Journal negativekarmanow tm's Journal: The first Slashdot troll post investigation 47
The last few months I have been doing some research into the trolling phenomenon on slashdot.org. In order to do this as thoroughly as possible, I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results:
- More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up. Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4.
- Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards. Presumably these Nazi Moderators think it's more important to burn a user's existing karma, to silence that individual for the future, than to use the moderation system for what it's meant for : identifying "good" and "bad" posts (Notice how nearly all oppressive governments in the past and present do the same thing : marking individuals as bad and untrustworthy because they have conflicting opinions, instead of engaging in a public discussion about these opinions)
- Once you have a karma of -4 or -5, your posts have a score of -1 by default. When this is the case, no-one bothers to mod you down anymore. This means a logged in user can keep on trolling as much as he (or she) likes, without risking a ban to post on slashdot. When trolling as an anonymous user, every post starts at score 0, and you will be modded down to -1 ON EVERY POST. When you are modded down a certain number of times in 24 hour, you cannot post anymore from your current IP for a day or so. So, for successful trolling, ALWAYS log in.
- A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever, funny, etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic. Now, on a news site like slashdot, where the number of different topics of discussion can be counted on 1 hand, I must say I quite like the distraction these posts offer. But no, when the topic is yet another minor version change of the Linux kernel, they only expect ooohs and aaahs about this great feat of engineering. Look at the moderation done in this thread to see what I mean.
- Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll, which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.
Feel free to use this information to your advantage. I thank you for your time.
Update 2001-01-17:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=30, Troll=1, Redundant=2, Insightful=8, Interesting=21, Informative=7, Overrated=2, Total=71
My posting of this same entry has brought about a somewhat bigger response than expected. After an initial rise to a score of +4, it has been hovering between -1 and 4 for some time, causing my karma to rise to as high as -2 at times, until suddenly the entire thread (40+ direct replies) was modded to -1 : offtopic.
I have never been someone who believes every conspiracy theory about
Don't get me wrong, I couldn't care less about these karma points (I'd say the username is a bit of a giveaway), but trying to mod a thread that has caused so much upheavel into oblivion classifies as censorship in my book.
Remember, although admittedly this post was somewhat trollish in appearance, it clearely voiced the opinion of many on slashdot, and many either approved of it, or at least had very clear reasons why they didn't. All of them got modded down in the same sweep of -1:offtopic
Think about it, editors
Another update 2001-01-17:
The thread seems to have settled now, and the original post is back at +5:interesting:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=34, Flamebait=1, Troll=2, Redundant=2, Insightful=8, Interesting=27, Informative=8, Overrated=2, Underrated=2, Total=86.
Well, I submitted a story, asking the editors to explain more about how and when they moderate. I don't expect to hear about it though.
Yet another update 2001-01-17 (last one today, I promise):
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=47, Flamebait=1, Troll=3, Redundant=2, Insightful=9, Interesting=32, Informative=9, Funny=2, Overrated=2, Underrated=3, Total=110
No surprise, my story was rejected
After another threadslap the entire thread is back at -1:offtopic, and I'm back at -13 karma. I'll just lay low for a while, as I can't post anymore (and with the ongoing moderation being done : +1:interesting, 1 minute later -1:offtopic, it doesn't seem like that's gonna change soon.)
Sad, very sad. I can't even comment on my own journal
Update 2001-01-18:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=130, Flamebait=3, Troll=4, Redundant=3, Insightful=24, Interesting=76, Informative=17, Funny=3, Overrated=2, Underrated=20, Total=282, and no sign of slowing down.
I heard kuro5hin.org has a story about this little episode, and to my surprise I found an explanation there by Jamie McCarthy. Why he would say this on K5 instead of on
Re:Keep up the good work! (Score:1, Offtopic)
Friends, Trolls, Slashdottians, lend me your eyes.
This marks a great, sad time in the forum of slashdot. When the editors, themselves, censor the comments - not by call of Microsoft, nor the Scientologists, but of their own bruised egos, we have entered the realm of danger.
The editors ignore all calls to question slashdot - they will not change to fit the wishes of the community. They will not even provide a opportunity for us to discuss the failings and boons of the forum.
This forum exists, it seems, to cast a harsh light on all that could be considered even moderately unjust, and bad. However, it is held that a just man cannot be bad himself - yet the editors censor; that makes them bad.
In this time of uncertainty, you must think to your idols. What Would Stallman Do? (Besides hit a bong and say "bummer, dude").
