Moderation Guidelines: an Addendum

Journal sllort's Journal: Moderation Guidelines: an Addendum 15

Journal by sllort on Wednesday October 23, 2002 @01:32PM

Slashdot Moderation Guidelines : Addendum.

Slashdot's venerable Moderation Guidelines have long been a subject of speculation and interpretation. This is due in large part to the fact that they contain almost no information on how one should actually moderate. The Guidelines are in general rife with vague handwaving such as 'Bad Comments are flamebait' [sic] (from which we can divine that 'Flamebait' always means 'bad comment', as illogical as that may sound). This addendum has been written to be a useful resource for new Moderators and battle-hardened Slashdot readers alike. It is my intention that this Addendum, frequently updated, shall serve as a companion document to the original Guidelines and hopefully improve the quality of Slashdot moderation in general. If you would like others to read this document, you can place a link to it in your signature or user history:

<a href=/~sllort/journal/15007>have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?</a>

General principles.

Patience. As a moderator, you have five points and three days to use them. There's no need to 'blow your load' and go moderate everything at once. You have a very limited amount of influence. You should save it for comments which are extraordinary, whether they be extraordinarily good or extraordinarily bad. If you are knowledgeable about something, pick stories which you know something about to moderate - this will help you to avoid accidentally moderating up garbage. Additionally, the best comments in a story are usually written well after the story is posted. In general, ignore the first hundred comments before you moderate.
Maturity. When you moderate a user, you affect their karma, an internal score which is the single most important thing in dictating someone else's Slashdot experience. If you negatively moderate the same user with all your points (for instance), that user will probably be gagged from posting, and may suffer a decrease in their posting score, a decrease in their number of posts per day, and other negative consequences. You have been granted power which, if exercised malicously, can be used to silence or even eliminate someone else's voice from Slashdot. Approach this ability with maturity, and avoid using it. While Slashdot Editors have been known to use this power in anger, Slashdot users must hold themselves to a higher standard.
Objectivity. It's easy to hold your own convictions close to your chest. When someone thoughtfully points out that the Verisign certificate used by Windows Update is in fact more secure than apt-get without signature checking, it's easy for Linux users to get angry at their operating system's weakness and direct that anger into bad moderation. While this is just one example, it's applicability is universal: don't break the system and moderate poorly just because someone has pointed out a fact you're uncomfortable with. As it stands, this is probably the #1 problem with Slashdot moderation today.

How to view a story
You may have already heard that Moderators should always view a story in '-1,Nested,Newest First', with all your Reason Modifiers set to Zero. If you haven't heard this before, now is the time to memorize it, because it's true. Here's why:

Threshold: -1. Yes, you have to read the crap at -1 as a Moderator. Horrors! It's really not that bad, especially if you're reading the newest posts first, and not reading the first 100 comments. After the first 100 comments have gone by, most of the stuff that the average Slashdot reader objects to is no longer posted (because the visibility is too low to bother). The reason it is so important to read at -1 is to spot posts that have been unfairly moderated to this level and correct the mistakes. You won't believe how often this happens until you read at -1 and see for yourself.
Nested: This is simple - the best comments on Slashdot are almost always replies, so you should read all of them. This is because, in general, people who reply have first considered someone else's opinion before considering their own. Think about it.
Newest First: This too is a no-brainer. The older a comment is in a story, the less time someone spent thinking about it and writing it. Newer comments include people who read the article, people who did some research, or people who learned something new. All the good comments are the newest ones, and they are also the ones that Moderators tend to ignore. You can fix this problem by reading Newest First.

Remember to set your Reason Modifiers (located in User Preferences->Homepage) to zero if you've modified them already. Nonzero Reason Modifiers will distort your view of comments so that you can't find out what tier comments are viewed in by default.
- Krow, 10/23/02

So remember: -1, Nested, Newest first, zero Reason Modifiers. Don't click Moderate without it.

Moderation Scores
This is probably the biggest mystery on Slashdot. What do Insightful, Informative, Interesting, Offtopic, Flamebait, and Troll actually mean? You'd be surprised how many people don't know. This is probably because Slashdot has never documented what these labels mean. Are they mystical, magical, and purely subjective...? No. Here's what they really mean.

