Well, not very important really, but a nice little something to add in here because this IS a site focussed on Linux after all. Anyways, recently I downloaded Knoppix and took it to college with me, crammed it into a Dell computer they got over there and started messing around with it. A bunch of people became interested and I happily burned a few more Knoppix CDs for em. They got copied some more and at least 10 people in my class now have Knoppix which the use or not. It's more because of the fact they realize that there is an alternative, it's up to them to decide which is better. A few weeks later they started with Unix classes, starting with the very basics such as telnet sessions, simple commands like ls, free, pwd, the absolute basics. Because some of them have liked Knoppix so far, they embraced the installation of Mandrake we got shoved at us (Mandrake 9.0... Not the best choice, I find it a rather bad Mandrake release tbh) and now I'm seeing people using and exploring Linux, both as desktop (yuck) and as server. Perhaps they aren't going to keep on Linux, perhaps they'll keep focussed on Windows even for server tasks... But it feels kinda good to have let people know that there is an alternative at least. That, and it's the best I can do for OSS because I still suck at coding :\

And yes, I'm thinking about using OpenDarwin and some BSD to test what they are up to. Heard remarkeable things about BeOS as well, but this comp ran out of partitions to install OSes on and to give people stuff before trying it out myself so I can't help them looks rather amateurish...

Okay, this is generally aimed to all manufacturers of computer equipment. The latest trend for the past few years has generally been Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. (© Daft Punk) The latest Intels reach into the 3ghz boundary and AMD is happily hopping after Intel with a few months to catch up like always. Motherboards get more complicated/expansive and generally get faster as well with stuff like AGP x8 en faster then ever FSB speeds. Videocards get faster (and bigger) as well, with some clear example being the latest nVidia Geforce NV30, which is quite huge and most likely sounds like a Boeing at take off during a cold day and all of this is simply to get more "Oomph!" out of your PC at ridiculous prices.

Am I the only one here who thinks it is time for a change in the mindset of at least some of the manufacturers? I mean, one of the biggest markets is the one where Pcs are supplied to offices and schools/colleges. A good example would be my college, where we recently got a batch of Dells. 256Mb DDR memory with a 1,6ghz proc, running Windows NT with Office 97 and a bunch of apps of pre-2000 applications. What do you mean, a waste? Suppose someone wanted a PC merely for official use, like writing letters, reading email, occasionally browsing the net and chatting, with no new games... A 500mhz PC with 128mb SDRAM and some Matrox VGA card would be ideal for this, but those simply arent made anymore, nearly everything is up to the latest specs...

That is what I feel that should change, some companies need to start manufacturing stuff based on already existing technologies. Instead of making CPUs/RAM/VGA cards/TFTs faster, larger, more powerful and flatter, why don't they make something smaller, quieter, cooler and less expensive? Do you really think AGP x8 is needed for IRC? Or 512mb DDR 333mhz for browsing? Would any word processing application benefit from 1,6+ ghz of power? Of course not, it might save you a few seconds at boot perhaps, but that is largely OS dependant anyways. But what about efficiency? Modern day CPUs/GPUs use allot of power, allot of which goes to waste on heat, which requires MORE power in order for the heat to be cooled... We need cheaper, more efficient Pcs. So where are these Pcs? Where is this elegant solution that offers enough power to do what one wants and still doesn't sound like a continuous sonic boom? Where is the ideal 500/600mhz office PC which is quiet, efficient and sleek? (Did I just think of Macs?) Would anyone buy a 2000+ ton capable cargo ship to ship around 250 ton (max) of goods? Would anyone rent a 15.000 square foot office for a 15 person company? Then why do people buy an expensive 1,6ghz tower case machine while a 500mhz brick would be enough?

Remember everybody's favorite signature? Slashdot Math: 50+1-1 = 49. Taco was so incensed about that he decided to hide Karma from everyone so they couldn't criticize his math skills. This was a good idea, and one he should have stuck with.

