CmdrTaco's Journal: Beta Metamod Updates

This won't significantly affect most of you, but we have been working on some meta mod changes. The most user visible change is that the UI we used to use was thrown out, and instead we are using one based on the firehose. Subscribers will see it when they go to the old metamod link although users can see it by going to this version of those hose

The first real change is that we've changed the meanings of the UI around. The old system is 'Fair' and 'Unfair' and the new system is '+' and '-'. The meanings are subtly different. You are no longer rating individual 'Insightful' or 'Troll' or whatever... you are now stating basically "Is this comment good or bad for you". Personally, since I find very few Score:5 funny comments to be actually really funny (and not just cliche memes) I '-' most of them. You are encouraged to be harsh if you don't actually think something is insightful or funny, call it such. The system encourages more of what you + and less of what you -.

You are also welcome now to do more than 10 m2 per day... however we internally have diminishing returns after 10, so you can do more, but they start to matter less and less.

There will undoubtedly be bugs so feel free to email me or vroom at slashdot if you find them. Probably next week or so we'll move this out to everyone, so your assistance is appreciated.

just to check

[stoolpigeon]

I'm confused a bit.

When I used to metamod - I would look at how the comment was modded and state if I thought the moderation was fair or not.

If I understand the new system and instructions, I'm now grading the comment itself and how that affects the moderation depends on what it was. So for example, the first comment I just saw there had been modded troll. If I hit the plus I say the comment is useful and metamod the moderation of troll as unfair? If a comment was modded insightful and I hit negative I'm

Re:

[Captain Splendid]

Nah, it's not just you, I'm similarly confused.

Not that I do much M2 anymore anyway...

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[CmdrTaco]

Basically, you're saying "Good Comment" and "Bad Comment"... like, did you get something from this comment or not.

The reason for this is that basically we can double up on moderations... if you say this is a "Good" comment by clicking "+", you are implicitly agreeing with "Insightful" and "Informative" and disagreeing with "Troll" or "Flamebait". Basically, it just lets us be more efficient with our limited M2 votes in the system.

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[lab16]

if you say this is a "Good" comment by clicking "+", you are implicitly agreeing with "Insightful" and "Informative" and disagreeing with "Troll" or "Flamebait".

So if somebody rated a comment troll, but I think it's funny, I should rate a +? What if the comment could go both trollish/funny? What exactly are the repercussions for the original modders for getting disagreed with a lot? Will they get a message each time they were agreed/disagreed with, or could they just get silently banned from modding like in the current system?

Does this affect underrated and overrated? The old metamod system never included those, so those mods were abused a lot.

And what about contex

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[CmdrTaco]

Well, it's up to you. What you are basically saying is "Is this a positive contribution to your Slashdot experience, or not". We'll interpret that under the hood to determine the fairness/unfairness/funnyness/unfunnyness of comments.

I think we can logically extend this to over/under as well. ALthough that's not in there yet, it certainly could be.

The 'Read More' button links to the comment in context. Maybe we should change that word.

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[florescent_beige]

Does this affect underrated and overrated? The old metamod system never included those, so those mods were abused a lot.

I second that question. I continue to be mystified why some moderations should arbitrarily be exempt from M2. What are the benefits and do the benefits outweigh the problems caused by their abuse?

I don't know if this is a bug or not...

[Shadow Wrought]

When I click on the plus or minus there is no indication that anything has happened, one way or the other. There is also nothing to click on the bottom of the screen that I saw to indicate that I was done metamodding, so I'm not sure how the system can tell an abstention from having to leave the metamod page. Finally, there is a large "WHY" underneath the +/- which seems to collapse the headings, but does nothing else. I rarely use the firehose because it doesn't tend to render well for me (I tend to sla

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[CmdrTaco]

I've routed the bug report to those in charge. I thought that one was fixed already- sorry about that. But that's what beta testing is for :)

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[Shadow Wrought]

I tried it again at home with firefox and it works very well. Intuitive and easy. I like also being able to go through and indicate not only whether it is a + or -, but that you can rate it as well. My only suggestion would be that, sicne you're effectively moderating a pool of comments, hide the UID and the moderation. That way you're less inclined to vote up a comment because it is from a friend, or vote it down if it is a foe. You also don't have the bias of seeing how someone else rated it, too. T

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[CmdrTaco]

we thought about obfuscation a bit this time around and decided against it... since anyone can always click through and read the whole comment in context, it's totally just on the honor system anyway, so it's just not worth trying. Besides that, if the user's name is 'FuckWad69' maybe that SHOULD influence your moderation, if only a little... we've regularly have users who create troll accounts with names that indicate exactly the nature of their trolling behavior. Part of the idea of M2 is to give them a

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[multisync]

by Shadow Wrought (586631)

When I click on the plus or minus there is no indication that anything has happened, one way or the other. There is also nothing to click on the bottom of the screen that I saw to indicate that I was done metamodding, so I'm not sure how the system can tell an abstention from having to leave the metamod page ...

by CmdrTaco (1)

I've routed the bug report to those in charge. I thought that one was fixed already

Sorry for the late reply, but I just found out about the changes when I met

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[CmdrTaco]

It's supposed to give you visual feedback, but there's probably a browser glitch. What browser/version are you on?

