Previous journal submitted to Firehose as front page story submission. Shameless MySpace behavior follows.....

Vote for me! That is all.

A Boise PD bicycle officer just busted an errant Segway driver who apparently was cruising in "an erratic manner and nearly hit a pedestrian walking along Main Street on Saturday." Segway DUI arrests have happened before and been upheld. Will this second Segway arrest be considered a precedent? The debate seems to be ongoing.

OK, not really my place, but the bar/restaurant where my coworkers and I usually go for happy hour on Fridays. Any and all are welcome. Let's see if we can't get a decent sized turn out for this.

Oh, and the bribe (almost forgot about that): since this is ostensibly IT related, I'll pick up the tab for the first two drinks for each person. And by "I" I mean "my boss's corporate card".

To clarify: I'll need to collect business cards to pick up the tab. Sorry, that's the way things are. If you don't have a business card, just put your name and work number down on a scrap of paper. And do try to be honest, this is for posterity.

Once again, someone went and down modded five of my comments in a two to three minute span of time. All of these comments were from stories that ranged from one to three days old, not old enough to be archived, but not exactly active, either.

This time, I decided to write to the powers that be: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. So far, it's proven to be an exercise in futility. Below is the email conversation we've had up to this point, going from oldest to newest email. Be sure to read the whole thing to keep things in perspective, and read on to the end where I've included a call to action.

Monday September 24, 9:04 am CST, from me to Taco
Rob,

My username on Slashdot is corbettw, and I think I'm being "stalked"
(for lack of a better term). I'm hoping you can help.

For several months now, there's been an ongoing campaign by some
person to mod all of my comments down. Just today, when I logged I had a message
about comment moderation: five moderations with minutes, all on different
stories, and all negative. Usually they're Overrated (which, of course, isn't
meta-moderated), but sometimes they're Troll (which is ludicrous).
It's obvious to me that someone is doing this on purpose. I've seen my
karma rating go from Excellent (where it's been for years), down to Good,
and now today down to Positive. Is there anything you guys can do to stop this
kind of stalking moderation?

I know there are more important things in the world than one's karma
rating on /., but it's still pretty annoying and is the only negative thing
on an otherwise favorite site. If there's anything you guys can do to cut
down on this, it would be much appreciated.

Cory

Monday September 24, 9:40 am CST, from Taco to me
I'll look into this and see if anything suspect is happening. Thanks
for the heads up.

Monday September 24, 2:41 pm CST, from me to Taco
I don't know if Slashcode gives you the ability to do this, but maybe you could put a check in place where, if someone moderates comments by the same user more than twice in a 24 hour window, they lose any moderation points in their pool and all recent moderations (within the previous 24 hours, for example) are undone. Though you might only limit it to negative moderations, since it doesn't really hurt anyone if someone gives their friends positive moderations all at once.

Just an idea, I have no idea how workable it is.

Monday September 24, 5:30 pm CST, from Taco to me
there are a number of checks in place to prevent extreme abuses. Don't worry ;)

Monday September 24, 9:25 pm CST, from me to Taco
Well, you might want to double check those checks, because they don't seem to be working all that well. I've heard from several other people today that they've been hit by the same thing.

Like I said before, my karma has gone from Excellent down to Positive. Maybe you guys just need to do away with Overrated, and keep a link to metamoderation up on the front page on a more regular basis (instead of swapping it out for the firehose and other links, like you started doing a few months ago).

Tuesday September 25, 7:03 am CST, from Taco to me
if anyone really thinks this is happening, they need to contact me and
not bitch somewhere that I might not see them. I gotta say- the # of
people that blame conspiracy on simply being modded down by random
users is pretty amazing... what you describe DOES occasionally happen.
But more often, people just can't BELIEVE that 3 people might call
them out on their obviously wonderful perfect flawless genius posts :)

Meta moderation is a difficult thing. We need more people to do it,
but the link is being ignored.

As for karma going from excellent to positive, I don't see that as
much of a big deal. Karma doesn't matter except to be negative or
positive really.

Tuesday September 25, 7:11 am CST, from me to Taco
Don't misunderstand me, it's not that Positive karma is bad, per se. Hell, I wouldn't even care if it was Negative, it doesn't really affect my life. But the speed with which it's dropped is the concern. And I'm not talking about 3 mod downs, I'm talking about 5, all within two to three minutes, all on stories that are two or three days old. It's blatantly obvious that one of my foes is going through my recent posts and modding them down. This isn't what the moderation system is meant for.

I'm a sarcastic, opinionated, guy (which is why I like Slashdot, duh). So, yeah, I'll say trollish things sometimes, or make a snarky comment that's not directly on topic. So the occasional Off-topic or Troll mod doesn't faze me. It's the obvious pattern of stalking behavior that's going on that has me concerned, and that's what I wanted to bring to your attention.