Recently, Slashteam decided that printing moderation totals was a bad idea. It's part of a continuing development trend of hiding the Slash backend from the users (not a bad idea). Maybe Krow has been playing an audio version of Chromatic's O'Reilly article to Taco while he sleeps. Maybe Taco's pride has finally yielded enough that he's willing to listen to someone else. Who knows. For whatever reason, someone's trying to make it harder to game the Slash system by removing anything that could be construed as "points" (I'm wondering how they plan to make it impossible to count your friends, but that's another story).

Personally, I like to think that Trollback was responsible. But that's just ego talking.

In any event, moderation totals are now shown as percentages in an attempt to hide the number of times a post has been moderated. While it's pretty simple to reverse-engineer this number, you now need a calculator, which raises the bar a bit.

The funny thing, however, is that Taco has once again exposed his math skills to the world. So, once again, we get to put "Slashdot Math" in our .sigs. Are you ready?

Slashdot Math: 30+40+10 = 100

Enjoy,

-s.

Update: As many have pointed out in the comments, it is true that this change has a few side affects. One is that editors can now disguise their modbombing activity a little easier. The second is that by activating a division-based mod system, SlashTeam has proven that all its protestations about K5's moderation not scaling are a bogus. Of course, if you haven't accepted the fact that modbombing and handwaving are a way of life around here, you're blind, and you don't read my journal.

Many of you have seen that Verizon has been ordered to disclose customer profiles to anyone who sues them. This is pretty funny, and hopefully someone will sue Hillary Rosen's ISP soon. In the meantime, I'd like to point you in the direction of this interesting quote:

"Now that the court has ordered Verizon to live up to its obligation under the law, we look forward to contacting the account holder whose identity we were seeking so we can let them know that what they are doing is illegal," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.

So we know two things:

1. The RIAA doesn't know who the account holder is
2. The RIAA wants to let the account holder know that he/she has broken the law

The only problem with this is that for the account holder to have broken the law, it must be proven that the account holder does not own a legally purchased copy of all the songs he or she downloaded. How can the RIAA know this about the account holder? Existing Fair Use law states that you can obtain a backup copy of a song you already own. Can the RIAA have charges brought against the account holder without proof that the account holder does not legally own all these songs?

I've spent a bit of time cataloging the names of every song on every CD I own. Having painstakingly removed anything which could possibly be available Live or As A Cover, I have a list of about 9,600 song titles which I can legally download. I am in the process of setting up my Gnotella agent to continually download all these songs. I have a little DB app which will overwrite my existing copy of each song with the new copy. This will ensure that at any given time, I have only one backup copy of each song I own, and also that my connection will look like a gigantic music leech 24/7.

I'm only one person, and the chances of the RIAA bringing suit against me are pretty low, even though they target high-bandwidth automated users. But I can hope (actually if I am sued my bravado will probably dissipate and I will piss my pants while I write the ACLU, EFF, and the Pope). The prospect of Trolling the RIAA is just too good to give up. And walking into court with a legally purchased, nicely aged copy of every single song I'm charged with obtaining illegally would be way too much fun.

Yes, for those wondering, I typed up the list of songs, dated it, took pictures of my entire cd collection and put it in the envelope, included the Washington Post, and I'm going to mail it to my bank certified mail with return receipt attn: my safe deposit box. That's the best I can do for proving I didn't purchase the music ex-post-facto.

If you like this little exercise in law-abiding, feel free to join me.

-s.

There's a new project on SourceForge for anyone who's ever been told to "submit a patch". I have no idea why they accepted it.

Addendum: This is not my project; I'm just linking to it.

Talk about a case for deleting comments. This guy has got problems. Load it quick before the men in suits come.

Update:

<Captain_Tenille> Seen the presidential threat comment yet?
<rusty_> oh yeah
<rusty_> he's gonna get a visit
<Captain_Tenille> Have *you* been contacted by the goons yet?
<rusty_> yep
<Captain_Tenille> Oh my
<rusty_> i turned over the info. this is as clear-cut a case as I cna possibly imagine. I just wish the secret service would investigate threats made on ordinary people too

Got Points?

Remember back when Taco et al went on a reign of terror and banned hundreds of users in a little Civil War? We all got the $rtbl flag for moderating up a single post... And most of us are aware that Administrator-enforced blacklisting died with the $rtbl (Realtime Black Hole List).

