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Journal FortKnox's Journal: Unread.org: A taste of requirements 62

Journal by FortKnox
Ugh, its been busy, but I've at least typed some of the reqs in. Of course, they aren't formatted or numbered and a lot is missing (not to mention incomplete sentences), but at least its a start. Its more like what is running around in my brain right now. I'll add in some verbage in some of them to explain what I mean. For the non-IT, CRUD is performing all operations on a page (Create Read Update Delete). Anything with a question mark is undecided. Feel free to read, rip apart, suggest new ones, and generally question everything written. Of course, I'll be updating the crap out of the page, so check back often. When I get something I'll consider a draft, I'll make a new JE with the info. When I get home, I'll probably put this up on marotti.com all nice and snazzy-like.
You'll notice I use the term 'ranking' instead of moderation. I prefer that word, better. We are ranking posts on how they should be viewed (if its a post with something offensive, like hate (gnaa), it'll simply be deleted). And there is a 'loyalty/trust' system. That's how I'm weeding out the trolls. It'll sorta be like karma here, except it won't be based on your posts, really... mostly based on how long you are on the site and how much you participate (no bell curves!). The higher the rank, the more you can do (like... a low level entry type won't be able to post more than 1 journal a day, whereas a high level one can post as many as he/she wants).

On with the reqs:

Articles
Front page for anon/default users which includes 'voted up' articles and journal entries Written from scratch or RSS feed with editorial comments
Multiple editorials allowed, top 'voted' gets front page display? Two different bias get front page??
Archiving or removing data?
No anonymous posting (only anonymous reading)
Posting discussions will be in a nested manner (possible idea a la gmail)
Ranked Posting (moderation)... only for large discussions? Done by all users with the appropriate trust/loyalty?
Merging articles that use the same RSS article? Only 1 person can use 1 rss article at a time?
Comments require typing in the text of a morphed picture to avoid bots and spamming scripts (no 20 second/2 minute rules!)

User
Login via password
Loyalty/Trust 'ranking' system
"remember me" functionality (cookies)
Register through email
Invite system registers users with 'higher' ranking
Relationship System
Creates articles and journals
User can assign personal entries to not be placed on the front page
User can CRUD groups of other users for use in journal permissions (ie - a group to never allow to comment, etc...)
User can change look&feel of entire site with different CSS's
Can create multiple 'egos' with the same account (ie - you could have, say, jawsthedolphin and industrytroll as the same person, so you don't have to make multiple accounts and gum up the system)

Relationships and Messaging
User can select to be notified of:
-Another's journal entries/articles
-Another's Comments
User can make articles/journals 'sticky' keeping them on their personal page until the users makes the article/journal 'unsticky'
User notifications happen in a basic messaging system (web and/or email)


Permissions
Users can set permissions on any personal article or entry that is not on the front page
User can grant another user permissions, including all CRUD capabilities
User has complete ranking control over their own entries, unless it is on the front page
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Unread.org: A taste of requirements More

Unread.org: A taste of requirements

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  • Is the proposed site still going to aggregate Slashdot JE's and other external material to avoid forcing a site switch? Or has that gone by the boards?

    I like the "sticky" option very much, BTW.

    • Both... you can aggregate slashdot JEs or you can start your own JEs at unread.

      Oh, and no 20 second or 2 minute rules, damnit. SLOW DOWN COWPIE! *grumble*
      • what kind of crap-flooding defense will you have... i mean aside from the no anon-posting (which, hey, that might be enough)... but there *is* a legitimate use for a posting delay to cut down on crap flooders.

        I have found with my own site (diysearch) that banning anon-posting has worked miracles in stopping crap-flooding.

        • First, (just updated the JE) having one of those "type the text in you see in this distorted picture" to stop bots, and little things to clean stuff (like being able to delete all the posts from this IP easily), so that spamming is pointless, cause you won't be able to bask in your destruction.

          Remember, most of these jerks do it just to tick everyone off, knowing it'll take the admin tons of time to clean it all up. If cleanup is a snap, and its difficult to spam, there isn't a point in even trying.
          • yeah, that might be good. you don't think that will become a pain in the arse... i mean, if I read this right, you have to do this for every post???

            php-nuke has something similar, but its really only for creating user accounts.

            i'd be willing to go with it, but that's just my initial impression.
            • Its that or 'wait 20 seconds' + 'wait 2 minutes' crap.