It's time for Stallmanists, Tuxists, And Daemonites to band together. Even followers of the flying window can come to this calling. We shall pass out the nerf weapons of destruction and storm the exodus cage; We shall root the slashboxes and de-moderate those who would dissent, and we shall invade the homes of the editors and give them wedgies of extraordinary proportions. We shall entomb them in a mound of foam darts and rubber bands; and then install Windows 3.1 on their machines.
Fellow members of the forum, and trolls: The censorship must stop [slashdot.org]. The dissenters must be given a voice [slashdot.org] if slashdot is to meet its goal of "Stuff that matters". The voices get louder and louder.
I call for a top-level story discussing slashdot. I call Taco, Hemos, and the other editors and decision makers to take part in this discussion. This forum is of adequate size that it should take responsibility for some of what is said and done here. I call for a review of the procedure of moderation.
Make your voices heard. Add the links above into your SIG, and make them your web page link. Draw attention to the matter and it can't be kept silent. Stop the hypocrisy.
Thank you for your time,
Analog Boy
Discuss without being "offtopic" here [slashdot.org]
Re:Keep up the good work! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:best.post.ever. (Score:2)
About your post... (Score:1)
Anyways, I'd like to go over some of the topics you mentioned but in a different perspective (and compaired to REAL trolling, and Kooking).
As stated, moderators are using points to mod stuff down much more than up. However, it seems that supermoderators (editors) are abusing this power in general by silencing a said thread. Since there is no way we can 'vote' on articles, people like you must use channels as these (mainly other threads, which risk you as being offtopic) to spread your ideas.
After seeing only a little bit of Slashdot, I prefer Usenet myself. No moderating server-side, moderating is client-side with whatever field you like. IP, name, email domain, date, and fo course, any field is regex killable- given the correct client.
However, there are easy improvments on this 'points' system(I refuse to call it Karma, since is largely irrelavalent). I'll try to put these rules into groups.
1: Unregistered users are put in -1 point pool as default.
2: Registered users are put in 0 point pool.
3: Reg-Users are only ones capible of Points system. That alone should 'push' people away from unregistered status.
4: Reg-users gain default point levels every +20 moderation points given.
Example: UserA has 37 Points. His default posting point level is a 1. His score will theortically go up until it reaches the average quality of his articles.
5: There is no Point system cap (other than a built in varible of -32767_to_32768 ), HOWEVER article score can go no further than 5 (100 points of moderation). Further points will have no affect on the article score (having max Points will not make your article immune from moderation)
6: Article selection will be the majority (overall votes for articles). All registered users can vote once ( 1 Article point given)
Well, the system would probably require a complete work over to sucessfully complete this. Probably one other thing I would change is to allow 'Funny' articles be selected out from the Moderation Point selection (the ThreashHold). To me, funny has no bearing to the article, however I'd probably go take a look if I was bored.
Heh, well to talk about Usenet. You know what Trolls are? You don't have a clue. This is a somewhat decent idea of a troll:
Trolls are Smart beings who lurk about until somebody with a fiery temper comes about. A troll will argue with pointless points (yes, I said that right) for the purpose to piss off everybody in that newsgroup. They usually pull 2 words from an earlier post from one of thier targets and blast that 2 words, which are out of context, to anybody that will listen. If you try to ban them, they come out with a totally different identity, sometimes taking a legit poster. I've personally seen this tatic done to me, unsucessfully (proving that I didn't, I owe thanks to PGP sign). They don't care.. They will attempt to make a legit looking signature, even if it doesn't verify. If you try to fry them by ToS'sing them (abuse of Terms of Service), they come back from the same ISP as a different user or from another ISP altogether. Ok, now from above, a Kook is a Troll^2. On alt.sputum, there's KotM (Kook of the Month). Yes, they're that bad
Josh Crawley
Re:About your post... (Score:1)
a.r.s. kooks are better :P
Re:About your post... (Score:2)
There are moderated newsgroups, both in Big-8 and in alt.*. They're far more tyrannical than anything you've seen on /., and they often work quite well.
Re:cant wait for THAT ... (Score:2)
(checkForMetaModerator)
Curious mod phenomena (Score:2)
Why Slashdot Sucks [slashdot.org]
Now... my post wasn't a troll, and it was only as offtopic as the rest of the thread. (I simply asked that a certain parent post be modded up.) My questions are:
1. Who the hell uses their mod points to mark 11-day-old messages as offtopic?!?
2. Did someone really waste their mod points to mark down every post in the thread? It's really quite bizarre.
I honestly thought that there was some sort of new auto-inheritence rule in place that I hadn't heard about.
