With regards to the NSA spying on Americans, I think the aspect that most disgusts me is not that they've been monitoring all this information. That sort of went without saying. I'm not even particularly amazed by Dubya's brazen disregard of the law. I think the aspect that most disgusts me is how quickly they decided they needed to have the criminal investigation of the disclosure. Something like investigating the security failures around 9/11 they were willing to stall for years. However, this one they need to ramp up as quickly as possible. Why? Bloody obvious. They want to intimidate various other people who have information about Dubya's impeachability. You don't think this is the last of their dirty secrets, do you?

Dubya's new 'atmosphere' of American politics:

"I don't want to obey that law, and you can't make me, you can't make me, you can't make me!"

"But you promised."

Yeah, the last part is the Democratic Party response whining about Dubya's little old presidential oath.

Today's abuse of moderation:

Comment Moderation
sent by Slashdot Message System on Sunday January 01, @09:05AM

Re:There's some sort of joke...., posted to Wikipedia Semi-Protection Begins, has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

Re:There's some sort of joke...., posted to Wikipedia Semi-Protection Begins, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

It is currently scored Flamebait (-1).

Re:There's some sort of joke...., posted to Wikipedia Semi-Protection Begins, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

It is currently scored Flamebait (1).

Re:great letter!, posted to What's wrong with the MSM newspapers, has been moderated Offtopic (-1).

It is currently scored Offtopic (-1).

Small world coincidence--sent last week, posted to Why Haven't Online Newspapers Gotten it Right?, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Informative (1).

[From another site, in response to a prediction of the government hitting the debt ceiling in February.]

Actually, it's been going on for many years. They just keep raising the debt limit--and then they continue right on borrowing more money until they "use up" the new credit limit.

Think of it in different terms. Imagine that a credit card holder was allowed to raise his credit limit whenever he wanted to. That's actually quite close to the situation we have here.

Some people might be able to raise their limits responsibly, but it's kind of hard to imagine. If you're living within your means in the first place, why do you need to borrow money? If there is some kind of special problem, maybe you need a little extra money to tide you over, but what happens when you've been living on credit for as long as you can remember? What's the difference if you owe a bit more?

Well, the situation with the federal government is that they've always lived on trust. It says "In God We Trust" on the money, but God doesn't have much to do with it, if you ask me. It's always been a matter of whether or not the recipient of the paper believes it's worth anything. We're back to 'any power will be abused' again. In this case, the government has said that HAVE to trust the money, and if you refuse payment in their official money, then they won't help you collect the debt.

Now the situation has been turned on its head. The government has become like the customer with a red hot credit card that keeps raising the limit. The situation is already beyond the point that our customer even imagines the debt can be paid off--but someone keeps accepting the IOUs. Excuse me, but this can't go on forever. At some point it's going to be obvious that the customer is broke, and further IOUs will not be useful.

Of course the amusing punchline is that this is being done in the name of the 'responsible spending' Republican Party.

Email sent to a newspaper:

I understand that newspapers such as the Austin American-Statesman (AAS) are increasingly concerned about declining readership. Many years ago, I read the AAS frequently. Pretty sure I was a subscriber at least some of the time, though it's so long ago that I can't really remember for sure. Therefore, I write on behalf of your lost readers, though I think I write from the 'leading edge' of that trend. My main message to you is that I see no sign of increasing attraction, either in general or as a result of today's website visit (to be addressed below). If you're waiting for me to resubscribe, I have to resort to the cliché: "Don't hold your breath."

First I'll address the general issue. Why would I want to read your newspaper? As a media organization, I think you have only two real assets: integrity and credibility. Do you speak the truth? And are you believed when you speak it? As already noted, I don't have enough recent contact with the AAS to address these assets specifically in your case, but I do think I can say that if you were doing a better job, then the AAS would have emerged visibly from the morass that is the modern MainStream Media (MSM). Since the AAS has not 'emerged' in that sense, I'm just classifying you with all the other MSM newspapers that I sample at random via recommended links to articles on their websites. In summary, the MSM rarely tells the complete truth, they often repeat unfounded and usually partisan lies, and why would I pay them for 'information' that has to be cross-checked and verified? (By the way, that even includes indirect payment via advertisers. No click-throughs from me.)

