.

    • I'm resisting the subscription push right now mainly because i prefer to pay for things by check

      Slashdot accepts PayPal, and I'm sure SOMEONE will correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe PayPal accepts checks.

      and because i don't see how looking at ad-free pages will help slashdot when i actually read the ads.

      By default you get 10 per day -- they go quickly and I tend to not even notice when I'm getting an ad-free page. I don't subscribe for the ad-free pages, I subscribe 1) to help them out and kee
      • Slashdot accepts PayPal, and I'm sure SOMEONE will correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe PayPal accepts checks.

        Two problems here: 1) I refuse to deal with PayPal, because I do not trust them. Maybe they have changed since being taken over by eBay, but I found some of their actions questionable; and 2) PayPal refuses to deal with me. I do not have a credit card, and being in Australia, PayPal will only let me open an account if I supply a valid credit card.
        • I think PayPal has cleaned their act up somewhat since being acquired by eBay. I've had very good luck with them, and I haven't heard any PayPal horror stories since the change in ownership, but of course that could just mean that people aren't talking about it anymore or I haven't been paying enough attention. ;)

          PayPal refuses to deal with me. I do not have a credit card, and being in Australia, PayPal will only let me open an account if I supply a valid credit card.

          That's stupid. Why does PayPal hav
          • That's stupid. Why does PayPal have such stupid policies towards folks outside the U.S.? I don't see how they expect to accepted as the universal payment system on the Internet if they're not going to treat everyone the same. The Net, after all, is a global network.

            Exactly. The main reason I was looking at using PayPal was because I do not have a credit card. Requiring a credit card removes the main advantage (to me) of PayPal. :-/

            Something like WebCertificate.com [webcertificate.com] (if they are still around) sounded like

  • My thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Planesdragon ( 210349 )
    I agree with you point on #2--there should be an "unfunny" down-mod that doesn't effect your karma, either.

    As for the point about ACs--they can still post 10 times per day, which is quite a bit. It censors ACs who talk too much, which is quite a different thing. (If they post that much, they should log in--so those of us who want to hear them can mark them as friends, and those of us who don't can mark them as foes.)

  • #1 (Score:2)

    by robi2106 ( 464558 )
    I personally witnessed the 10 posts per IP for AC per day while working on the HoF journal for FK.

    robi
  • Here's what happened when I attempted my eleventh AC post today.

    Slashdot only allows anonymous users to post 10 times per day (more or less, depending on moderation). A user from your IP has already shared his or her thoughts with us that many times. Take a breather, and come back and see us in 24 hours or so.

    If you think this is unfair, please email posting@slashdot.org with your MD5'd IPID, which is [ snip ]. Let us know how many comments you think you've posted in the last 24 hours.

    Also, note that

  • What about us at work. I know we all go thru a proxy with the smame IP. Does this mean that I have make all my AC posts early in the morning or what? Or, will there be several IPs that can post as many AC as they want?
    I can see it now........

    ____________________________________
    fp by Anonymous Coward
    ____________________________________
    fp from 198.247.175.96
    And so on
  • I wrote about the 10 AC posts thing back when it was first implemented. [slashdot.org]

    As for the other changes, I don't know what you can expect.

    This moderation system is a dictatorship. It is run by the whims and impulses of Der Fuhrer, aka CmdrTaco. So forget that you have any say in how this thing works.

    • Hmmm...interesting. No I had no clue. For this item, there was no announcment that I can find.

      As you can guess by my user number, I've been a regular on Slashdot for a *long* time. Not as long as some, but probably longer than most. At least 4 years.

      Back when I started, Taco and company actually DID care about what the community thought. Ideas about how the (then non-existent) moderation system would work were solicited from the community in the form of front page stories. Taco & co. would actual
      • I've been here awhile too, it's only by habit i still come back. You're right, this place has gone to absolute shit, but the editors are either blind or don't care. Meanwhile, Taco is dreaming up some new shit to put in the moderation system that nobody else cares about. [slashdot.org] Talk about not seeing the forest from the trees.

        The place is still one of the funniest on the net though, with all the groupthink and foaming at the mouth zealots who talk out of their asses.

      • Heh, Surak, that was one of the best summaries of the problems with Slashdot, with special emphasis on CmdrTaco.

        Your post was exactly what I was thinking after my latest CmdrTaco run-in. After being fed up with the horrible handling of rejected stories, I emailed CmdrTaco briefly stating that the idea of paying for all the rejected stories is popular, profitable, and would greatly improve Slashdot. He responded with

        "This suggestion is ancient, and is extensively discussed in the FAQ."

        Idiot. It
        • Heh, Surak, that was one of the best summaries of the problems with Slashdot, with special emphasis on CmdrTaco.

