florescent_beige's Journal: Troll Mods are Annoying

Back in '82 or so, I spent my time working up a Master's thesis at the U of T MechEng building. Every so often, perhaps once every two months, I'd be waylayed in the corridor by a complete stranger who had obviously wandered in off the street. Invariably, this stranger would be looking for a professor to legitimize his perpetual-motion/free-energy device/idea/theory.

That was 25 years ago. How many such would-be revolutionaries have come and gone in the years since? Hundreds. How many at all the universities in all the world? Thousands.

None of them have been right. All of them have been wrong. Why? Because their ideas violate the basic laws of the universe that we have learned through the application of the scientific method.

To suppose that the genius embodied in the known laws of physics can be swept aside by double talk that at it's core is nothing more than the verbal manifestation of a glib sense of dismissive entitlement is breathtaking. That Slashdot panders to this ignorance places this community on exactly the same level as creation science. Meanwhile, the editors cower behind the juvenile delusion that powers Fox News; that every dissenting viewpoint, no matter how insane, deserves equal time.

Perpetual motion is not news, for nerds or anyone else. It is not stuff that matters. It may, however, be interesting to the uniformed uneducated train-spotting passive-aggressive conspiracy lunatics that make up the vast majority of Slashdots newly targeted advertising demographic.

I'm to spend my time thinking of quality posts to cast before such swine, why exactly? I'm to be troll-censored by a thirteen year-old, why exactly?

Chacham

[Captain Splendid]

I'm to be troll-censored by a thirteen year-old, why exactly?

Because you can't spell "fluorescent"?

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[florescent_beige]

Can actually. It's spelt i-r-o-n-y.

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[Captain Splendid]

Dammit. I was betting your reply would castigate me for not knowing what florescent meant. Foiled again.

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[ktappe]

He misspelled "its" as "it's" too, but that does not make his underlying point any less valid. He is right--the latest perpetual motion claim did indeed not belong on Slashdot, and it is in fact far too easy for the ignorant, the brainwashed, the highly biased, and the anarchists to mod down posts that they have no business modding. Ditto for the angel-believers and physics-challenged to mod up posts about Paris Hilton and perpetual motion. Slashdot claims to be more than just any other blog/forum. As the

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[florescent_beige]

I wonder if the editors really want to eliminate stories like that. The one you referred to generated 800+ comments whereas the average seems to be more like two or three hundred. That's eyeballs on the ads and money in somebody's pocket.

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[Captain Splendid]

Eh, I was just fucking with him with a little humour. You can't let yourself get too wrapped up by the idiots here, because they're everywhere, Slashdot's not special.

Another point: This might be news for nerds, but it is still a public forum. If you want to be able to chat with nothing but actual PhD eggheads all day long, there are forums and mailing lists for that. I will warn you though, they can be just as childish and petty, even if they do know a perpetual motion machine is impossible.

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[florescent_beige]

Maybe I've just been lucky but up until very recently I haven't had any of my posts modded troll simply because someone didn't like my opinion. It's a new phenomenon for me and I don't like it. It's to be told by some invisible person "you are out of this discussion because I say so, no reason given, no reason needed, no debate." What kind of discussion board is that?

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[Captain Splendid]

Maybe I've just been lucky but up until very recently I haven't had any of my posts modded troll simply because someone didn't like my opinion.

Ah, you just had your cherry broken, welcome to the club! I've always said you're nobody on /. until you've collected a few freaks as well as some egregious modding.

What kind of discussion board is that?

IMO, one that's actually very true to real life. I've been on other forums that are much more heavily policed, and while I have nothing against that, the