These large issues go too far afield, though I could say much more on them. Today, I visited your website for a highly specific reason, and I was quite disappointed. I should have known, but optimistic to the last, eh? The specific public issue which is troubling me is American-government-sponsored torture. The specific information I sought was a list of the Texas Representatives who joined the loser Senator Cornyn in opposing Senator McCain's legislation against torture. I do know that some of the Representatives from Texas were among the 112 members of the House that voted futilely along with Cornyn, and I want to know if my Representative from North Austin was among them. If so, I would like to start now in supporting his political opponent, though there are only a few days left to make such a donation in 2005. Perhaps the information exists somewhere in the AAS website, but I think not. I think you simply ignored the issue. Typical MSM behavior--and that's why I didn't even bother to write a "letter to the editor" on the topic. (There's also the minor reason that I am in general only an accidental reader of the AAS these years.)

My own belief is that such torture is an extremely serious matter that ought to be receiving *MUCH* more coverage. When I first read about this issue (in non-MSM sources), I was greatly offended and ashamed. I felt that I should express my outrage to the 'Senator'--who is certainly failing to represent me. I do not know if I succeeded, though I do know that I never received any response from him or from his staff. I think it most likely he never got my message because it isn't the sort of thing he wants to hear, and he has no sincere interest in representing anyone who doesn't agree with him. Cornyn's only concern is with his *LARGE* campaign donors.

Following is a copy of the message I attempted to send to Cornyn:

Your name appeared on a list of the nine Senators who opposed Senator McCain's anti-torture amendment. If that is incorrect, then please provide me with the corrected list and I will apologize. However, I think my source was reliable, and that you did vote against this amendment. Speaking specifically as an honorably discharged veteran, I wish to express my strongest displeasure and outrage at your action.

Torture does *NOT* work. It does not produce reliable information, but merely encourages the victim to say or do anything that he or she believes will stop the torture. Even worse, it destroys the humanity of the torturer. On the other hand, it does work for our enemies, inspiring them to greater hatred for our evil actions and helping them to recruit more extremists to oppose that evil.

I do not see any basis for attempting to reason with you about this issue. If you think there are *ANY* cases where torture is justified, then I regard you as insane. As I started writing, I was going to suggest that I would consider your explanation for your action, but as writing clarified my thinking, I realized that would be a waste of our time. Instead, I simply strongly encourage you to withdraw from politics and from any form of public visibility. I will certainly vote against you, and do everything I can to encourage other people to vote against you. Though I can't vote against your eight torture-loving peers, I will donate money to their opponents--and of course to your opponent. I certainly hope that your political career is over. You make me feel shamed that such a madman can claim to be my political representative.

Not much point in sending this, is there? However, I've taken the time to compose it, and it's barely conceivable that you can send me some response that would convince me you have recovered your sanity.

For reference, I've left the list [of Senators advocating torture] here:

>> Wayne Allard, Colorado
>> Kit Bond, Missouri
>> Tom Coburn, Oklahoma
>> Thad Cochran, Mississippi
>> John Cornyn, Texas
>> James Inhofe, Oklahoma
>> Pat Roberts, Kansas
>> Jeff Sessions, Alabama
>> Ted Stevens, Alaska

A man was passing next to a bridge, and he saw another fellow who was about to jump off.

Wait! Don't jump!

I have nothing to live for.

Wait! Are you religious?

Well, yes.

Are you a Christian?

Yes.

That's good. So am I. What's your church?

I'm a Baptist.

That's wonderful. That's my church.

Small world, eh?

So is your church in the reform of 1927 or 1934?

We accept the 1927 reforms.

Die, you heretic!

And he pushes the guy off the bridge.

Another example of abuse of the moderation system. At least I'm pretty sure it is targetted negative moderation with no real purpose except to reduce my karma in hopes of making my posts less visible. If the identity infomation were not hidden, I'm pretty sure most of those negative mods come from the same troll. For example, one of them is targetted at a two-line post that said something totally trivial. Not worth the effort of moderating in any direction--but the total number of negative mods comes to five. That's also the total number of mod points you normally get, so it would seem the troll blew his whole quota on me.

