retroworks's Journal: Wondering Who Uses Slashdot Journal, and Why

I have used slashdot for many years and have seen some changes in it. And I'm still actually learning things about it.

One of the things I discovered recently is that I have a "foe" list, or rather three "freaks". It would not have occurred to me to single out another slashdot user and "follow them" as "friend or foe". So I'm wondering how that works. It would be most useful if it's Slashdot that observes someone is statistically modding down someone else repeatedly - thereby calculating them to be a "foe or freak", and calculating that someone is a "friend or fan" based on a habit of modding the user up. That would make sense. If on the other hand, someone is logging in and finding another user and clicking that they are a "foe", that might be behind what I observe to be increasing levels of Anonymous Posts.