What I'd like is for everyone who was originally banned from moderating (anyone who was $rtbl'd) to talk about whether they've gotten mod points since the $rtbl was repealed. Everyone should be able to MetaMod now, but I'm talking about flat out Mod Points.

People have often pointed out that just because Slashcode is open doesn't mean Slashdot is. I'd like to know how many formerly $rtbl'd users have gotten mod points, how many haven't... post your experiences, post-$rtbl.

I wanted to let everyone know that a new issue of Trollback hits the shelves today. Much of the credit for this issue goes to our newest editor Gustavo. Grab yourself a copy and enjoy.

-s.

Since I've started posting anonymously and signing my posts, I've received a surprising number of emails along the following lines:

• What's to keep me from signing my emails with your key?
• Is this post yours?!?! (link)
• How do I validate your signatures?
• You idiot, signatures require a pen!!!

While I'm hoping that a large percentage of these emails are just people trying to troll me, I guess it's only fair that I present a quick HOWTO document for checking GPG signatures. You can use this document to determine whether or not a /. post was actually written by me (quite a few with my name on it aren't).

Step 1: Getting the software.

Windows users (Graphical Installer for GPG)
Source Code for all Unix users

If you're a Windows user, unzip the file and run the setup program. If you're a Unix user, you probably know what you're doing, i.e. ./configure;make;su -;make install. Additionally most modern Linux distributions (specifically RedHat) come with some version of GPG; just type 'gpg --version' to see if you have it.

Step 2: Getting my key

My key is available from Slashdot's public key hosting space: http://slashdot.org/~sllort/pubkey . All you need to do is save this web page (or its text contents) to a file somewhere on your hard drive, using wget in Linux or Save As in Windows. Next, you'll want to import my key. There are a number of ways to do this, but the best is probably to use the command line and 'gpg --import'. Just type 'gpg --import (name of my public key on your hard drive). Here's an example of how to do it in Linux:

[root@slashdot.org root]# wget http://slashdot.org/~sllort/pubkey;gpg --import pubkey
--12:47:15-- http://slashdot.org/%7Esllort/pubkey
                      => `pubkey.1'
Resolving slashdot.org... done.
Connecting to slashdot.org[64.28.67.150]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/plain]
        [ ] 1,298 181.08K/s
19:47:15 (181.08 KB/s) - `pubkey' saved [1298]

gpg: key E8D51376: not changed
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg: unchanged: 1

Your output will look a little different since you'll be importing a new key, not an old one.

Step 3: Validating a signature

This is somewhat tricky. Any post in which I use HTML formatting such as bold, italics, links, etc, must be copied from the HTML source, not from your browser. I try to avoid HTML formatting for just this reason, so if you don't see bold or italics, just highlight and copy the whole thing from '----BEGIN PGP' to 'END PGP SIGNATURE-----'. Nice Windows clients like NAI's PGP let you validate the contents of your clipboard (nice!) - this lets you highlight, right click, and press 'Validate PGP Signature'. The basic way to do this is to paste your selection into a file, save the file, and run 'gpg --verify' on the file like this:

[root@slashdot.org]# gpg --verify .sllortpost
gpg: Signature made Tue 29 Oct 2002 12:51:18 PM EST using DSA key ID E8D51376
gpg: Good signature from "Sibil Llort (sllort) "

If you see anything other than 'Good signature from Sibil Llort', you're reading content from one of my dilligent fanboy impersonators. Lucky you!

HTH, HAND,

-s.

Slashdot Moderation Guidelines : Addendum.

Slashdot's venerable Moderation Guidelines have long been a subject of speculation and interpretation. This is due in large part to the fact that they contain almost no information on how one should actually moderate. The Guidelines are in general rife with vague handwaving such as 'Bad Comments are flamebait' [sic] (from which we can divine that 'Flamebait' always means 'bad comment', as illogical as that may sound). This addendum has been written to be a useful resource for new Moderators and battle-hardened Slashdot readers alike. It is my intention that this Addendum, frequently updated, shall serve as a companion document to the original Guidelines and hopefully improve the quality of Slashdot moderation in general. If you would like others to read this document, you can place a link to it in your signature or user history:

<a href=/~sllort/journal/15007>have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?</a>

General principles.