              It could be something that gets dropped once you get enough 'loyalty/trust'?? That would probably work... you are a good user, we'll trust ya to not spam.
              • Good idea. The restrictions get slowly lifted the longer you are active on the site. Not the longer you are on. someone could create an account (or 20), then not use it for a year and all of a sudden be able to raise hell once they get Anon and no limit postings.

                Some sort of guidelines for "minimum user" would be necessary. What about a JE a month and a post every week? An "active user" could need two JE's a month and two posts a week. These people would be your active and loyal users that after a wh
              • I think I'd prefer the 20s/2m over typing in a distorted text string for every comment.

                I think an even better solution would be a two-minute time-out for anyone who averages higher than a couple posts-per-minute over a two or three-minute period.

                That'll give time for mods and admins to clean house, if it's a script.

                If the time-out is hit more than two or three times over a longer period of time, then the account gets flagged for post inspection, and the account gets limited to a 2m/2m rule until the post
              • How long do I have to be active before the posts get posted before I even think of them? :-)

          • Two things.

            First, obfuscated text is not a good idea. It's defeatable programmatically (which is why they're getting harder and harder to decipher for humans), and it makes your site harder to use (or, of course, impossible for blind users).

            Second, a large list of revolving proxies or, worse, a coordinated attack by a group such as the GNAA or Trollkore can make mincemeat of IP-specific techniques to prevent crapfloods. Slashdot recently fell prey to a coordinated GNAA crapflood. It worked very well becau

            • A large list of revolving proxy's only works if unregistered users can post anonymously. This is why I'm kinda against anonymous posting. With multiple 'egos' you can achieve the same thing (maybe an 'anonymous' ego?). But I also will have the ability to delete anything from a specific user. Now they need to register a bunch of accounts and gain enough loyalty/trust to be able to post a whole crapload a day. So the coordinated effort would take like a month of work to accomplish. And simple enough cle
            • A better idea for preventing crapflooding might be some sort of semi-inteligent baysian filter on posts.

              In other words if someone posts something too similar to another post the system rejects it. One obvious problem with this is getting a bunch of "me too" posts, but I'm sure the bugs can be worked out.

              Basicly the same techniques (Razor and Spamassasin) used to combat email spam can be used to control messageboard crapfloods and spam.
          • having one of those "type the text in you see in this distorted picture" to stop bots

            It's called CAPTCHA [captcha.net]. I've been thinking of adding...
            *gets worried*
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • What about making yourself another 'ego' (no one knows your 'egos'), and using that instead? If not, I could make anon posting for registered users... I just want to avoid hate and such.
      • yeah, i would have to agree. the idea of anon posting, while on paper (protecting one's identity by posting important items) sounds good, in practice though its just a license for jackasses to be jackasses.

        I like the idea of accountability. Its more like real life. You can't hide behind a tree and yell out insults and expect not to get the crapped kicked out of you :)
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Yup, no one would know unless they had access to the DB and did some scrounging around (maybe the admin would know?).

          So you could be samthebutcher AND cyborg_monkey and no one would know.
          • If *anyone*, even only admins, could find out who posted a comment, it's not anonymous. At least give the users an option to allow truly anonymous posting in their own journals.

            If you do attach an anonymous posting option to accounts, make sure it doesn't track the IP of the post or anything, because if someone posts something with the idea that it can't be traced back to them, but the feds can just look in a database for the IP of the anonymous post and crosscheck it with the IPs that the users use all th
            • Then we are back to abuse. The idea of true anonymity has its merits, but the sheer amount of abuse overshadows it.

              Even on slashdot everything is tracked by subnet. I want to avoid crapflooding and spambots. Is there a way I can do that without compromising anonymity?

              This may require a new JE. I think I'll write it up, now, in fact.
        • yeah, exactly... so when the site goes live sam... make sure to create 5am *quick* to be the little sucker to the punch!!

          slashdot was just kind enough to inform me that it has been 1 minute since my last post. how nice. i like being watched.
          • I've got lightning fast, ninja-like uer-creation reflexes. No one beats me to the punch. Why, you say? because I'm up at 5am, baby. You're still sleeping, I've beat you up, and I'll cross that line before the paints even dry.

            Hmm. Maybe we should have a numeric<->alphabet comparison script for user logins so that b1inder is recognized as a cop of blinder.

            Hey, is that registered on slashdot?

    • Problem.

      True anonymity would disassociate ALL personally identifiable information from the post. If you had to be a logged in user to post anonymously (the theory being that penalties assessed against your anonymous posts would be held against the logged in user as well) there'd have to be a connection to your regular "ego", thus defeating the entire purpose of anonymous posting.

