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Journal Trolling4Dollars's Journal: Metamoderation 17

Journal by Trolling4Dollars

I've been experimenting with this account for a few months now trying to see if the trolls are right or not in their summation that the moderation system is screwy and I am beginning to see their point. Mind you, I am NOT a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.

What I find interesting is this. I have another account which I use for more legitimate posting. I haven't used it in a while because I was curious to see how long it would take me to get metamod privs with an account that ocassionally posts a troll or two. With my "good" account, I found that it only took me until I got 200+ posts under my belt with a good deal of +3, +4 and +5 ratings that are usually "Insightful" or "Interesting" before I finally was given metamod points on a daily basis. It also didn't take long at all after that for me to actually get mod points three times within a two month period.

The story is completely different with my "Troll" account. I haven't totally astroturfed /. with trolls, but I've posted about 3 per week that could potentially get modded as "Troll" or "Flamebait". I also chose a name that had the word troll in it to see if the stupid moderators would be influenced by that. Here are my findings:

-Most of my posts, no matter how good or insightful they really are, rarely get modded up. This is probably due to some idiot moderators who see the name and automatically assume I am a troll (even though I'm not).
-If I make the SLIGHTEST negative comment towards pet peeves (Like "I hate GW Bush" or "People should follow posted speed limits without question" I get modded down pretty fast.
-I finally hit post number 200 yesterday, but I haven't gotten any metamod privs at all even though my karma is "good".
-It has taken me a lot longer to get my karma to "good" with this account than it did with the "good" account. Even though I've really only been modded as "troll" or "flamebait" maybe 10 times out of my 200+ posts.
-I got put on a troll blacklist (NoMoreSoviets), even though I only posted ONE "In Soviet Russia" joke. Pretty unfair if you ask me. One strike and you're out? Hmmmm...

So... it seems to me that the mod system is indeed broken. But it's not a technical problem, it's a people problem. Even with metamoderation, it seems that the people who could bring balance to metamoderation (the semi-trolls and people with a little bit of smart ass in them) are being kept out and the skew is towards modding up the least interesting and stalest of the comments. Oh well...

I've enjoyed working with this account a little more than my usual one (even though I am not really a troll) because the sheep on /. seem to get riled up which is a damn funny thing.

Discuss freely...

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Metamoderation More

Metamoderation

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  • I've observed the same trend (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I tried some expeirmnets with my account and saw a lot of the same kind of stuffs. it's no surprise that the Sladhodt has broken apart like this/ I'm goigng to post a linik to this artical wherever I can to try and get more peopls attention. Somethgin needs to be done about thie problem. thnks for the insiteful post.
    • Thanks. I was hoping more people would be concerned about these issues and have been monitoring this discussion thread carefully. Unfortunately, the only posts I've gotten are from uninterested cretins who only want to post anonymously. I really think that if more people were concerned about the moderation on Slashdot, we wouldn't have the mess we have right now. Anyway... keep posting the links to this discussion if you can. Eventually someone has to be interested. I know I can't be alone in my frust
  • I find that more insightful comments are posted by trolls than the rest of slashdot, which is marginally bigger.

    And in the hopes of making the SOVIET RUSSIA blacklist...

    In SOVIET RUSSIA, slashdot blacklists YOU!

    (not a joke)
    • Thanks for you support. I love that "Internet logs onto you" gif. Damn funny stuff. :) I do agree, trolls usually post more insightful comments as a whole. I think it's because people who troll are more honest about their feelings and don't run them through the filter that the typical Slashbot wants people to use.
  • I got heavily mod-bombed today, and it just led me to troll hardcore for the day. This makes me think that the problem is that mod bombs and modding down trolls fuels trolls.
    • Damn! Sorry to hear about that. I got modbombed back in December for support the "left" side of a political discussion. It hurt for a few days, but with some judicious posting, I was able to get my karma back up in about a week. Once I was back up to where I was before, I decided to pursue the fucker who did the modbombing (I had a pretty good idea who it was) and just harrassed the hell out of him. It was a lot of fun, but I grew tired of it eventually. However, I will say that I believe you are comp
      • its cool. not your fault i am sure...with how severe most of the hits were, i don't believe anyone but an editor could be the culprit anyway.
        • That's an interesting assertion. When you say editor, do you mean one of the big guys like Taco or Hemos? Or do you mean something else?
          • or possibly whoever posted the story or something. Maybe taco or hemos. Maybe Michael. Maybe someone else...i honestly dont pay that much attention to who the eds are. But what I do know is that in the split second it took to load the page and then hit f5 to refresh it, 3, insightful turned into -1 flamebait, and less than a minute later I had 0, offtopics on about 60% of my most recent 25 posts, as well as a lot of other posts with various detrimental mods.

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