• Patience. As a moderator, you have five points and three days to use them. There's no need to 'blow your load' and go moderate everything at once. You have a very limited amount of influence. You should save it for comments which are extraordinary, whether they be extraordinarily good or extraordinarily bad. If you are knowledgeable about something, pick stories which you know something about to moderate - this will help you to avoid accidentally moderating up garbage. Additionally, the best comments in a story are usually written well after the story is posted. In general, ignore the first hundred comments before you moderate.
• Maturity. When you moderate a user, you affect their karma, an internal score which is the single most important thing in dictating someone else's Slashdot experience. If you negatively moderate the same user with all your points (for instance), that user will probably be gagged from posting, and may suffer a decrease in their posting score, a decrease in their number of posts per day, and other negative consequences. You have been granted power which, if exercised malicously, can be used to silence or even eliminate someone else's voice from Slashdot. Approach this ability with maturity, and avoid using it. While Slashdot Editors have been known to use this power in anger, Slashdot users must hold themselves to a higher standard.
• Objectivity. It's easy to hold your own convictions close to your chest. When someone thoughtfully points out that the Verisign certificate used by Windows Update is in fact more secure than apt-get without signature checking, it's easy for Linux users to get angry at their operating system's weakness and direct that anger into bad moderation. While this is just one example, it's applicability is universal: don't break the system and moderate poorly just because someone has pointed out a fact you're uncomfortable with. As it stands, this is probably the #1 problem with Slashdot moderation today.

How to view a story
You may have already heard that Moderators should always view a story in '-1,Nested,Newest First', with all your Reason Modifiers set to Zero. If you haven't heard this before, now is the time to memorize it, because it's true. Here's why:

• Threshold: -1. Yes, you have to read the crap at -1 as a Moderator. Horrors! It's really not that bad, especially if you're reading the newest posts first, and not reading the first 100 comments. After the first 100 comments have gone by, most of the stuff that the average Slashdot reader objects to is no longer posted (because the visibility is too low to bother). The reason it is so important to read at -1 is to spot posts that have been unfairly moderated to this level and correct the mistakes. You won't believe how often this happens until you read at -1 and see for yourself.
• Nested: This is simple - the best comments on Slashdot are almost always replies, so you should read all of them. This is because, in general, people who reply have first considered someone else's opinion before considering their own. Think about it.
• Newest First: This too is a no-brainer. The older a comment is in a story, the less time someone spent thinking about it and writing it. Newer comments include people who read the article, people who did some research, or people who learned something new. All the good comments are the newest ones, and they are also the ones that Moderators tend to ignore. You can fix this problem by reading Newest First.

Remember to set your Reason Modifiers (located in User Preferences->Homepage) to zero if you've modified them already. Nonzero Reason Modifiers will distort your view of comments so that you can't find out what tier comments are viewed in by default.
- Krow, 10/23/02

So remember: -1, Nested, Newest first, zero Reason Modifiers. Don't click Moderate without it.

Moderation Scores
This is probably the biggest mystery on Slashdot. What do Insightful, Informative, Interesting, Offtopic, Flamebait, and Troll actually mean? You'd be surprised how many people don't know. This is probably because Slashdot has never documented what these labels mean. Are they mystical, magical, and purely subjective...? No. Here's what they really mean.

