Trusting Users Too Much

An anonymous reader writes to alert us to an article at Forever Geek on sites that trust users too much and the users who game them. From the article: "Trusting users is a good thing. But implicitly trusting users is no good. If Digg has moderators who approve a story before it goes live on the front page, shouldn't they have moderators checking spam reports? Social sites give so much power and emphasis on users yet a handful still have the power to wreck these sites. Until these issues are properly addressed, social sites will continue to be gamed."

Is Slashdot having a down day or something?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like it's questioning it's existence.

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #99

[ettlz]

Trust is the biggest liability of all.

I remember once Quark had a teacher at Lobeling's (or somewhere) who trusted him to look after a room in his absence (or something). Only this teacher had pictures in his draw. Pictures of said teacher, romping with fully-clothed females! Needless to say, Quark did what any responsible young Ferengi would do in those circumstances: blackmailed his teacher into an A grade.

Re:It happens.

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Digg exists so that people can easily tell each other what they want to hear.

Unlike Slashdot, which exists so that people can easily tell each other off. Moron.

Shitcock is poetry to my soul

[Kesch]

Here is a simple explanation with pictures [penny-arcade.com] of the observed phenomenon.

Vimes.

[kalirion]

Pessimal: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? your grace."
Vimes: "I know that one. Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal."
Pessimal: "Ah, but who watches you, your grace?"
Vimes: "I do that, too. All the time."

From Thud! [wikipedia.org]

Re:Something I think most of us can say:

[Nos.]

Similarily I've heard: "The sum of all the IQs on the planet is fixed, the population is growing"

Re:It's not gaming and it's not social networking

[treeves]

But +1 Sarcastic boosts your karma good.