I could really use some feedback on the best ways to moderate. I appreciate the moderation system and try to be fair when I'm moderating but sometimes I feel like I just don't know where to spend my mod points the best.

I tend to use a lot of them on 'Underrated' or 'Overrated' instead of modding the comments I think are most worthy.

When it comes time to moderate I usually browse at -1 and try to read from oldest to newest, threaded. Typically I come across comments that add little to the debate and then I'm faced with the dilema of modding them down for a reason or just down to let other more valuable comments shine through.

The ones I find at +3 Troll are the most troublesome. I typically go through an internal discussion where I first consider that the comment is obviously interesting or it wouldn't attract that much attention and deserves a better score. If it does, should I just mod it up as 'Underrated' or should I give a reason for modding it up. A lot of those don't really seem funny/insightful/interesting to me, but as a conversation starter they have a value in that light alone. I hate to mod them up when they're already decently rated, but hate to leave them at troll. If I think they're distracting from the more important issues, is it a good idea to mod them down with 'overrated' or 'troll' or 'flamebait' since they already have a negative type of rating?

Then there is the friends help friends type of rating. If I come across a comment from someone I recognize as being generally thoughtful or insightful do I have a bias that is unfair in their favor? If I mod them up I worry that I'm doing it in part because of other comments and not based solely on this comment. Is that such a bad thing though? If I mod up a comment that might have been fairly rated at 1, then are thoughtful and insightful people encouraged to make more comments (a good thing) or am I encouraging half-baked comments?

What about all the comments that say something well but are repeating what was previously said but less clearly? Is it fair to mark them redundant? I generally avoid this since I don't want to discourage clear discussion, but I wish they would add more than a clear restatement. I tend to skip them but it nags me that they deserve to be modded up for insight and down for redundancy at the same time.

Diamond in the rough comments. These bother me less than others. In those instances where I find a comment that is particularly well stated, insightful or helpful I enjoy modding it up. I tend to skip funny since there are plenty of people who spend time modding those up, but it bothers me that I can't do more for these types of comments. I actually can find other comments the same person has made and mod those up as well to encourage them but I don't because it seems a waste of the mod points to make those comments I might have ignored otherwise more visible. I just wish I had a +3 sometimes. I'd even take a hit on karma to be able to do that.

Manipulating the system. Are you ever tempted to set up multiple accounts on slashdot and have them automatically behave like normal ones (programatically) so that you can mod yourself up and thus increase your own karma on an "I'll scratch my back and then I'll scratch my back in return" scenario? I don't because it seems unethical, but I do wonder how some comments get such high ratings when they seem so undeserving. Would it be wrong to try to identify those and mod them down in an attempt to use my own moderation to try to balance against bad moderation? I have not so far but sometimes my frustration with the sytem tempts me. I just don't know if it would be wrong or not.

What do you think of my strategies? Do you have suggestions? What do you do in the situations I outlined and why?

Dang it, I usually try to stay out of moral debates, espically off topic ones, but I think I actually see the tie in. Voting is important, judges are saying it isn't when they pass laws to force legislation to change. Judges are supposed to uphold the law and voting machines are supposed to uphold the will of the people. The will of the people should somehow be related to law.

First a digression, but stick with me.

Gay marriage, voting and genocide are all important but every question considered must also consider the ability of the people discussing it to have an effect on the outcome of the issue. Sure, I'll agree that genocide is bad, but I don't get to vote on it or even on who gets to vote on it. Heck, I don't even get the right to sit in on the debate among the people who may implement it. Instutionalized marraige and voting machines are issues that I might have some tiny effect on.

My opinion on gay marraige? I don't think the state should care about it unless they are going to actually make marriage important legally as well. If the state (or any level of government) makes marriage a significant contract, with substantial penalties for breach of contract, then how they define marriage would suddenly become very important.

How about legislation saying that any marriage dissolved due to at fault actions proven to a court, with the right to a jury court, carries a mandatory fine of 20% of lifetime earnings from the time of the void of contract? Then I care a lot what the state defines marriage as.

If they are talking about rewarding marriage (via tax credits or whatever) we still need to do the same thing but nobody likes to admit greed so everybody talks about morals and rights instead. Once we have a standard for how important we as a voting citizenry feel marriage is in terms of MONEY and/or PRISON, then we can talk about how to limit it or protect it as a right.

The real issue with the court in NJ is that it (big emphasis on one judge) has attempted a legislation change disregarding the votes and preferences of a majority. This was not a call for an election, it was a mandate that the legislation make laws to do what the court, rather than the elected legislators, deemed the right thing to do.

Which comes back to the question of giving the electorial process to criminals. The real issue is that criminals who break the law, by virtue of bad decisions on how to incorporate the benefits of technology with handling voting results, have more potential control of elections than people following the law.

I think most people would agree that letting criminals control the outcomes of elections is a bad thing.

Full circle, why? Because the will of the people is supposed to rule in a democratic society. We who appreciate that goal don't like seeing the process demolished by a small group of people ignoring it and forcing their own preferences on all of the people against the will of the majority of the people. The judge in NJ and the stupid voting machine implementations both make it possible for a minority to force their will on the majority of the people.

These are only a couple of examples of ursurped rights, but I'll stick to the open topics.

One other thing I don't like to do is criticize without offering suggestions for improvement. Here are a couple:

1. Make voting machines reliable. Publish every single vote, giving a number to each person when they finish voting as the only way to associate them directly with that vote. Let them decide whether to write it down, memorize it, forget it or whatever and print the results out on a receipt roll the voter can see but not access. Show a running count of voters at each polling station and make the numbers given be tied to the vote number. If election fraud is a concern, enough people will say that the published votes didn't match their intent and then go to the paper receipts to confirm.
2. Make voting machines a publically determined policy. If we want to pay more to have our votes counted, then make it clear that is what we are doing. Let us make the decisions of which technology is approved and when. If we're going to be defrauded of our votes, give us the accountability for allowing it to happen.
3. Ignore judges who mandate law. They never had that right, they don't have it now and we shouldn't be bending to their will when they want more control than they were given. Its only a check when the legislature makes the laws and the judges uphold them. If the judiciary madates the laws then it isn't balanced.
4. Make marriage either mean something or not. If it doesn't mean anything then the state should get out of the business of rewarding it. If it does mean something then give it real importance and actually severely punish those who do harm to it.
5. Power to the people! Let our votes mean something and be counted. If we want to vote to give equal rights to gay marriage, then so be it. If we want to limit it to one man and one woman, fine. If we want to make it between one man and one woman within two years of age, being within five inches in height, having the same eye color and only in agreement to acknowledge the FSM as the supreme ruler of the universe, let it be so. Let the people decide what is right and wrong as a voting majority.

Disclaimer: People are sometimes stupid, even large groups of voting people are sometimes stupid, but I cannot trust any person or group of people to be wiser than the majority of the people affected by their choices.

Recently someone wondered if/how X was a security risk. (24 July 2005)

I've read in several security books about the security risks of using X as well. Many advise not using X at all because of it, but most are kind of vague about why.

As far as I can tell, it is because between the server and the X system, the data is not encrypted and someone with access to the system could potentially see what was being done in the X system of another user.

I've never read about how it is done so its all theoritical as far as I am concerned. I expect the security concern is only really an issue if you have multiple or untrusted users with access to the server itself with a shell account for example.