• Troll: The Big Ugly Moderation, reserved for those nasty people who live under bridges and eat children. What is a Troll comment? Well, the Troll moderation actually comes from the phrase "trolling for newbies", a fishing reference. The Troll moderation does not have anything to do with mythical creatures, and never has. Dedicated gun nut and German dance sensation Eric Raymond defined in detail what a troll is in his Jargon File. While hard to define, a Troll comment is a very specialized type of post which is crafted by an author to provoke replies which reveal the person replying to be stupid or immature. The key requirement when you are considering moderating a comment as a 'Troll' is to determine whether or not the person writing it was just kidding. This requires a great deal of insight, a personal trusted relationship with the author, or (preferably) psychic powers. If you are unsure of the author's intent, avoid this label like the plague, as you will (justifiably) be destroyed by MetaModeration. The Troll label is for 'experts only'.
• Flamebait: It is noteworthy to point out that the Jargon File entry for Flamebait reads 'See also: troll'. Flamebait is actually more specific than Troll, as it is a moderation label for troll posts which are designed to start an angry discussion or 'flamewar'. Because flamewars are universally stupid, Flamebait and Troll both meet the general requirement of attempting to humiliate anyone who replies. Flamebait is even harder to use than Troll, and requires not only the psychic ability to read the intent of the original poster, but also the ability to determine that the author was attempting to provoke a flamewar. This is a double-diamond super-expert moderation label. If you can use it correctly, you're probably either psychic or God. Keyword: correctly.
• Underrated: The most confusingly labelled moderation in existence, this should probably be renamed 'Good'. Underrated provides a means of raising a comment's score without judging it, and this dovetails with our goal of Objectivity nicely. Because you're not attempting to divine why a comment is good, you are not subject to MetaModeration when using Underrated. If you are a beginning moderator, you should probably use this 100% of the time. Once you are an expert, you can toss in the occasional "Informative" or suchlike moderation when you're really, really sure.
• Overrated: Overrated is also poorly labelled, as it can in general be applied to comments which are scored too highly but also to comments which are bad, useless, or stupid (for which no moderation labels exist). This can apply to content-free 'first-posts', meaningless babble, etc. Overrated is especially useful when attempting to wipe out the smattering of +5 scored comments from the first 100 posts which are content-free and posted for the sole purpose of elevating a user's karma. Overrated should be your negative moderation of choice, except in cases where you're 100% sure something is way Offtopic, or you're a psychic capable of using Troll. Remember, Overrated is immune to MetaModeration!
• Offtopic: The most abused moderation on Slashdot. The most important rule when using Offtopic is that the context of a post is relative to its parent. Therefore direct replies to the story should have something vaguely to do with the story, and direct replies to a comment should have something vaguely to do with that comment!. Here is an example:
  1. Poster A replies to a story about video cards with the comment 'I have one of these and I like it a lot'.
  2. Poster B replies to poster A with the comment 'Thanks for sharing. Your comment told me nothing, idiot.'

  Which one of these comments should be marked Offtopic? Neither. They both are direct, on-topic replies to their parent post. The second comment is probably Overrated, though, because it contributes little to the discussion, and there is no 'Uncreative Insult' moderation label.

• Insightful, Informative, Interesting: These vanilla positive moderations are pretty easy to understand, and require little interpretation. Remember that when you use them, you limit the ability of a comment to be interpreted as anything else. If a comment is both insightful and informative (think Jon Carmack) and you label it Informative, you've put the comment in a little labelled box that constrains it from being thought of as insightful unless someone actually reads the comment. Remember that each label has a subjective, user-defined score, and some people may have Informative rated higher than Interesting - so be careful when boxing up comments to make sure they fit. Remember, when you're not sure, use Underrated. If a comment is already marked as Informative, and that label is correct, there is no need to pile on another Informative moderation. Just use Underrated instead.
• Funny: Never use this. Well, ok, you can use it, but understand that a lot of people have it set to zero. If you've never read Laugh Lab's 'world's funniest joke', now is the time for you to read it. This will help you understand that what you find funny is often not what someone else finds funny, and things that are universally funny are at best mildly amusing. That said, this moderation can be appropriate, but it's usually just a waste of your points.

Moderation Thresholds

This is probably the least understood facet of moderating on Slashdot. There are seven possible scores for every comment, each score representing a tier with requirements for each tier. If a comment is where it belongs, leave it there - otherwise move it. That is your job as a moderator.