      I agree that anonymous posting is A Good Thing, but you just can't have it in any meaningful way without having people beating d

    • So, like, Incognito Mode? Mortals see "Incognito", but Admins see the user?
  • have you ever tried to fart but shit your pants instead? You know, a shart? ;)

    Seriously though, let's not beat around the bush. Wait a minute, I like doing that. I'll kick the hell outta that bush I will!

    whose your poll mastah?
    Come on, you can tell me.

    That's right.

    ME.

    On a more serious note *blows an e-flat* looks good so far. I expect things to be fluid, not set in stone, eh?
    • I expect things to be fluid, not set in stone, eh?

      Well, to say that requirements will never change is stupid (ask anyone in the biz), but I don't want 'major' things changing once the wheels start turning. The site will be released in iterations, so we'll be able to test the major functionality from the start, and the little stuff towards the end.

      Lots of little things will probably be tinked with. Who wants to say "lets use circuitboard green for this page and never change it in over a decade"?? Oh
      • lets use circuitboard green for this page and never change it in over a decade

        Maybe that's why they chose the gawd-awful color schemes they did for the Games, IT and Apache sections. Five seconds looking at those retina-burners, and the Dark Pea Soup Metallic front page doesn't look so bad.

    • Jeebus, Em, tune that thing. That was almost an E natural! (Damn piccolo players. Get the least bit outta tune, and it's fingernails on a chalkboard time.) Besides, Eb is a silly note. D#, now that's a serious note.

      *SMACK* Back on topic... FK, will anybody be able to associate a poll with an article? I bow to Em as the Poll Master of Slashdot, but, well, look at the competition. We want higher standards for Unread.org, so I say make him earn it on merit.

  • I think that the best way to handle ranking is to make it affirmative only. So that if I like a comment then I can give it a +1 rank, if don't like a comment and it's not gnaa then I can just ignore it. The advantage for this is that it makes the system less gameable. Learn from K5's mistakes. If a user can apply a negative factor it will be abused.
    • How about base it on the loyalty/trust thing. You get to this trust, you get moderation all the time. You get really high trust, you can 'report' bad posts.

      I kinda like the K5 system, except use words instead of number (numbers behind the scenes). "Just a post, Like it, love it, wonderful point, I wish everyone read this", average out the number and voila. Then if you have a really high trust you can have 'this post shouldn't be read by anyone' and its put in a queue to be checked by an admin.
      • Down with down-mods! Also, down with admins deleting posts.

        Seriously. It will lead to bad places. Bad posts can be ignored by the mod system, but to delete them would be to become more slashdottian than even slashdot.

        Finally, don't average out the "behind the scenes" numbers - maybe apply different weights to them based on the ranking of the users that gave them, but then do a strict scale where the highest post in an article/JE is 100%, and it drops down from there.

    • I think ranking need to be segregated based on the types of ranks they are.

      For example, using Slashdot's system, we have "Flamebait, Troll, Informative, Interesting". I may have a comment that has sustained ranking as such:

      -1, Troll and +3, Interesting.

      I would like to filter on "troll" and "interesting", so I say:

      Show me comments that are "2, Troll" and "2, Interesting". Then, I'd see any comment that sustained two or more troll mods, 2 or more interesting mods, or a combination of them.

      Just using the

      • So you are suggesting making a buncha moderation types. Troll, Informative, Interesting, etc... and having the user decide (on signup?) what they want to see? What about order? If you have 50 comments that have 2 troll, 2 interesting mods... which gets higher?
  • no anonymous posting
    deleting posts based on someone's idea of "offensive"
    limiting newcomers ability to post JEs, etc.
    • deleting posts based on someone's idea of "offensive"

      It'd be unconstructive hate like gnaa. Stuff that's the bottom dwellers in the site. Obviously, a line would be drawn somewhere.

      Anon posting and limitations are in discussions. Limiting newcomers ability to post multiple JEs would be only for brand new users without an invite to prevent a journal spammer.
      • Have an "Obscene" ranking that people can choose to have an effect on what they see, or not, and let bad posts get disappeared from the people who don't want to see them, and the people who create them and propogate them just evaporate.
        • Those people that create and propogate such posts don't just evaporate. They get their kicks on littering the commons with their trash.
          "First Post!"ers are less harmful, but equally as pointless.

