Now's your chance to see just how well you've been paying attention during the past four years of chips, dips, Micro$loth, Napster, IPOs, BSD, rights online, editor censorship, and of course Linux, Linux, Linux! Complete the following professional-quality crossword puzzle chock full of trivia on Slashdot, Open Source, and geekiness in general for not only posterity but GREAT PRIZES!! Prizes include the following:

A fresh box of QUAKER GRITS [quakergrits.com]!
Your very own SLASHDOT CRUISER [slashdot.org]!
A hot date [ea.com] with NATALIE PORTMAN [natalieportman.com]!
A genuine VA Lin^H^H^HSOFTWARE STOCK CERTIFICATE [vasoftware.com]!

It doesn't get much better than this, folks! Here's how to play:

Fill in the crossword completely. No incomplete (or incorrect) solutions will be considered.
Once you're sure you have the crossword completely figured out, submit it to slashdot_crossword at engineer.com [mailto]. If you indeed have the solution, one of the above four prizes are yours! The prizes are in limited supply (well, except for the VA stock certificates), so get those solutions in early!
The winners will be announced on 2002/04/28, to be praised in -1 crapfloods for all eternity (or at least until the crapflooders get bored and go back to posting gay Slashdot editor fanfics).

While we fully assert that this crossword is professional quality, there are of course some variations from the standard crossword form to make things more interesting for the Slashdot crowd. Some answers are used more than once. Digits (0-9) exist in some answers. Some clues are repeated with different answers. Many of the answers are acronyms or initialisms; if the answer that comes to mind doesn't fit, try thinking of common abbreviations for it. And, of course, the crossword indices are all in hexadecimal (this is Slashdot, after all!)

So, without further ado, here comes the crossword! Plain HTML is admittedly ugly and unpleasant to look at, so you may download and print a nice PDF version here [geocities.com]. Good luck!

+-+- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +-+- +
|1 |2 |3 |4 |##|5 |6 |##|7 | |8 |##|9 |##|0a| |0b|0c|##|0d|
+-+- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+-+- +- +- +- +-+- +- +-+- +
|0e| | | |##|0f| |10| |##| |##|11| | |##|12| |13| |
+-+- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +- +-+-+- +- +- + +- +- +-+- +
| |##|##| |##|14| | | |##|15|16| |##| |##|17| | | |
+- +- - +- +- +-+-+- +- +- +- - +- +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +
|##|18| | |19|##|##|1a| |1b| | |##|##|##|1c|####|##| |
+- +- +-+- +- +- +- - +- +- +- +-+-+- +- +- +- +- +-+- +
|1d| |##|##| |##|1e| | | |##|1f|20|21|22| |23|##|24|##|
+ +- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +- +- - +- +- +-+- +- +-+- +
|##|25|26|27| |##|##| |##|28|29|##|2a| | |##|2b|2c| |##|
+- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +- +-+
|##|2d| | |##|2e|2f|##|##|30| | | |##| |##|31| | |##|
+- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +- +-+- +
|##|##|##|32| | | |##|##|##| |##|##|33| |34|##| |##|##|
+-+- +- +- +- ++- +- +- +- +-+- +- +- + + +- +- +-+- +
|35|36|37|##|##|38| |39|##|3a|##|##|3b| |##| |##|3c| | |
+-+-+- +- +- ++- +- +- +- +-+- +- +- - +- +- +- + +- +
|3d| | | |3e|##|##|3f| | |##|40|##|##|41| | | |##|##|
+-+- +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +-+- +- +- + - +- +- + +-+- +
| |##|##|##|42| |43| |##|44| | |45| | | |##|46|47|48|
+- +- - +- + +- +- +-+- +- +- + +- +- +-+- +- +- +-+- +
|49|4a| | | |##|4b| | | |##|4c| |##| |##|##|4d| | |
+- +- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- + +- +
|##| |##|##| |##| |##|##|4e|4f| |##|50| |51|##|52| | |
+-+- +- + +- +-+- +- +- +- + +- +- +- + +- +- + +- +- +
|53| | | | |##| |##|54| | | | |##|55| | |##|##| |
+- +- +-+- +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +- + +- +
|56| |##|##|##|57| | |##|##|##| |##|##| |##|##|##|58| |
+- +- +- - +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +
|59| |##|##|##|##| |##|5a| |5b|##|##|5c| |5d|##|5e|##| |
+- +- +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- - +- +- +-+- +
| |##|##|5f| |60| |##| |##| |##|61| |##|62|63| | |##|
+- +- +- + +- +- +- +- +- - +- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +- +
|##|64| | |##| |##|65| | | |##|##| |##|66| | |##|##|
+- +-+- +- +- +- - +- +- +- +- +-+-+- +- +- +- + +- +- +
|67| |##|68| | |##|69| |##|6a| | | |##|6b| | | |##|
+- +- +-+- +- +- +- + +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- +- +- +-+- +
|6c| | |##|##| |##|6d| | | |##|##|6e| | | | |##|6f|
+-+- +- +- +- +- +-+ +- +- +- +- +- +- +-+- +- +- +- +-+