• +5 : Absolute Gold. Comments worthy of a score of 5 are rare, and may not occur in every story. A +5 comment should be clearly written and contain information which really makes you a better person for having read it. Think about that requirement for a minute before realizing how few comments actually fit that bill.
• +4 : The Good Stuff. This is the category for exceptional comments which are not just clearly written but contain something valuable such as unique information, a relevant experience, or a new perspective.
• +3 : Good Comments. This is where you put just the good comments, stuff that may have some spelling or grammar errors but is far from useless. Informative links, calls for comments, enlightened discussion in general.
• +2 : Good conversation. This is where most regular Slashdot readers post by default. Toss someone out of this tier only if their content is hard to understand or lacks value. A little bit of adversarial tussling is ok in this tier.
• +1 : Average Conversation. This is where the millions of screaming voices that make up a Slashdot discussion should sit. Nothing extraordinary, nothing particularly well written nor anything particularly abusive. Moving someone down from this tier should only be done for good reason, such as abuse or illegibility.
• Zero : Anything but Abuse. Leave everything at tier zero unless it has a reason to go up except abuse.
• -1 : Abuse. This is the tier for attempts to break browsers, rendering hacks, malicious exploits of Slashdot or user browsers, hate speech, and copyright infringment. Think of tier -1 as 'deleted', and use it with the utmost care. Nothing belongs at tier -1 unless it was written to harm someone else.

Go forth and Moderate!

Hopefully reading this document has made you a better moderator (or at least helped you understand the system better). I will continue to add good suggestions to this document as I learn more, so feel free to send me your ideas and suggestions via the comment section or via email at operation_mongoose 'at' ziplip.com.

Have fun,

-s.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Moderation is a game. The only way to win is not to play.

What is the value of a dollar? The answer is that a dollar is worth as much as the government says it is worth. Money is a game we play to create scarcity in the face of abundance; it is a means of keeping track of something imaginary. So what is a Karma point worth? Well, it's worth whatever CmdrTaco says it's worth. Karma is an imaginary thing that has gained value through an electronic construct. sound familiar? The truth is that Slashdot is in many ways the first of the Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games. Before the first castle in Ultima Online, there was a user with the most Karma to blow.

Slashdot has changed quite a bit since those days. We have a strict levelling system defined now. Here are the various levels you can achieve, and the powers you are granted at each level:

Levelling up

Last I checked, here are the various levels in the vast Role Playing Game that is Slashdot:
(Your score in the game is called 'karma'):

• Score: -24 to -10: Ghost. Ghost players attack (post comments) with a -1 threshold, making them unable to hit any target except those who choose to be hit. Ghost players are limited to two attacks per day, and the label 'Terrible' is placed next to their name.
• Score: -9 to -1: Zombie. Zombie players attack with a threshold of Zero, making only their subject lines visible and reducing the effectiveness of their attacks. Zombie players, like ghost players, can only attack twice per day, and the label 'Bad' is placed next to their name.
• Score: Zero: Dying player. In this transitional state, a player appears to be a normal player, but the label 'Neutral' is placed by their name to signal that they are close to death.
• Score: 1-12: Journeyman. A journeyman player can attack ten times a day with a score of one. The label 'Positive' is placed by their name.
• Score: 12-25: Adventurer. An Adventurer attacks with the same effectiveness as a journeyman, but has the label 'Good' placed by their name.
• Score: 26-50: Sword Saint. A sword saint can devastate his opponents in combat, attacking with a bonus of +2 and flaming them up to twenty-five times per day. Sword Saint players have a distinct advantage, but they are not invincible.

Player killing

So how do you turn a Sword Saint into a Ghost? Well, player killing is alive and well on Slashdot. I'm not going to go into the details of player killing in this article, but suffice it to say that it is possible to defend yourself from normal players but not from Editors. The best way to defend yourself is to create as many separate accounts as you can, and continue levelling them up. This is very time consuming, and it's one way to keep you 'hooked' on the game.

Guilds

Guilds are a recent addition to the game of Slashdot, and they were retro-fitted and bolted on in much the same manner that many MMORPG's added guild support after product launch due to massive player demands. Basically, Guilds allow you communicate more easily with your allies and gain bonuses to your attacks when attacking enemies, though these bonuses are temporary and cannot be used for player killing.

How do I win the game?

Before addressing how to win the Slashdot MMORPG, it's important to look at how other similar games are won. For instance, how do you win at Ultima Online? I believe the answer to that is that if you play, you have already lost. The only people winning in the MMORPG market are Origin, Microsoft, Verant, et al, i.e. the people taking your money. The more time you spend playing, the more time you spend losing. While you are questing for karma, trying to get just one more level, you are losing. Perhaps the only way to win is not to play.