Perhaps I'm being naive, but it just seems unlikely that any sane person would actually use their mod points like this...
Re:Curious mod phenomena (Score:2)
Someone has entirely too much time of their hands.
Ask Sla^H^H^H negativekarmanow (Score:1)
Is this the most moderated comment in slashdot history? (genuinely would like to know)
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=37, Flamebait=1, Troll=2, Redundant=2, Insightful=9, Interesting=29, Informative=9, Overrated=2, Underrated=3, Total=94.
Well (Score:2)
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=43, Flamebait=1, Troll=3, Redundant=2, Insightful=9, Interesting=31, Informative=9, Overrated=2, Underrated=3, Total=103.
The totals will eventually go away, but they're recorded here in your journal for posterity.
There is, however, one point I'd like to correct you on. Editors do tell you when they're moderating posts. You just have to turn on messaging. When they moderate your posts, you get a message that says that a User has moderated your post; this is because at Slashdot, administrators are actually called "Users". So please, in the future, don't call them "Editors", call them "Users", so they'll know what you're talking about.
Rob already addressed this issue here [sourceforge.net].
suggestions for moderating... (Score:1)
-Moderators who have access to mod points in an article should not be able to see the user name and their
-The concept of putting the most recent moderation on the subject line needs serious revision. For example, a post gets modded up from +1 to +5, Informative. Then some lame moderator comes along and slaps it Offtopic. The subject line now reads +4, Offtopic. According to the poster's argument (which I agree with), this comment will now get more OT mods just because of that one lamer. Hence, I suggest the following: The moderation used most gets placed on the subject line, ties have both listed. For example, that comment I talked about above will list a +4, Informative because Informative was used most on it, but a comment that has 2 Troll mods and 2 Insightful mods will display "1, Troll/Insightful" This forces the next moderator to use their brain for a moment on that comment. Again, not perfect, but a big improvement.
-Make Overrated/Underrated M2'able!! I cannot say how often these are abused to silence someone with little recourse against the moderator. Because these moderations NEVER APPEAR IN METAMOD, abusive moderators will use the Overrated on truely Insightful comments they disagree with, knowing they will get away with it. Likewise for using Underrated on crapflood posts.
If you think about it (Score:2)
The fact that someone (Jamie, perhaps) mods any of this as offtopic is just plain idiotic.
I think that the only moderation allowed in journals should be by the person who owns the journal, not random people who click on a link in a sig, don't bother reading the journal itself, and start moderating, or by abusive editors.
Perhaps we'll get to see more bitchslapping going on.
Re:suggestions for moderating... (Score:2)
I've had mod access twice (although maybe never again, after posting in that sid) and I can say that your first point has not already been implemented.
another idea: (Score:1)
Keep track of items like what posts you make (both logged in and as AC), what the default score was (-1 through +2, inclusive), and how moderation was done and how quickly. Use the
For determining exactly what a comment should have been scored, enlist some friends to and vote on how different comments should be moderated. Unfortunately, it's not possible to view metamod records, even though that would be extremely helpful. Do note this is _the_ most tricky part or evaluating how well moderating is happening.
The Point: By keeping the records, you can establish legitimate argument in favor of your claims.
Total=131 (Score:1)
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=58, Flamebait=1, Troll=3, Redundant=2, Insightful=10, Interesting=38, Informative=11, Funny=2, Overrated=2, Underrated=4, Total=131.
Article on Kuro5hin (Score:1)
The worst part of slashdot moderation... (Score:3, Insightful)
While this may be perfectly valid in some cases (page-lengthening posts and ASCII pictures of distended anuses really don't contribute a thing to any conversation), in most it serves merely to enforce the status quo, something slashdot has always strived to distance itself from.
Unfortunately, Rob Malda doesn't really give a fuck what you think. Moderation's not broken; it never has been and it's certainly better now that we've added meta-moderation! (Never mind the fact that the consequences of meta-moderation can be easily avoided by using Over/Underrated. Will this ever be fixed?) Have a modersation-related suggestion? that's nice, but we don't care [slashdot.org].
Slashdot is very broken. A single user shouldn't be able to affect the score of a comment by an entire point. An averaging system (like the one used on K5) makes an awful lot of sense, would remove the need for meta-mod, and would actually use less system resources than the current system, assuming you used simple integers rather than the silly "Interesting/Informative/Overrated/Underrated/etc
Oh, well. As long as the editors can do whatever they want to comments, none of this really matters, does it?