          I'd rather their hateful drivel not even be stored on the system, taking up resources.

          And I'm all for accountability, too.
          The "egos" model would be sufficient for anonymity...

          I suppose one could actually always use an alternate ego and never reveal their true identity... Or would their ego then become their true
          • So who decides what is trash? Does Kerry-bashing become hate-speach and get deleted? Do Mac fans get silenced in a windows conversation? Do people who criticize the higher-ranking users get shut down and dissappeared?

            I'll say it again - deleting posts, for whatever subjective reason, is *more* slashdottian that slashdot.
            • How about 1 downmod only available to admins and highly 'trusted' people that tags something as 'offensive.' After 5 offensive mods, it (along with all replies) becomes invisible by default (but users can turn 'offensive' tags on so they can view them). That way we can keep the crap off for the average user, but you can turn it on if you prefer.
            • I was only talking about hateful and completely useless junk like GNAA, "first post!" as only content of post, goatse.cx type trash, etc.

              Your other examples, while potentially off-topic depending on conversation, is not hateful or completely useless.
              • But hateful or completely useless are subjective measures. "One man's trash is another man's treasure" type of thing. Who makes the estimation that "This needs to dissappear"? I can see it not being given the same level of coverage as more interesting posts, etc, but to completely remove it? Is criticizing Christianity "hateful"? Is questioning evolution "completely useless"? Who draws the line, and what keeps them from using it to censor viewpoints they don't like?
                • Again, your given examples are obviously not as useless and hateful and pointless as the GNAA and "first post!" BS. These things are obvious detritus that shouldn't be facilitated if it can be avoided.

                  If the amicable solution is to simply hide the posts beyond a user-configurable threshold, which I did suggest elsewhere, then fine.

                  I understand your aim is to enable free speech, but realize that in reality (as opposed to this text-based world we are participating in), actions have their consequences and th
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Frustration vent time:

    Lifetime limit on one person downranking any other person. This would help mitigate modbombing. To keep people from feeling like they need to make a new account to keep modbombing someone, lie to them. Let them think that they downranked someone so they don't try to find an alternative. Don't advertise this function. Downranking an enemy is treated the same way.

    No anonymous ranking. Let people know who ranked them.

    Show how a person has moderated other people. Publicly.

    Limit
    • I think downranking won't even exist. The worst moderation is no moderation at all.

      Nonanonymous ranking means more diskspace, but I can dig it.

      One persons moderations? Sure, why not.

      Anonymous posting is in discussion.

      The whole idea of complex relationships is right on. I'll have to expand upon it further.

      Customizable views? You want my idea on it? Check out CSS Zen Garden [csszengarden.com]. Same page, different css, you'll be able to change the ENTIRE look and feel of the site. I hope to also have css contes
      • If downranking won't exist then the limits on ranking might be unneeded. My idea was to keep one person from continuously downranking other people. Say I hated W, X, and Y, but liked Z. I could only downrank W, X, and Y a finite number of times before I was no longer allowed to do so. I could uprank W, X, Y, and Z as many times as I wanted to.

        CSS Zen Garden is just too damn cool for words. Do it and I'll participate in your contest. So that the site doesn't get hit really hard, is there going to be a way
  • You know what would interesting? If not only you could moderate things Flamebait, Troll, Insightful, etc you could also choose a second dropdown that gauged the 'politicalness' of the comment. So in you're preferences page you could select "Show comments rated +3 or higher and are deemed to be on the liberal side".

    Silly I know, but I've never seen something like that (Just thinking out loud I suppose)
    • Good/bad idea. I can see this being really abused. One thing I think would be interesting and could mitigate that, but probably way to complex, is that I would like the ability to ignore rankings by some people. If, for example OnLawn ranks something as "liberal", honestly, I don't agree, and would like to be able to say I don't want to pay any attention to OnLawn's liberal rankings in the ranking totals that determine what I do or don't see.

      Does that make sense? As I say, probably way to complex to be

  • Geez, I'll post first, then look through the already posted comments.

    Are the multiple id's per account going to be invisible? IOW, can I see what other id's are linked to jawsthedolphin or not?

    Might want to have somewhat liberal post deletion rules. IOW, totally at the whim of the 'editors'. Avoid claims of bias by saying bias is inherent in the system. Or require two 'editors' to remove a post.

    Somewhere, I saw a blogging plugin that finds a 'root' article. So if you trackback to an article that trackbac
  • Whoo, go Math.sqrt()! Down with bellcurves!:)

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