Another example of the remarkable stupidity of the Busheviks. My normal favorable moderations pretty much negated the troll's 'best shot'.

Here's the moderation report (but I tried to add a border to make it more visible):

Comment Moderation
sent by Slashdot Message System on Saturday December 03, @09:05AM

No the real problem is bankruptcy , posted to A Recipe for Newspaper Survival in the Internet Age , has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Normal (0).

Re:Built for Linux , posted to Desktop Linux Survey Results Published , has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Normal (0).

Is that a threat or a promise? , posted to Diebold Threatens to Pull Out of North Carolina , has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

It is currently scored Flamebait (0).

Re:Who to blame more than the RIAA? , posted to First RIAA Lawsuit to Head to Trial , has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (2).

Re:Who to blame more than the RIAA? , posted to First RIAA Lawsuit to Head to Trial , has been moderated Underrated (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (3).

Re:Who to blame more than the RIAA? , posted to First RIAA Lawsuit to Head to Trial , has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (4).

Re:Who to blame more than the RIAA? , posted to First RIAA Lawsuit to Head to Trial , has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Interesting (3).

Re:Who to blame more than the RIAA? , posted to First RIAA Lawsuit to Head to Trial , has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Interesting (2).

A lot of pundits are saying that last week's election shows something new or a surprising change in voter trends. The only surprising thing is that anyone still listens to such stupid pundits. All this election shows is that money buys votes and that modern American politics is just a war of big money. This is true in all of the elections, but the mayor's race in New York City is the best example. The only interesting question there is why he wanted to spend so much money to buy the relatively minor office of mayor.

I'd give the voters more credit if they had sold their votes for cash on the barrelhead. That's illegal in these "enlightened" days, but it doesn't change the big money reality. The political-power-buyers just have to disguise it a bit now. As a candidate, it doesn't matter what your policies are or what kind of person you are or anything else. The only thing that matters is coming up with the scratch--millions of dollars. (It does matter a little bit what kind of person you can pretend to be, but the Reagan/Dubya problem is relatively minor compared to the overwhelming influence of big money.)

Root cause? Easily manipulated voters. Show the voters enough of the appropriate ads, usually slash-and-burn attack ads, and many of them will even vote for a total incompetent and loser like George Dubya Bush.

Deeper root cause? "Free" advertiser-sponsored radio. An innovative (~70 years ago) economic model that ultimately led to rightwing talk radio. Finest propaganda ever! It was also propagated into TV where it led to increasingly mindless programs, and now it threatens the intellectual foundations of the Internet, too. The funny part is that the policy-makers of those days understood the risks and required that the public's interests should be protected. Thus started an erosive process that culminated when Reagan's handlers stripped off the last major protections. The negative dynamic is pretty obvious, however. Advertisers do not want well-educated and thoughtful citizens. They want easily manipulated suckers. That's how you get the most bang for your advertising buck--and the bucks have finally won out. Intelligent voting has to be reality-based, but advertising is NOT about the truth.

In conclusion, nothing matters except for the money. Good for a 20% margin in NYC! The only problem in New Jersey was that the Republican couldn't afford to run the ex-wife-attacks-ex-hubby ad enough times. If you actually believe (as I do) that freedom and democracy are good things and that they confer competitive advantages on the societies that have the most of them, then the sad conclusion is that America is doomed.

Some foe obviously got his moderation dose:

Comment Moderation
sent by Slashdot Message System on Thursday November 10, @09:05AM

Brings back bad memories..., posted to School Power Over Student Web Speech?, has been moderated Offtopic (-1).

It is currently scored Offtopic (0).

Re:I'm confused, posted to Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn Awarded Medal of Freedom, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

It is currently scored Flamebait (0).

Re:They should turn down the medals., posted to Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn Awarded Medal of Freedom, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

It is currently scored Flamebait (0).

Re:Theory^WIntro on /. needs work, posted to Vatican Rejects Intelligent Design?, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Normal (1).