THE CLUES:

Across
1. This band must've been desperate for publicity to give an interview to Slashdot!
5. Crapflooder impersonated well by Silicon Simian.
7. A special treat you earn for Bad Posting.
0A. Sean Kelly's ex-lover and former SlashNET IRCop.
0E. Ew! Between the eyes!
0F. This dog won't mess your carpet, shed fur all over the place, or do much else besides consume batteries.
11. Living proof that you get what you pay for.
12. The soundtrack for the World Wide Web.
14. Disney makes money to destroy free speech on the Internet every time you buy ____ on DVD.
15. Slashcode's overglorified killfile.
17. You were writing FOX about "The Tick" when you should've been writing your congressman about this bill.
18. A very Snotty troll.
1A. This young Afghan loves watching movies and JonKatz on his C64.
1D. The best text editor EVER!
1E. What you say!! If you say it one more time, I'll bludgeon you to death!
1F. These guys gave Linux mono.
25. These shiny discs feed money into a bloated media cartel and stifle fair use rights, but you buy them by the millions anyway.
28. Slashdot's top comment poster and story submitter.
2A. These networks "disrupt" artists' cash flows.
2B. Open Source codeword for amphetamines.
2D. RAM type optimized for Extended Data Output on old Pentiums.
2E. Hillary Rosen knows you're just itching to steal Charley Pride's __.
30. A hack to get a kernel designed only to boot off floppy disks to boot off a hard drive.
31. ___ BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN-SOURCE CD!!!
32. Marketers who resort to this tactic are worse than Hitler and should be tortured and killed.
33. This desktop environment kicks GNOME's ass!
35. Microsoft sold off this Unix, and it's gone downhill ever since.
38. An essential e-mail utility for child pornographers and terrorists.
3B. (0A Down)'s lucky number.
3C. It's not Unix, and it shows.
3D. Preface for 90% of Slashdot comments, and 100% of CmdrTaco's personal ads.
3F. Where non-free software goes on your file system.
41. You better mark all the comments as ____ in metamod unless you want to lose karma.
42. This international standards body, no matter what you may think, does NOT read Slashdot.
44. Head bitch of the RIAA.
46. A primitive chat program superseded by AOL Instant Messenger.
49. An online webzine which demonstrated that online subscriptions don't work to everybody except CmdrTaco.
4B. If you moderate in a way CmdrTaco doesn't like, you earn this special database flag.
4C. vi does a poor job of emulating this standard Unix text editor.
4D. To B or not __ _.
4E. You won't get much use out of this text-recognition technology if all you use your scanner for is scanning your ass.
50. The sound Michael's head makes when he's stuffing it up his rectum.
52. Unique index for a whole LIST of babble.
53. The world's best operating system!
54. Father of Methuselah, or old-school Slashdot troll.
55. You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict this operating system's future.
56. Most geeks sleep through this half of the day.
57. This open-source man was Natalie's first.
58. Carly's mission is to steer this company into the ground.
59. mimbleton's favorite subject prefix.
5A. Chewing this might help your babbling problem.
5C. Programming language named after Lord Byron's daughter.
5F. Dead drummer for CmdrTaco's favorite band, or ridiculous Liberal myth.
61. Every Slashdotter's dream is to get one of these.
62. The Firm that is spelling Armageddon for free speech on The Net.
64. These networks are the beginning of Disorganized Crime.
65. Shitty "bitch band" whose leader likes to bitch about the RIAA.
66. The only Adequacy [adequacy.org] editor with a real PhD.
67. I think 7 over 22 is both backwards AND wrong.
68. Mentioning this droid (and others) is what is keeping you from getting laid.
69. Two-letter country code for Oman.
6A. Giving a ____ Necklace involves "coming" on Heidi Wall's bosom.
6B. What people who can't afford Visual Studio use to search text files.
6C. This hacker tool is often used to replace "characters" in "strings".
6D. QueenTaco's maiden name.
6E. The best text editor EVER!
6F. The PDP-11 assembler that thinks it's a programming language.

