Journal sllort's Journal: Modbombing and Interview Control 18
Update: This comment by an AC claims that a user moderator, not an editor, was one party to the moderation attack on this comment. While an AC comment doesn't prove much, it is at this point pretty unlikely that editors were involved. I'd like to remind everyone reading that the name of the posting account isn't sufficient information to grade an entire post; in this case, the linked post is factual, polite and accurate, and fully deserving of the +5 Interesting score the users originally gave it.
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Original journal entry:
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Slashdot interviews send the best of the 5-rated user comments to an interview candidate. Users pick the best questions, and Slashdot sends the interview. Right?
Maybe.
Take a look at the Fyodor Interview. Scroll down to this comment which asks, in a polite fashion, whether Fyodor has ever chosen to use his hacking skills to break the law, and cites the Slashdot troll hacking incident detailed earlier in my journal. This question received a score of 5 from the users of Slashdot, and was therefore eligible to be part of Fyodor's interview.
Today, alert reader Gendou pointed out that four days after the story posted, a flurry of moderation activity had occurred in this posts's thread. The post was moderated down as a "Troll", heavily, till it reached threshold 3, and every comment in the thread which mentioned Fyodor's hacking incident also received large quantities of "Troll" moderation.
Now, who gets moderator points, opens up a four day old story, and starts using moderation to push an agenda? More than 5 points were used in the attack, which means that either a large group of users acting in concert attacked the thread, or a user who is gaming Slashdot's system attacked the thread, or an editor did it. Who was bent on removing any shred of legitimacy from complaints that this question was not forwarded to Fyodor?
The users of Slashdot gave this comment a score of 5.
Slashdot Moderation is unaccountable, and I don't know who did this. For now, I'd like anyone who saw that the users of Slashdot moderate this question to 5 to vouch for that fact in the comments, as I am vouching here. We may never find out who manipulated the comment scores, but we can set the record straight.
the fight is fixed. story at 11. (Score:1, Troll)
Re:The mods just proved our point. (Score:1)
Re:The mods just proved our point. (Score:2)
DO you know what this does to my karma?! Now I have to sling rock on the streets!
actually, thats really hysterical!
Re:The mods just proved our point. (Score:1)
Just for the record he also moded you up somewhere else. So it's a wash. Just a little joke friendly joke via the moderation system.
Re:The mods just proved our point. (Score:2)
Jokes don't always have to be friendly to be funny (although sometimes I need the punchline explained to me so I don't go into a wild rage and annihilate the universe in a blind rage of rotating blades)
Re:The mods just proved our point. (Score:2)
Re:the fight is fixed. story at 11. (Score:2)
Ability to spell? Triple Ha!
Standard Response (Score:1)
Re:Standard Response (Score:2)
No patch is needed. If perhaps someone could bribe an editor, they could see exactly who moderated each comment. The feature is already there, but only available to administrators.
Obligatory Matrix tie-in (Score:4, Funny)
Neo: Someone?
Morpheus: I won't lie to you, Neo. Every single man or woman who has stood their ground, EVERYONE who has fought an editor has been $rtbl'd. But where they have failed, you will succeed.
Neo: Why?
Morpheus: I've seen an editor bitchslap an entire message thread with one command. Men have emptied their mod points and affected nothing but their own karma. Yet their Perl code is and their power are still based in a world that is built on rules, and because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.
Re:Obligatory Matrix tie-in (Score:2)
Slashdot (Score:2)
I kind of wish Roblimo was still more actively involved with Slashdot, when he was around it seemed to provide much needed adult supervision.