Troll: The Big Ugly Moderation, reserved for those nasty people who live under bridges and eat children. What is a Troll comment? Well, the Troll moderation actually comes from the phrase "trolling for newbies", a fishing reference. The Troll moderation does not have anything to do with mythical creatures, and never has. Dedicated gun nut and German dance sensation Eric Raymond defined in detail what a troll is in his Jargon File. While hard to define, a Troll comment is a very specialized type of post which is crafted by an author to provoke replies which reveal the person replying to be stupid or immature. The key requirement when you are considering moderating a comment as a 'Troll' is to determine whether or not the person writing it was just kidding. This requires a great deal of insight, a personal trusted relationship with the author, or (preferably) psychic powers. If you are unsure of the author's intent, avoid this label like the plague, as you will (justifiably) be destroyed by MetaModeration. The Troll label is for 'experts only'.
Flamebait: It is noteworthy to point out that the Jargon File entry for Flamebait reads 'See also: troll'. Flamebait is actually more specific than Troll, as it is a moderation label for troll posts which are designed to start an angry discussion or 'flamewar'. Because flamewars are universally stupid, Flamebait and Troll both meet the general requirement of attempting to humiliate anyone who replies. Flamebait is even harder to use than Troll, and requires not only the psychic ability to read the intent of the original poster, but also the ability to determine that the author was attempting to provoke a flamewar. This is a double-diamond super-expert moderation label. If you can use it correctly, you're probably either psychic or God. Keyword: correctly.
Underrated: The most confusingly labelled moderation in existence, this should probably be renamed 'Good'. Underrated provides a means of raising a comment's score without judging it, and this dovetails with our goal of Objectivity nicely. Because you're not attempting to divine why a comment is good, you are not subject to MetaModeration when using Underrated. If you are a beginning moderator, you should probably use this 100% of the time. Once you are an expert, you can toss in the occasional "Informative" or suchlike moderation when you're really, really sure.
Overrated: Overrated is also poorly labelled, as it can in general be applied to comments which are scored too highly but also to comments which are bad, useless, or stupid (for which no moderation labels exist). This can apply to content-free 'first-posts', meaningless babble, etc. Overrated is especially useful when attempting to wipe out the smattering of +5 scored comments from the first 100 posts which are content-free and posted for the sole purpose of elevating a user's karma. Overrated should be your negative moderation of choice, except in cases where you're 100% sure something is way Offtopic, or you're a psychic capable of using Troll. Remember, Overrated is immune to MetaModeration!
Offtopic: The most abused moderation on Slashdot. The most important rule when using Offtopic is that the context of a post is relative to its parent. Therefore direct replies to the story should have something vaguely to do with the story, and direct replies to a comment should have something vaguely to do with that comment!. Here is an example:
1. Poster A replies to a story about video cards with the comment 'I have one of these and I like it a lot'.
2. Poster B replies to poster A with the comment 'Thanks for sharing. Your comment told me nothing, idiot.'
Which one of these comments should be marked Offtopic? Neither. They both are direct, on-topic replies to their parent post. The second comment is probably Overrated, though, because it contributes little to the discussion, and there is no 'Uncreative Insult' moderation label.
Insightful, Informative, Interesting: These vanilla positive moderations are pretty easy to understand, and require little interpretation. Remember that when you use them, you limit the ability of a comment to be interpreted as anything else. If a comment is both insightful and informative (think Jon Carmack) and you label it Informative, you've put the comment in a little labelled box that constrains it from being thought of as insightful unless someone actually reads the comment. Remember that each label has a subjective, user-defined score, and some people may have Informative rated higher than Interesting - so be careful when boxing up comments to make sure they fit. Remember, when you're not sure, use Underrated. If a comment is already marked as Informative, and that label is correct, there is no need to pile on another Informative moderation. Just use Underrated instead.
Funny: Never use this. Well, ok, you can use it, but understand that a lot of people have it set to zero. If you've never read Laugh Lab's 'world's funniest joke', now is the time for you to read it. This will help you understand that what you find funny is often not what someone else finds funny, and things that are universally funny are at best mildly amusing. That said, this moderation can be appropriate, but it's usually just a waste of your points.

Moderation Thresholds

This is probably the least understood facet of moderating on Slashdot. There are seven possible scores for every comment, each score representing a tier with requirements for each tier. If a comment is where it belongs, leave it there - otherwise move it. That is your job as a moderator.

+5 : Absolute Gold. Comments worthy of a score of 5 are rare, and may not occur in every story. A +5 comment should be clearly written and contain information which really makes you a better person for having read it. Think about that requirement for a minute before realizing how few comments actually fit that bill.
+4 : The Good Stuff. This is the category for exceptional comments which are not just clearly written but contain something valuable such as unique information, a relevant experience, or a new perspective.
+3 : Good Comments. This is where you put just the good comments, stuff that may have some spelling or grammar errors but is far from useless. Informative links, calls for comments, enlightened discussion in general.
+2 : Good conversation. This is where most regular Slashdot readers post by default. Toss someone out of this tier only if their content is hard to understand or lacks value. A little bit of adversarial tussling is ok in this tier.
+1 : Average Conversation. This is where the millions of screaming voices that make up a Slashdot discussion should sit. Nothing extraordinary, nothing particularly well written nor anything particularly abusive. Moving someone down from this tier should only be done for good reason, such as abuse or illegibility.
Zero : Anything but Abuse. Leave everything at tier zero unless it has a reason to go up except abuse.
-1 : Abuse. This is the tier for attempts to break browsers, rendering hacks, malicious exploits of Slashdot or user browsers, hate speech, and copyright infringment. Think of tier -1 as 'deleted', and use it with the utmost care. Nothing belongs at tier -1 unless it was written to harm someone else.

Go forth and Moderate!

Hopefully reading this document has made you a better moderator (or at least helped you understand the system better). I will continue to add good suggestions to this document as I learn more, so feel free to send me your ideas and suggestions via the comment section or via email at operation_mongoose 'at' ziplip.com.

Have fun,

-s.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.