          Why thank you, Helix! ;)

          I'd like to believe that Slashdot has sold out, and that they do care about revenue. That's called capitalism...and it can pump out some nice products. But it appears Rob isn't even interested in really making money either. "Subscribe! It's $5! Ya! Of course, you could easily block those ads with Mozilla on your own...but go ahead and pay me anyways...because...umm...
          • Well, I've gotta set the story straight. If I rip on people, such as CmdrTaco, and I'm wrong in some places, I better fess up.

            After writing CmdrTaco back about his blunt email, I received a reply back that yes, the idea of rejected stories is in the FAQ. It's near the bottom...and for some reason, I'd skipped over that about 5 times.

            He also apologized for being blunt and not saying "thanks for your suggestion in the last email." Lemme get the quote..

            I apologize for not sounding professional,
            • Fair is fair. But before you go on thinking Taco is the greatest guy on the planet, realize that he's human and he has his problems. Ego is one of them. I'll post a link to it at some point, but somewhere in the story about the IRC chat tonight (that I will be unable to attend due to an unfortunate schedulign conflict -- so if *someone* could please tape it ... err...log it for me. ;) is a link to the exchange with the infamous Signal 11, the original karma whore. Taco was *not* too nice to him, at leas
              • mmmm....tacos....

                Heh, btw, I definitely don't think Taco's the greatest guy on the planet. He's just barely off my foes list. But after I ripped him apart, using many baseless reasons, I had to set my story straight. He's less of a jerk, but still a jerk. =)
        • After being fed up with the horrible handling of rejected stories, I emailed CmdrTaco briefly stating that the idea of paying for all the rejected stories is popular, profitable, and would greatly improve Slashdot.

          This seems like a strange but intriguing idea to me. Who's going to do the paying for rejected stories? The submitters? The subscribers? slashdot? Why would anyone pay for rejected stories to begin with? And how are rejected stories mishandled? They are just rejected. There doesn't seem

  • AC posting is important, but you shouldn't forget why it's important and what it's good for. It isn't so that someone can post "BSD is dying" 11 times.

    If you have important samizdat to distribute anonymously, I think you'll probably get to speak your mind and get The Word out. And if you can't (perhaps you share a proxy with the BSD is Dying guy) and you have an acute need, you can appeal to posting@slashdot.org as the message suggests. Or you can post to one of many other sites that Slashdot readers v

  • You actually would state that the 'Funny' posts under stories are half the reason you read Slashdot? That's depressing - considering the state of 'Funny' posts here.

    Almost every time I metamoderate, I mark a post's moderation as "funny" as unfair. Why? Because so much gets labeled as funny, but so little of it seems to be that way. Sometimes it seems that the only difference between a "funny" post and a "troll" post is which kind of moderation it first got, or what it's trying to be "funny" about (the
    • No. I don't read for posts that are moderated 'Funny', I read for funny posts. Not everything moderated 'Funny' is funny, but one of the ways you *find* funny posts, of course, is to look for stuff moderated 'Funny'. I need a good laugh now and then and there *is* some genuinely good, belly busting humour on Slashdot. It's not as often as usual, but I can usually find a few genuinely funny posts a day. Occassionally I even find one so funny I almost pee my pants. But that's rare.

      That being said, a lo
    • You actually would state that the 'Funny' posts under stories are half the reason you read Slashdot? That's depressing - considering the state of 'Funny' posts here.

      Half of the reason I read slashdot is the Funny posts.

      Almost every time I metamoderate, I mark a post's moderation as "funny" as unfair. Why? Because so much gets labeled as funny, but so little of it seems to be that way. Sometimes it seems that the only difference between a "funny" post and a "troll" post is which kind of moderation it fir
  • for having a sense of humor, and sharing it.

    Is it no wonder I rarely bother posting anymore.

  • 1. The limit of 10 AC posts per day is from July 2002 [slashcode.com].

    That you haven't noticed it until now is probably a sign that it's quite unobtrusive (which we like to see!). But it has worked extremely well to stop crap. Note that the "10" is increased if your posts are modded up, and the way that works out in reality is that real posters almost never notice it, while trolls and crapflooders hit the limit frequently.

    2. Yep, that's the one thing you found that's recent. It's in the FAQ [slashdot.org].

    We may yet tweak this, not

    • Note that the "10" is increased if your posts are modded up, and the way that works out in reality is that real posters almost never notice it, while trolls and crapflooders hit the limit frequently.

      That would be why I never hit it. That and I probably don't post 10 AC posts a day anyway. I usually post a few, but I doubt I ever post 10. Usually either A) to spread a rumour I don't want to take credit for B) because if my employer new I said that, I'd be fired, or C) to screw around with the trolls. ;)

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