- A.P.
My experience posting to the thread (Score:2)
Ok, first I made a "control" type post. I made this post [slashdot.org] at 12:59AM my time zone according to
Well, it got hit as you can see, so I decided to continue. I made this post [slashdot.org] in reply to the infamous post. My post was on topic (in the
Since I can not draw clear conclusions from this I'm not sure how to feel yet. Please note, my experience, and my posts to the famous post do not neccessarily mean I suppor the idea presented. I think it would be interesting to devise a way to post to
A regular sounding account name posting on topic things.
A regular sounding account name posting off topic things.
A troll sounding account name posting on topic things.
A troll sounding account name posting off topic things.
An AC account posting on topic.
An AC posint off topic.
/. science often means space), or just askslashdot (posting simple google responces perhaps) could help devise a scheme to post similar things.
Coming up with the accounts, and the timing numbers/stats is easy - the difficulty is coming up with what should be considered by many similar enough on topic posts (off topic is easy). Possibly limiting these to just science things (post some space info since
Another thing I'd like to mention is that I saw the famous post go from +5 informative with a Total Moderation count of 196, then go to -1 Flaimbait with 197 total moderation count then to +5 interesting again with 198 total moderation all within one minute... interesing...
IMPORTANT (Score:1)
So far, news of this thread has not been spreading as rapidly as it should. This is most likely due to the fact that everyone who links to it gets modded down to -1. What we really need is a well written post that can be posted many times by different people, and might get modded up.
I would write it, but I am not a very good writer, so I am requesting three things:
1) That the owner of this journal create a new journal entry, in which people can put up drafts of "the post"
2) That everyone who reads this creates a draft, and shows everyone by posting it as a comment in the journal entry above
3) That people, in the meantime, continue trying to inform people
If we can get enough people to read it, and see what is going on, we might be able to beat these asshole editors who have been insta-moderating the thread down to -1.
We can do it if we organize
Current Totals (Score:2)
Rather impressive post.
I've lurked for a while on slashdot until recently I started posting. However, shortly after I started posting, I no longer got mod privs (which I attempted to use as best I could, to mod up interesting or insightful articles).
Now, with a karma of 42, I metamod about 5 or 6 times a day, however, I haven't had moderator privs on a thread in over 3 months.
Somewhat strange.
Anyways, you present a bunch of good points, but I doubt we'll ever see a change in the way that things are run, simply because even though a few people MAY leave, the majority never will, and that's what the Editors rely on, a mass of people being here.
If you want a good moderation system, try kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]. The users vote on the article submissions, and as to whether or not they go on the front page or just the section page, or to dump them. Plus, they have mod privs on every single post in every single thread.
Sure, you can abuse your power, but it's a hell of a waste of time, and I don't think it's done very often.
Gawyn
Re:Current Totals (Score:1)
Re:Current Totals (Score:1)
write an insightful, interesting or informative comment, and hope that I read it when I've got modpoints left.
/. Main Page News (Score:2)
The entire thread is absurdly funny, that Jamie would spend that much time modding down everyone, that the Slashdot Administration doesn't want anyone to know about it..
How long until the majority of the users on Slashdot know this has happened, and yet there STILL is not an official comment? If they truly believe what they preach in the threads (Open Source, Free Speech, etc.), they will become angry at the Editor Moderations and either post about it more or just leave Slashdot all together.
Anyone got ideas for setting up a giant information discussion somewhere? Preferably somewhere where people either don't need accounts to post or here on
Gawyn
PS: As of posting, The Thread is at -1 Offtopic:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=139, Flamebait=4, Troll=4, Redundant=3, Insightful=27, Interesting=79, Informative=19, Funny=4, Overrated=5, Underrated=23, Total=307.
ATTN Slashdot Moderators (Score:1)
In the poll (Score:2)
The News function of Slashdot takes precedence (Score:2)
In about 100 posts, I've been modded down maybe four or five times. Usually I could kinda agree with the moderator, and usually the -1 was more than counterbalanced. I read /. mostly for information, but I do like the fact that I can read it for entertainment (which is how I found your comment). It seems to work quite well for both, as long as I'm prepared to make the effort to seek out what entertains me. And that is why these trolls and off-topic comments get modded down. While they're an essential part of Slashdot culture, the news function of Slashdot, the thing that keeps me coming back here because it distinguishes /. from USENET, is more important.