Tomble's Journal: Surprise visit from the Mod Point Fairy [updated a bit]

I wasn't expecting This!

After my last JE (and a couple of comments following it), I've found myself not on Slashdot much the past week. Not just because of the whole GMail epidemic getting my goat, but also because of copious IMing with my nice shiny new Jabber account (and not so nice Jabber client- unfortunately the only one I could find that I could use >:( ).

As such, I was rather surprised last night when I logged in briefly out of habit...
...and saw "You have 5 moderator points! Use 'em or lose 'em!"

I'd been quite sure from the way I'd not had them for the past 2 or 3 months or so, that I must have got RTBLed when I started regularly M2ing, due to my maybe slightly idiosyncratic fairness criteria (I put a much higher fairness requirement on downmods than upmods, and am not very tolerant of "redundant", for example). But apparently not!

Now, although I often look through people's old JEs and comments, I don't comment half as much as many of you. But that bit in the FAQ about picking people who're somewhere in the middle of the bell curve... well if my usage was so high that it took a week of reading little and posting *nothing* to get back to "normal", then most of you lot must be completely off the scale.

Just a bit of food for thought for others who've not seen mod points for aeons (but yeah, I'm aware of the whole "Great Slashdot Troll Post Investigation" fiasco, and how the people involved literally haven't had points for years). Eh, and now I have to find someplace to spend these things. Their shelf-life seems a bit longer than it used to be, interestingly- perhaps they realised that if people have to use them all at once, they'll be less likely to moderate thoughtfully.

(apologies to Btlzu2, BTW, for leaving that last comment to go unreplied to for so long- and to other people whose comments I left unreplied too, for that matter)

[Update: and then a couple days later... I got them again. And then yet again a couple of days after that!!! I wonder how much commenting affects the usage statistics as far as selecting moderators goes]

RTBL

[turg]

If you were RTBLed, you wouldn't get to metamoderate either.

Re:RTBL

[Tomble]

Really? I didn't realise that.... But I suppose that'd be obvious from my comment :)

I suppose on the positive side, it at least means people who have been aren't left 100% in the dark* wondering "have I or haven't I"... but the blacklist still sucks IMO.

(*-I get the impression the RTBL isn't exactly "out in the open" - I don't see it anywhere on the FAQ page or anything, but maybe I've not looked hard enough)

Well... I suppose that kind of makes my whole JE kind of redundant, doesn't it... thanks a lot! :

Re:RTBL

[turg]

Also, AFAIK the people who were RTBLed due to the Great Troll Post thing were all un-RTBLed almost a year ago.

IIRC, what is known about RTBL comes from looking at the slash code, not from anything the editors have said.

Re:RTBL

[Tomble]

They were?!?! Now how the crap did I miss that one?

*sigh*

You're full of surprises tonight, aren't you! :D

Next thing, you'll be telling me that people have tried to create alternatives to Slashdot!!

Re:RTBL

[turg]

Well, yes they have. There seems to be at least nine or ten other web sites on this Internet thingy.

You are an army of Tomble!!!!

[SolemnDragon]

Nothing else, just you are an army of tomble.

I quite agree. :)

[Interrobang]

I, for one, welcome our new Tomble overlord, even if he is occasionally evil and green. ;-)

Saw your "most eligible" post, Sol -- I think I ought to do one for Nave and Tomble. (Tomble: Aaaieee!! Nooooo!) --laugh--

Re:I quite agree. :)

[Tomble]

Goddammit, 'Bang! Eh, you'll keep... ;)

Re:You are an army of Tomble!!!!

[Tomble]

You know, that's absolutely true! Big hugs to our resident Army of Three there ;)

(this post badly delayed due to excessive use of IM keeping me off Slashdot even longer...)