Re:your sig, posted to Microsoft Plans Deliberate Xbox 360 Shortage, has been moderated Offtopic (-1).

It is currently scored Offtopic (0).

Brings back bad memories..., posted to School Power Over Student Web Speech?, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

It is currently scored Flamebait (-1).

Below is one moderation report message which I received today. Some of them, especially the one for older posts, are almost certainly more ad-hominem abuses of the moderation system. Knowing who submitted those moderations would of course be the easiest way to look for obvious patterns.

Comment Moderation
sent by Slashdot Message System on Thursday November 03, @09:05AM

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

It is currently scored Insightful (2).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Insightful (2).

Re:Considering how much data is out there?, posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (2).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Considering how much data is out there?, posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (3).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Insightful (2).

Re:weasel word, posted to Significant FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act, has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

Re:weasel word, posted to Significant FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act, has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

Re:alas, parting is...., posted to Significant FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act, has been moderated Offtopic (-1).

It is currently scored Offtopic (0).

Re:Answer: This is truly evil, posted to Sony DRM Installs a Rootkit?, has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

Re:Anti-Scientists are Political Manipulators, posted to Is The U.S. Becoming Anti-Science?, has been moderated Troll (-1).

It is currently scored Troll (0).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

It is currently scored Insightful (4).

Re:Considering how much data is out there?, posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (4).

Re:Considering how much data is out there?, posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Interesting (3).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Offtopic (-1).

It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Considering how much data is out there?, posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (4).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Offtopic (-1).

It is currently scored Insightful (2).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Considering how much data is out there?, posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (5).

Sony is losing it, posted to More on Sony's "DRM Rootkit", has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (2).

Sony is losing it, posted to More on Sony's "DRM Rootkit", has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (3).

Sony is losing it, posted to More on Sony's "DRM Rootkit", has been moderated Insightful (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (4).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

It is currently scored Insightful (4).

Sony is losing it, posted to More on Sony's "DRM Rootkit", has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

It is currently scored Interesting (3).

Re:Considering..., posted to Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Sony is losing it, posted to More on Sony's "DRM Rootkit", has been moderated Interesting (+1).

It is currently scored Interesting (4).

Just noting another example of dickhead abuse of the anonymous moderation misfeature of slashdot. Today's case in point is a couple of scattered negative "troll" moderations that were obviously targeted at my recent posts for no good reason, though the obvious bad reason was to anonymously attack my karma and reduce the visibility of my "annoying" posts if I lost my karma bonus.

In one sense, I don't mind having /. "foes". Looking at some of the posts, there are some pretty humongous fools around here, and I don't at all mind recognition as an adversary of such. What I do mind is their covert censorship strategies by gaming the system, and their use of anonymity to avoid accountability for their actions.

As I've frequently noted, there are legitimate uses for anonymity. However, in general such legitimate cases are few and far between, and I've never seen an example of a legitimate need for /. anonymity on moderation. Abusers of the moderation system should obviously be recognized as such--and have their moderation points reduced accordingly.

Also noting another CSS formatting bug. Apart from the problems with Opera, this time it isn't even formatting <p> correctly in IE. I tried adding a </p> tag, but it didn't help.

I'm increasingly convinced that /. is a mostly a waste of time, but I'm still considering if there are any metrics of "effective participation" here. Right now, I think friend and foe designations may be the most interesting metric, especially the foe designations from nasty small-minded people. If you're not offending evil people, then you must be doing something wrong. Interestingly enough, since I adopted the following truth-related sig, I have been the target of quite a number of "foe" designations. I have looked at some of the posts of those people, this actually seems to be a situation where /. is not broken as designed, but is actually working pretty well.

Here's the sig that's bending the Busheviks and Rusheviks so far out of shape:

The truth alone will not make you free, but it's a prerequisite.
Only by knowing the truth can you choose freedom.

Unfortunately, I can't reciprocate as much as I'd like to, since I've already used up my 200 "friend" and "foe" designations. That's another area where /. is broken, but I guess it sort of makes sense, since it could consume quite a lot of storage. It would be quite easy to designate thousands of them.