Consider for a moment that when you mark another account as a foe, you assign a numeric penalty to that person's comments which causes you to never view them again. This means you have judged everything this person will ever say in advance, and deemed those future words not worth viewing. You have prejudged them. You are engaging in automated prejudice. How do you explain that to your kids?

The only way to win is not to play

The game is a construct not just to waste your time but to manipulate what you say. If you have ever altered what you post to Slashdot because of fear of karma retribution or the possiblity of a karma reward, then you have bowed to the pressure of an artificial system, a plastic reality placed upon you in order to control you.

I challenge you to break free of the system. You can still post comments to Slashdot without playing the game. You can do it very easily. Just post everything as an anonymous coward. How will people know it's you? Use you public key to sign your comments. If everyone did this, the game would be over, and everyone would win. It's a huge prisoner's dillema, to be sure, but only if you are still worried about getting a high score.

This journal is probably being read by quite a few Sword Saints thinking to themselves 'how can I afford to stop attacking with my +2 bonus??'. Stop thinking inside the box. It's probably harming your brain.

- -s.
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Why is it that after all these years we don't have a trolling topic? I've picked "The Gimp" because naming software after insults for handicapped people is the most offensive thing I can find in the list. Hopefully someday Stallman will write a web editor named "The Gook" and prove me wrong, but until then, this will have to do.

Enough beating about the bush. Our semi-regular almost-collaborative non-publication, Trollback, has a new issue, and I have almost no responsibility for it. Enjoy.

-s.

It's going down right now, 9/16 at 3:08. Ever wanted to see every comment in a thread hit -1 Offtopic except the one posted by an Editor? Now's your chance. If you hurry and post something quick, you can get modbombed personally.

Today marks a pretty big policy change for Slashdot. $rtbl, the database flag whose presence indicated a user had disagreed with the Editors and been "blackholed" from the Mod system, has been totally removed. There is no $rtbl flag, no secret list of banned users. Thousands of banned accounts can now participate in MetaModeration and Moderation. Moderator eligibility appears to be affected only by your click count.

What happened? Did they listen to us?

I'd like to believe that, but sadly evidence points towards a different scenario. When the Zoo (journals/friends/foes) system was first introduced, Starship Trooper predicted that it was a plot to maintain an interlockling blacklist of verboten users. I wasn't so sure. ST went on to propose that the account No More Trolls was an Editor-maintained blacklist. Not surprisingly, Mr. Trooper was right all along.

Trading $rtbl for ~rtbl

The secret blacklist $rtbl has been replaced with an open blacklisting system. The first step was implemented today. Take a look at your friends list and your foes list. If you have enough friends and foes, you should see new, pill -shaped icons that represent the second degree of seperation: "foes of friend", "friend of foe", "friend of friend", etc. The next step in this system will be the addition of user-assignable penalties for each relationship. Example : "Don't show me comments by foes of my friends". This would allow you to subscribe to an Editor maintained troll blacklist and drop all comments posted from accounts that that blacklist is tracking. Some users may eventually surpass editors in their dilligence of tracking new accounts they disagree with, and users will be able to subscribe to these blacklists as well.

It is probably a better blacklisting system than SurfWatch ever dreamed of having. A huge, opt-in based referral network which will allow thousands of people to subscribe to lists which will filter out all comments except the ones they agree with.

Once the system is fully implemented, I suggest you subscribe to the new $rtbl. This account will be used to dilligently track hypocrites. For more information on blacklists, visit this site.

-s.

P.S. This change is a huge step in the right direction. At least now there isn't undocumented secret blacklisting and skewed M2 voting results.

P.P.S. There may still be ways of banning users from M1 & M2, but I'm getting the news out as fast as I can. Please correct any inaccuracies in the comments section. Jamie mentions "revoking M2 access" in this comment but I haven't found any new mechanisms for permanently revoking M1/M2 access - let me know if you find them.

P.P.P.S. The messaging system notifies Moderators of the voting results of M2 that affected their Moderation. In my opinion, this is the kind of visibility that has been sorely lacking. A good change, even if it took me too long to mention (ok guys?).

P.P.P.P.S. As tps12 points out, I belive that for better or worse this is a good change. Sorry if I came off too negative. At least now, it's all in the open. For now..... things look decent.