inerte's Journal: Editors that can moderate

First of all, sorry for my grammar.

    Let's compare:

Current Slashdot System

    An editor puts a history. He has unlimeted moderation points. He sees a comment and give it -1 karma. He sees another and gives +1 karma. He decides what is good and what is bad.

On Television

    A journalist is interviewing two scients. During the course of the conversation, he agrees with what the first one says, and disagrees with the other. Then he proceeds to give to the first scient one minute more to speak, and cuts the other one while he's talking.

    I am sure you can see the parallel here. I browse Slashdot with the high treshold of 3 points. I believe that this way I can cut a lot of crap. I even disable other people signatures. Time is code, code is freedom.

    But I am wrong. It's not the userbase that is deciding what is good for other users. The editors are making these decisions too. Now, would you think that the journalist above is a good professional? He doesn't let other opinions infringe his own. He already decided what people will listen, and learn (to best or worse) from that experience. Now he's manipulating feedback by giving bonuses to whom he agrees with.

    That's what happens when an editor moderates a comment. He decides, and we really don't know based on what, what's good for the community or what is bad.

    Is the Slashdot editor elected? Have we agreed that he can decide what is right or wrong? Nope. On a democratic system, the people that are working to do this things for us, laws, were elected. Okay, a politician doesn't actually decides what is right or wrong, but instead what he decides comes from a common sense of the people.

    And where it is the common sense in Slashdot that the editor named "Joe" (fictional name used, please) should be the same who decide what's insightful, interesting, offtopic or flamebait?

    That too much power concentrated on those that already have the ability to decide about we are talking about.

    Yes, too much power. I will draw another parallel. When Microsoft asked Slashdot to remove 11 comments that saying that they were infringing DMCA, Slashdot refused to do so.

    And I quote Slashdot on this issue:

You can't regulate the speech of other people so that nothing that is offensive gets said.
                          - Malda

    The moderation done on the infamous thread The first Slashdot troll post investigation shows a different side. Nothing offensive got said *except* (I made a comment over this earlier) about the moderators, both users and editors. Moderators have wasted 353 (yep, three hundred fifity three) points so far, and it just never stops.

    Editors should not moderate. I quote Slashdot again:

Admins are Users too.
                - cmrtaco

    No, they are not. Any network software programmer/engineer will teach you the concept of "groups of power". Windows and Linux have these. When you are an admin, you do things as an admin. Everuthing is logged as something that a admin is doing. Don't run as root is one of the most common tips about Linux. Don't run as root when you do not need to.

    Admins that are users should log in and have a separate user account. One that must earn karma and priviliges though good postings.

    I do it this way, why should not editors do it too? It's hard to get moderator access on Slashdot. If you got it, there are 10000 people that didn't. Please don't tell me it's their problem, you are superior, etc... That's not how a community should act.

    A community should not have central points that decides what information is relevant and worth. That's what .NET from Microsoft is folks! It concentrates, flow, share what they think it's relevant. On Microsoft's case, what makes money.

    What are Slashdot's editors criterias for moderating? Does some kind of ombudsman sees it? One that is paid to make it? At maximum, you may have meta-moderating. But then again, that's the userbase saying what right or wrong.

    Users.

    Stuff that matters for nerds.

    And not higher visibility for people that agree with a few "elite" that none gave the power.

    Editors should not have moderation access.

    PERIOD.

PS: I have much, much more to say. If someone please comment on this I may present you with more opinions.

Please do do.