I've used quite a few sigs on /. over the years, though I don't recall any other that has had so many strong and "effective" reactions. I saved some of the sigs in my preferences, so here they are:

Longhorn? But a steer has no balls! It takes REAL balls to claim Microsoft software "just works"! The modern BIG lie.

The thoughtful we write at once, but insightful takes a little longer... Too bad the moderators have already left.

Everyone's crazy save thee and I, and sometimes I wonder about thee.(Always a metamod, never a moderator (but once).

Microsoft presumes I am guilty of "non-registered" Windows after they rammed it down my throat! I refuse to REregister!

Everyone's crazy save thee and I, and sometimes I wonder about thee. OTOH, Microsoft is crazy, greedy, monopolistic,...

The following was a suggestion email message submitted to the sysops of /.:

Sometimes /. is *VERY* frustrating. It has some good points, and a lot of potential, but it could be so much better. I'd actually offer to help pay for some of the obvious improvements, but looking at it as a business model, my conclusion is that I'd have to be crazy to invest much money in your system. I am looking for better investments than Euros and Japanese real estate, but /. doesn't seem to be a candidate, in spite of its potential...

Anyway, on to the suggestions. Two of these are fairly minor items, but thinking about them gave me an idea for a more substantive and profitable suggestion that I'll offer first: You should sell "improvement funding" for /. enhancements. The way it would work is that you would evaluate potential improvements in the code, and the cost of implementing those features. Then you post those ideas and let people contribute towards the costs. When a particular idea reaches the funding level where it is paid for, then you would implement it. Probably best to do it with a new section, like enhance.slashdot.org, with a list of proposed enhancements, public discussion of each one, and the current level of committed funding that people have donated. You don't need to be exact about the cost, but you should be able to estimate roughly how much programming time is involved. The cost of each project should also include the total costs of the evaluation, and that also needs to include the evaluations of projects that never got funded. (I don't know if you have staff meetings for enhancements, but you should, and that's a legitimate business cost.) Also, you should include the costs of testing and other expenses related to improving the system.

As a concrete example of how this would work, I'll describe how this proposal would apply to my second suggestion. This one is only a minor problem, but annoying: first poster stupidity. It just contributes noise. Enthusiastic, rarely witty, but usually stupid. My suggestion is that you put in some timing constraints on the reply function that would inhibit this form of stupidity. The exact constraints are not important, but let's suggest a "short-reply block" on the first post. Any non-subscriber who tries to make an extremely short initial post will be suspected of first-post abuse, and they will be told they have to wait for a few minutes before they can post--by which time some real poster will have had time to make a substantive comment with real value.

You would evaluate this suggestion and might determine that it would take about 5 hours of programmer time at $50/hour, for $250, plus it took 20 minutes to discuss it in your improvements meeting of three people for another man-hour, for a total cost of $300. Let's call the overhead 33%, and you'd evaluate the cost of this improvement as $400. We'll say that in this case you don't need much time for preparing the post because the original submission is adequate to start the discussion in enhance.slashdot.org.

You might group this proposed enhancement with several other suggestions to address the same problem. For example, someone else might have suggested a first-post relevance-based filter that is estimated to take 80 hours of programming time. (It would compare the linked articles to the submitted post to see how likely it was that the poster had actually read the article, and also check for too much cutting-and-pasting.) Readers of /. could look over the ideas, make comments, and even contribute to the funding of any idea. If possible, this should be done with some kind of dynamic meter so people could see how that project was doing for funding. I'm thinking of one of those thermometer things. When the funding is available, then you schedule the implementation. You could even include a priority factor with some extra funding for rush jobs.

(Two more wrinkles should be mentioned:

Wrinkle One: What about projects that don't get enough funding? I think you should explicitly state that you will keep those donations for other improvements. However, all of the people who donated to that project will be notified when it is about to expire, and any of them can request that the discussion be extended. For example, the default funding period might be one month, but someone might want to insist on discussing it for another month. That person would have to add some explanation to the top post of the discussion to explain why he or she thinks the idea is still worth implementing.

