mysticgoat's Journal: The 26th day & karma == 5

I don't understand the karma to points relationship. Some of my posts have 2 points before moderation, some appear to only have one point. There should be a table around somewhere that shows the relationship of karma to points but if it is in the FAQ, I missed seeing it.

Most /. comments are criticisms of the original material, and many of these show that the commentator did not read or failed to comprehend the material. I guess that is to be expected. Probably /.'s point system encourages the people who are, um, let's say "less encumbered by experience" to attempt to demonstrate their cleverness. Sometimes this leads to dumb discussions where the original information is replaced by conjecture and preconception of what the unread or misunderstood article just must have been about. Some posts should be moderated downward with a /. equivalent of RTFM.

There is a much smaller percentage of posts that are worth reading-- legitimate attacks on the ideas of the articles, and reasonable defenses of the articles. Twice I have seen author participation in these.

In the area of Open Source and licensing issues, slashdot is easily my best source of information about what is going on. The whole subject area of intellectual property rights is downplayed in the popular press. Which is unfortunate as this is one of the key areas that will shape the emerging new age.

Slashdot remains worthwhile, but I could use a better way of avoiding the dross. I'm thinking of boosting my threshhold to scores of 2 or better.