Xaltlee's Journal: Another Moderation Rant

What is UP with the constant urge to moderate EVERYTHING? Does every comment need to be rated, really? Is there a secret table somewhere that has the following data on it:

-1: Vulgar, off-topic, and ridiculous postings.
0: Dumb posts, meta-posts.
1: Semi-coherent posts, meta-posts.
2: Coherent posts, meta-posts.
3: Reasonably intelligent and interesting posts.
4: Decent posts.
5: Funny posts.

If there is no such table, why is it that "me too" posts get modded at all? How about meta-posts? Were they too high, perhaps? Maybe too low, though they have little to do with the subject? This seems to be a function of moderators applying negative points copiously.

For shits 'n giggles, I'd like to see a mod system where normal moderators only get positive points. Then high-up moderators get negative points - but they're worth 0 points, really. They just flag a post as something some people might not want to read. For example, "Vulgar", "Rant", etc. Heck, for ease of use you could let people rate their own posts when they make them, but of course there wouldn't be any agreement on that. Vulgarity would be easy to catch automatically, though. Allow more than one to be applied to each post, and let people filter the results based on their preferences. This way people mod up posts they found interesting and helpful, and yet can still filter based on level of interest and other preferences.

Something else I'd like to see - when a user gets mod, give them an easy way to change the settings to some pre-defined moderator setting. With a click of a button I can switch to -1 nested from 3 threaded, for example.

One final thing - I'm sick of wasting my modpoints to correct idiocy in the system. Stop gratuitously modding people down, ESPECIALLY for opinion posts! I metamoderate and I moderate, and one of these days I'll get you. Not that it looks like it's doing much good.

Rar! Rant over.