Wrinkle Two: What about removing features? I think you should treat them as "code streamlining enhancements" that would be proposed and funded in the same way. However, these would probably usually be prepared internally by /. programmers based on evaluating substantive problems with the actual code.)

Okay, now for the third suggestion, which is related to the continuous problems with moderation. (However, in the funded suggestion scenario, these moderation problems would actually be a source of ongoing funding for /. enhancement, thus converting the problems to something useful.) I think the moderation reports should include the identity of the moderator. This would make it relatively easy to spot moderators who are acting out of personal vindictiveness. I strongly believe that often happens to me, but I'm actually proud of having certain nasty little people as personal enemies. For example, it doesn't bother me at all when some racist religious fanatic is attacking me, but at the same time I don't much like it when they can use your moderation system to do it anonymously.

Background: As a kind of quality control over visitor contributions, /. uses moderation (M1) and metamoderation (M2). M1 rates posts by various criteria, and then M2 is supposed to doublecheck the moderators (M1ers) by asking a broader segment of the /. community to agree or disagree with those M1 decisions.

Problem #1: Lots of bad M1 ratings. Many posts are rated inappropriately, even ridiculously inappropriately. And yet, according to the FAQ and sysops, M2 is 90% in agreement with M1.

Hypothesis: Bad M1ers are gaming the system. (Shall we call them immoderate moderators?) The system says that M1 is linked to M2, but what it *REALLY* means is that aggreeing with existing M1s in your M2 ratings *CAUSES* you to M1 again. It is a closed feedback loop that rewards lying--but it allows the sysops to think that the M1 system is 90% "accurate".

Problem #2: If you use M2 to comment on bad M1s, you will be below 90% "accurate" and you will never get to do M1 again. My estimate is that current mods are less than 70% reasonable.

Basis of this belief: Careful consideration of the English words (AKA epistemological analysis) as applied in this context. I think these are some of the principles that should inform moderation:

Insightful

Insightful also implies accuracy, so a post with a counterfactual statement should not qualify for an insightful moderation. Disagreement over a matter of opinion in a post should not disqualify it from being insightful, but it should go deeper than the surface of the issue. The post should also actually reveal the insight, not simply hint at it. That means one-line insights are rare.

Informative

An informative post should offer more information than a mysterious link, and again, it should not be rated informative if it is wrong. It should also be relevant and on-topic, and preferably new.

Interesting or funny

Mods for interesting and funny are matters of opinion, and in this case the M2er's opinion is just as valid as the M1er's. In general I'll try to round those in the M1er's favor for the inverse reason. For example, if a post is rated funny, but I don't find it funny, then my M2 rating should disagree, even though I might think there are some people who find it funny.

Redundant

Not sure how long I've been using /., but I still don't know what this moderation is really supposed to mean.

Overrated

Blanket negative ranking. I think this one is basically a bad idea. M1 ratings should be clearly paired positive and negative. As it stands, this apparently means "My opinion is that I want fewer people to see this post." I suspect this is a primary mode of M1 abuse, mostly because I believe there is also an "underrated" rating that almost never gets used.

Solution: The sysops should clarify the principles of moderation. They should also check how many of the M1ers are simply gaming the system by always agreeing 100% in their M2 rankings in order to get more chances to M1.

At this point I've started noticing lots of obvious idiots, and I'm just marking them as foes so their annoying posts will be less visible to me. Mostly that translates into mindless Busheviks, but it also includes other categories like aggressive creationists and no-understanding-of-accounting idiots who think space research can be funded out of petty cash in a free market.

That approach also defines the opposite perspectives as candidates for the "friends" list, especially on the Dubya topic.

Anyone who claims they voted for Gore over Dubya in 2000, but is going to vote for Dubya over Kerry in 2004 is either crazy, stupid, gullible, lying, or some combination thereof.

The post where I noticed the sig was rather dumb and useless, which mostly supports the second option.

The other one is, to the best of my understanding, a true goddess of hate speech. I'd call her anti-patriotic and anti-democratic, but that would be a reasoned approach, and her blather transcends reason. Since the actual post I noticed was not pure blather, it is safe to assume the author is not the real person, but just a sicko admirer.