Not everybody is willing to contact you directly about this, for whatever reason(s). Rather than ignore an obvious problem, why don't you post a story on it? Bring the problem out into the open, and give people a forum on the front page for addressing the problem. You might be surprised how many people this has happened to.

Tuesday September 25, 7:25 am CST, from Taco to me
the faq pretty clearly explains to contact me in cases of abuse.

Tuesday September 25, 7:57 am CST, from me to Taco
OK, so now someone has contacted you about it. Now what?

That's where it stands as of now. I'll update as things progress. In the meantime, if you're reading this, and you've experienced the scenario I've described, PLEASE EMAIL CMDRTACO at Slashdot and share your experience(s) with him. He's obviously willing to ignore this problem until enough people complain about it.

UPDATE:
I just received another email from Taco. Here it is:
Tuesday September 25, 8:08 am CST, from Taco to me
I've looked into the allegations of abuse and made my decision about
what needs to be done about it. It's my policy not to explain
specifically what I find (or don't) or what I do (or don't do) in
response.

Hopefully this satisfies you... and hopefully you understand the need
to be coy on the matter... I've had this work out both ways- if I
find no abuse and tell you, sometimes readers will go post and bitch
that I'm a liar. If I *do* find abuse and tell you that, sometimes
readers will turn around and post their 'haha' message to say someone
got busted.

Quite simply, the mod system is an ongoing project with problems and
mistakes... its a constant balancing act... and since we have a small
percentage of assholes, there will ALWAYS be little problems in the
system. The question is how much we can do to stop assholes without
restricting the vaaaast majority of readers who are cool and
trustworthy.

September 25, 8:13 am CST, from me to Taco
Fair enough, although I have to say it's usually better to be open and up front about things like this rather than hide. That policy hasn't worked out too well for the current administration in the White House, I'm not sure why you think it'll work out any better for you.

My only goal in this is to help improve the Slashdot experience, so to help with that I've posted about this in my journal. I'm trying to raise the attention level of this problem.

I'll let you know if I see the same problem re-occurring. Hopefully more people will start contacting you directly about it, and it will finally get resolved.

(Yes, I'm assuming you're blowing this off. I have no evidence to the contrary, and most of your emails on this subject have displayed a very dismissive view on the problem. If that's not the case, then please let me know.)

LAST UPDATE:

Last email from Taco (it's his site, he gets the last word)
September 25 8:51 am CST, from Taco to me
Well, your journal post at least clearly demonstrates why I don't
spell out results of abuse investigations to readers...

Anyway, despite your attitude and insinuations, I welcome notification
from anyone with legitimate concern of abuse. While real abuse is
fairly rare, reader feedback is a key part of us dealing with the
problem when it arises.

So that's the end of the story, kids. Just make sure you email Taco about any problems, and we can all make this a better place to trade ideas and thoughts.

Once again, some fool with too much time on their hands decided to mod five of my comments as either Overrated, Redundant (when it wasn't), or Offtopic (again, when it wasn't), all at once. It makes me feel sad for these people, who have nothing better to do than try to silence people with whom they disagree. Can't they focus on lifting up conversations, instead of trying to censor everyone they don't like?

I ditched out of work on Wednesday around 11am so I could drive 1/2hr out to Middleton Id for the final "Reveal" of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It was roughly 102-105 outside, with no wind, shade, or clouds. Nearly Perfect filming conditions (except for the temperature) and nearly fatal conditions for the elderly, infants, and anyone who didn't drink plenty of water (which was available). I personally drank all 2 bottles I brought (about 1.5 liter total) and then 3x1 pint bottles they provided.

I'll provide many many pictures, & video (as soon as I find a good motion tracking software so I can smooth out the jitter in some of my footage).
 
Until I get my stuff up, you can watch KVTB's great coverage (IE required - at least it doesn't work with my FF) and read about it as well.

Thanks to several instances of getting five '-1, Overrated' mods on various posts of mine within a few minutes of each other (even when the posts in question occur days apart from each other), I've decided to fight fire with fire: whenever I get mod points, I systematically go through my friends and fans, find people who have either been modded down or don't get a karma bonus, and mod up whatever I can with '+1, Underrated'.

I call this method the "Share Your Voices" method of moderation. If you're reading this, please consider joining me in this effort to ensure that libertarian and conservative voices are not shut out by the censoring whores of the left on this site.

As for wasting my points on marking things as Overrated, I'll leave it to the leftists on Slashdot to hurt people, I'd rather try to help my friends than stifle my enemies.

