I came across a user with the following sig today -
"Support the First Amendment: Read at -1."
Couldn't agree more :-) And that is why I sometimes troll, mehearties. Not to cause harm. Not to plunder and pillage the oh-so-innocent Slashdot editors. But to speak freely as I would want to. To show them how fucked up their system is.
They try to shut the trolls up by more restrictions. And by tightening the screws. But -- they forget that it would only make the serious trolls strike back.
Slashdot is becoming SO hypocritic by the day.
Look at it. It's become so bad that even expressing one's opinion is wrong. Moderation has become something where if the moderator does not agree with you, you're modded down.
I thought that was exactly what Slashdot's moderation system sought to prevent?
Consider Mac articles -- any anti-mac post gets modded flamebait, no matter how relevant. Consider science articles -- inevitably, the classic stemcell topic shall come up and people will flame away. The classic creationists vs. evolution argument. Or the science vs. religion ones.
Although I've been often at the end of benefitting from these (pro-Slashbot-think) --- I was really quite surprised at the amount of prejudice that goes into moderating these things.
Just because I disagree with someone does not mean they would have to be modded down. If anything, their opinons are just as valuable and interesting as mine.
A poster, who shalt remain unnamed said this - "Any pro-Bush post gets modded down. This place is seething with left-wing liberal hippies, who see conspiracy in every nook and corner."
I was like, duh, you're over-reacting. And then guess what? I realized he wasn't - more often than not, offtopic anti-Bush posts are left unmodded while the pro-Bush guys get modded down to oblivion -- hmmm, isn't that a little unfair?
(note -- I don't really side with either, I'm merely observing and nothing more)
What's happening, Slashdot?
Noise to signal ratio is on the rise. Moderation is so broken and haphazard these days. Prejudice and groupthink prevails, rather than commonsense. Dupes everywhere. The Over-rated and Under-rated mods are so frequently abused. Editors who do not listen to the comments we send in, even if you are a subscriber and point out an error during the preview.
Mmmm. Matt Damon! Fuck yeah!