drinkypoo's Journal: Moderation is broken

Others have said this before me so this will not be anything new. If you want something new, stop reading here. (And possibly, visit another site.) :)

Moderation is broken. You know it, and I know it. It's broken because people can use the moderation system to punish people for disagreeing with them without fear of retribution. The idea that metamoderation will keep people from moderating comments into oblivion because they don't like the person or they don't agree with them is quite simply flat wrong. People don't care, and will just moderate any way they like.

There are basically two problems with moderation. The first is that there are moderation choices for underrated and overrated. The use of any moderation choice suggests that you feel a comment is one or the other of these two - if you felt it was properly rated, you wouldn't need to moderate it, would you? The second is that the "Funny" mod does not change karma. Even if you don't think that being funny is a good enough reason for bumping someone's karma up a point, consider the following scenario: A comment is modded from Score: 2 (karma bonus) to Score: 5, Funny, with 100% of moderation using the "funny" mod. Next, it is modded down as being Overrated twice, and your karma drops two points. Then, it is modded back up to +5, Funny with two more funny mods, and then modded back down twice with Overrated. Consequence: The loss of four karma points.

Essentially, the moderation system has become a tool by which users can punish people for comments with which they disagree, or simply being someone they don't like, without fear of any recrimination. Hence, I suggest the following band-aids on the system:

1. Remove the "Funny" moderation or make it add 1 to your karma score.
2. Remove the "Overrated" and "Underrated" options, which add nothing to the system.

There are other ideas which I've been kicking around. For instance, delete the karma kap, but make it harder to gain karma and easier to lose karma when you have over 50 points. For example, from 51-100 points, require two positive moderations to gain a single karma point (award half-points) and from 101 points onward, also remove two karma points for each negative moderation. If you do this, it might be worth it to re-expose the karma score.

Other than that, the only way to really fix moderation is to have someone look at the users who employ the greatest negative moderation and determine if they are moderating fairly or not. If they are not, then their powers of moderation should be taken away permanently.

If you can't trust someone to post and moderate under the same story, how can you trust them to moderate at all?

An easy answer

[Marxist Hacker 42]

One other way Karma/moderation is broken is that UNMODERATED MESSAGES are worth one point. Want to build up and preserve that Karma? Post a lot at the end of 1000+ message queues. Four posts there will completely counteract your example of losting four points on bad moderation.

It's how I maintain my "Excellent" Karma.

Re:An easy answer

[nomel]

hahah...that's horrible you little sneak! :p

Re:An easy answer

[unitron]

Unless things have changed you don't get karma points from unmoderated posts. If you post under your account name instead of as AC you get a +1 (as opposed to the AC's default 0) by default, but you only get karma points if your post gets modded up. You can't give yourself points just by posting, they have to come from a moderator. If you've got enough karma to be able to post with the bonus point that starts you out at +2, you don't get any more karma points from the bonus either.

Re:An easy answer

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Things might have changed. Not sure about that. But this method did work for me to build up my karma.

overrated

[Frisky070802]

There are lots of ways to upgrade something, but few ways to take it down. Overrated IMHO means that let's say something has gotten 3 "interesting" bonuses but you think it's only worth 2. Overrated lets you take it back down. Seems perfectly reasonable, if used legitimately rather than maliciously.

Re:overrated

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps the Overrated moderation could be replaced with an "incorrect" moderation? Besides, the moderation faq explicitly says to focus on positive moderation. IMO you should only use negative mods when you see something is incorrect, trolling, or deliberate flamebait. Just feeling that something does not deserve to be moderated so highly is a foolish waste of a mod point that you could use to reward someone who deserves it.

Re:overrated

[Marxist Hacker 42]

When meta-moderating, I always agree with positive moderation and almost never agree with negative moderation.

Re:overrated

[Frisky070802]

This seems like overkill. Trolling and flamebait is often a fair moderation. So's redundant, though that's harder to identify. I'll grant drinky's comment that complaining that something shouldn't be a "5" might be picking nits.

Of course people who read at 3 and above, say, will never see the trolls and such, even without negative mods. But I personally feel "1" is useful whereas -1 or 0 are ignorable, only thanks to negative mods.

I don't get it.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Yes, moderation is flakey.

Have you ever used Ars OpenForum? It's completely worthless. That made me appreciate our broken moderation a little better.

Also, who cares about karma score? Unless you are trying to spend most of your posts disagreeing with /bots, you will get more positive moderation than negative moderation. If you have actually gotten down below Excellent karma, I insist that you were trying to do so.

The thing where karma is screwed up isn't the score, it's that excessive negative moderation