I tried submitting this item yesterday, and, surprise!, it was rejected. (I even submitted the link to the original article, not the one to Hot Air.)

Suffice to say, we all know Slashdot editors are idiot liberals, and anything that challenges their world view is verboten. But at least they provide journals so people can share news not deemed fit for the pages of /.

The summary of the article is that Neptune is experiencing global warming, and aside from the number of SUVs the Neptunians drive the only thing our two planets have in common is a common sun. So while I'm sure George Bush is still at fault, it looks like the sun is causing global warming, not "carbon emissions".

There is an ultra top secrete weapon recently released called theDangeroups Book For Boys that has a rather amusing video. Warning. Fun. Mischief. And annoyed neighbors ahead. This will totally be me with my (God willing) boys. :-)

I have published my photo album from this weekend's climb up Mount McCaleb, Idaho. Lots of photos, and several extremely large stitched panoramas (complete with trial software text printed in the middle of each picture). I might end up buying that software because it sure is slick. I had to manually stitch most of them together and the results are still pretty impressive.
 
If you notice the captions changing it is because I am in the middle of adding them right now. I might finish some time tonight. Enjoy some of the Heights Of Idaho.

My de-wimp-ifying is progressing slowly but surely. I biked in to work two days in a row! A first for me. Also impressive is that I got in to work before 10am both times which means I biked some time around 9am and it was in the 50s. Not exactly biking weather either with morning temperatures in the mid 50s with mild winds.

I have determined that I need actual riding clothing because my running outfit is just not meant for cold weather and wind. That outfit just feels like cheese cloth when faced with blustery weather and temperatures in the mid 50s (even in the sun). I smell some clothing upgrades in the future.

Speaking of clothing upgrades, I returned the helmet and the ill-fitting biking shorts for $69, but then purchased a wind proof jacket for $25 (chah-ching), summer riding shirt for $35 (chah-ching-ing), and padded bike shorts for $40 (chah-ching-ching-ing). Net expenditure of $31 which equals my planned accessory purchase for 2007-Q1. Next on the list is an odometer / calculator which could run around $30 with tax. That item is on sale through the web site so I'll probably buy it today (chah-ching-ka-ching-a-ling-a-ring-ding) Assuming I limit myself to one $30 purchase each quarter, I will break even in the Third Quarter of 2008 which is only 1.5 years from now.

Eventually I'll have all the gizmos and doo-dads possible so after 3 years of buying a new toy / item each quarter I'll assume that droops to $10 or so and replacement costs will increase from $30 / year to $60 / year.

I will be saving anywhere from $115 to $170 each quarter or $38 to $56 each month. That is as much as having the home phone line (on the low end) or a cell phone plan (on the high end). And now that I look at the numbers it does make me want to cancel the home phone which costs $35 / month and reduce my cell plan.

So what are you spending money on that could be eliminated?

So I skipped a day..... meh. I didn't get enough sleep and it was cold in the morning. No way am I riding when it is that cold. See Day 2 for details of road, weather, etc etc.

Eventually it would be nice to be a bit more consistent with this.

Yes the second day of bicycle commuting did not immediately follow the first. What can I say..... it is 40 degrees in the morning and I need warmer biking clothing (I only have running clothing and that stuff just wasn't made for wind). We had a meeting with our investment banker downtown so I didn't get to the house until 10:30am and didn't leave for work till 11am. Still took about 40 minutes to ride, shower up, change into work clothes, and get to my desk.

Weather:
60s and sunny. Ahhhhhh Not much wind (~10mph)

Road Conditions:
Construction. Yay. That road gets narrow and it freaks me out when a big truck goes past me with only a foot or two to spare.

Traffic:
Light

Physical Conditioning:
Sucking. Sucking it long. Sucking it hard. (bonus points if you catch the reference). Why is it that physical activity

Bike Mechanics:
Shifters are in desperate need of adjustment. Harder than hell to get tires pumped up to 120SPI.... I settle for 60. I might need to move up to the bigger pump which should be easier to use. Might run that shopping trip Saturday in addition to returning the helmet & non fitting shorts (and / or pump). Need to swipe parts from my old bike at the folk's house. Probably also going to need to get a basin & can(s) of oil to clean my chain.

Over All Impression:
Still a wimp but realizing that if I do this more, I'm going to have some killer thighs.

Now if only I could get PAID to do this or get paid while doing this..... (more on this later)

1) Buy Bike
2) Sell Car
3) ???
4) PROFIT!

Check out this article from a tip here. The article is about Dr. Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D, the director of the Human Genome Project. In the article, Collins discusses how he came to believe in a God while an atheist med student. The article is short but interesting and if you have the 10 minutes for the article and video then check them out.