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[multisync]

I was using FF 2.0.0.11. I just loaded the meta-mod page on my laptop, which is running FF 3.0.1. The comments were different, but I still see no "submit" or "finished" type button, so I assume I just hadn't waited enough time before meta-modding again. Do you just meta-moderate the comments then close the browser window to indicate you are finished?

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[CmdrTaco]

when you click + or - does the button get greyer and appear more depressed?

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[multisync]

When I click on the + and - buttons, they "push in." When I went back the next day and found the same comments, the ones that I had clicked + on were still "pushed in," and the same for the ones where I had selected -, or left unselected. It remembered all of my choices.

When I went to the Meta-Moderation page this morning, I thought it had given me 10 fresh comments, but I just looked at it again and it's just the first three that are new to me. The other seven are comments I meta-moderated on Saturday, wit

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[jamie]

Looking into it, thanks. Feel free to email me with more thoughts if you have them :)

You will be shocked to learn

[tqft]

that the new metamod does not (appear to) work in IE6 - same as firehose normal - broken in IE6. It could be work but I cna't tell - the buttons didn't click, I went back in and the same comments were up for metamod - so it doesn't look like it worked at all.

If you are having a problem with not enough metamod - will dropping the IE6 users hurt?

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[CmdrTaco]

IE6 won't matter in the slightest. It is only a small sliver of our total population, and even a smaller sliver of our active participating population. I'd like IE6 to work, but since it is a small/shrinking group so I'd rather worry about other things first.

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[MollyB]

I have a similar problem to GP but I'm using Firefox. There is no apparent way to leave the page "submitted". Several times I've been asked to m2, but the comments are the same ones I thought I did.
Why is there no Metamoderate button?

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[CmdrTaco]

Ajax ;)

Nifty

[Xenographic]

It seems rather nice. Though I wish there were an easier way to see context rather than leaving the page. Can't you just load the parent and maybe a few siblings on demand?

Now if we could get comments out of the firehose for logged out folks, and I could figure out how to set the logged-in firehose to show me something other than Idle + stories already on the front page by default, that would be nice, too.

Then maybe you can move on to options that let you read all replies in a thread, no matter what it's

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[CmdrTaco]

Well, clicking 'Read More' takes you directly to the comment, and all it's parents are visible- although in abbreviated form.

The plan is to lower the color thresholds and reduce their visibility within the normal hose in most cases- only the very best comments would be visible.

Not sure about your firehose filter issues- try creating a filter and clicking the word 'untitled'. You can name the tab and revisit it later.

'Mark all as Read' is a reasonable suggestion. Maybe someday...

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[Xenographic]

Usually, my problem is that I want to read *replies* (e.g. children of my own posts) without having to download every comment in the story just because some AC replied to me and I'm curious to see what they said.

You're right that it's pretty easy to go *up* the tree. But sometimes I need to go down, because I want to respond to (or at least read) whoever replied to me. And they might well be at 0 just because they're an AC.

I'll try making my own firehose tab sometime. That sounds useful.

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[CmdrTaco]

Yeah more intelligent thread retrieval is on the TODO list... we want to favor the retrieval of parents and children ahead of the full thread.

Named tabs

[Xenographic]

> Not sure about your firehose filter issues- try creating a filter and clicking the word 'untitled'. You can name the tab and revisit it later.

Actually, I can't seem to name the tab. Or to be more exact, it revert to "untitled" any time I leave the page and I can't seem to get it to save. I tried pressing enter, clicking on other things, etc.

It gives me "untit" as a suggestion just as though that were a tag box, though. Is this an FF2 bug or something? I'm on the latest version. Shouldn't be any ex

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[CmdrTaco]

there's a couple of wonky bugs that we'll work out soon. We have a few ideas for fixing the UI there that we hopefully will be working on in the next few weeks anyway.

Duplicates

[nahdude812]

I saw a fair number of comments I had previously metamoderated today (yesterday being the first day I tried the new system). It remembered my choices, and had the buttons already depressed, but it ended up only giving me about 5 new comments to metamod.