Journal Okian Warrior's Journal: Is metamoderation gone? 1
Today I submitted a story suggestion noting that it's now November 2019 - the timeframe of the events of Blade Runner - linking an article comparing how the predictions of the story and movie line up with current technology...
...which was quickly downmodded as spam.
Slashdot has a problem, which is that people are targeting and methodically downmodding specific slashdot users based on their views. I suspect that some people own hundreds of accounts, and scrape the site looking for particular users, and probably phrases as well. When something comes up, they access whichever account has mod points and shut down that user or viewpoint.
I wonder if there are organizations dedicated to methodically doing this across the internet. In 2016 a group (now disbanded) "correct the record" was formed to confront social media users who posted unflattering comments about Hillary Clinton. I'm sure there was a similar group stumping for Trump that I couldn't find in a quick search.
I haven't seen an invite to meta-moderate in ages, and I think this is the problem that meta-moderation addressed. If someone unjustifiably down-votes a comment, it would eventually get reviewed by other users, and after repeated abuse that user wouldn't get moderation points.
Was meta-moderation removed?
Flagging a submission as spam is particularly insidious because your account can be locked for submitting spam articles! There's no warning - after a number of flagged submissions, you're banned. I don't want my account locked, so I will stop submitting stories to Slashdot.
Is scaring people away like this good for slashdot?
This is also a reflection of the larger issue about abuse on the internet, with ties to fake news and political lies. Someone responding to an insightful post with abusive language and insults will tend to drive that user away, and could be legitimately criticized as wrong, unfair, against the TOS or decorum of the forum, and should be discouraged. But what happens when someone unjustifiably downvotes a comment? That's not seen as abusive or insulting, but it can be disspiriting. The arguments against abuse apply to unfair moderation as well.
Right now society is discussing the effects of foreign influence on elections. Could some foreign hacker group promote a candidate in the upcoming elections to gain unfair advantage? There's more at stake here than just scaring away quality posts on slashdot - a lot more.
As one of the premier tech sites on the internet, maybe slashdot should be on the forefront of coming up with solutions to some of these problems. Meta-moderation would be a good first step, and at the very least it would experimentally test the idea.
If slashdot implements a policy that works, it could serve as a model for other sites. Slashdot could contribute to fixing what is perhaps the biggest problem facing the internet right now.
Was meta-moderation removed from slashdot?
It's a bug (Score:2)
This seems to be a bug in the system where the anti-spam flagging goes a bit nuts. It's a wonder anything gets submitted these days.