Down
1. Taco thinks that a purchase of his publicly traded company's services is a ___.
2. The self-centered Windows 9x release after 98SE.
3. 3D Tamagotchi game designed by Peter Molyneux.
4. A crippled Photoshop wannabe.
5. Lock your penis bird in a cage to protect it from this text-outputting animal.
6. Russian Geeks in Space.
7. If your karma surpasses 25, you have this and a problem.
8. Luckily, michael was born too late to join THIS party.
9. If this Slashdot section's color scheme doesn't drive you away, Michael's snotty editorial remarks will.
0A. Suffering cerebral palsy didn't stop him from becoming Surprised by Wealth.
0B. The market leader in megahertz lies.
0C. Statement used to declare variables in Visual Basic.
0D. Media cartel dedicated to protecting Britney Spears from dirty hackers.
10. Once the greatest Karma Whore ever, now a suicidal loser seen only on (33 Down).
13. Game console that bankrupted its parent company because of hackers making free games for it.
16. The only Unix understandable by non-geeks.
18. (40 Down) likes his pages ____.
19. Do many eyes make all bugs shallow, or do too many cooks spoil the broth?
1C. Research? Linux? Software? Whatever!
20. The first step towards failure for Linux companies.
21. Every Slashdotter's duty (except those marked with (4B Across)).
22. Apple's stylish new IP theft device.
23. (43 Down)'s employer.
24. A flaky Open-Source knockoff of (38 Across).
26. ESR's birthday present to RMS.
27. This primitive operating system denies any service to its users.
29. Unique index for a particular piece of babble.
2C. A tasty breakfast treat -- down your pants!
2E. You hit this once you get 50 karma points.
2F. This marketing guy troll sure is dumb!
33. This site is decidedly not Slashdot.
34. An easy way to lose all your karma is to offer your account for sale on this popular auction site.
35. Unfortunately, this famous online Nazi's treatment of the Censorware Project [sethf.com] wasn't just a game.
36. Two-letter country code for the 51st state.
37. A geek's computer is always __.
39. ____, Lover, Aesthete, Programmer. There is no contradiction.
3A. The XP makes it go faster!
3E. The world's worst operating system!
40. The only troll with a freaks list longer than JonKatz'.
41. The OS all the cool people use now that Linux isn't trendy anymore.
43. A top-flight IT consultant who somehow manages to find time in his busy schedule to post to Slashdot.
45. What comes after as(1) and before strip(1) in the C build process.
47. VA Software has the world's worst ___.
48. This Senate bill comes closer to passing every time you go to see Lord of the Rings again.
4A. Legalized child pornography.
4F. What the Greeks went to Delphi for, Geeks go to this state for.
51. The Hellmouth should've eaten you here.
53. This rocker's battle against file-sharing networks won't end until he can Kill 'Em All.
5A. This desktop environment kicks KDE's ass!
5B. This modest and self-effacing troll was one of the first on Slashdot.
5C. You'd have to think different to justify spending money on this company's overpriced products.
5D. A game console which thought it was a full-featured computer system.
5E. Cofounder of Chips 'n' Dips.
5F. It may not have the best sound quality, but at least it's better than Ogg Vorbis.
60. Preface for the 10% of Slashdot comments not prefaced with (3D Across).
63. Apple stole all their ideas from this research group.
64. Bye bye, miss USian ___, drove the Cruiser like some loser who starts posts with a *sigh* ...
65. A dynamically updated list of the biggest losers on Slashdot.
67. Standard programming language implemented by most high-end printers.
6F. This language's lack of bounds checking is responsible for 90% of software security holes out there.

addendum first, a note of thanks to st for taking this from concept to finished post and getting it out there in my absence. there was a ton of work left to do when i died, and most of it was pretty ugly. thanks man. also thanks to everyone who contributed time and ideas - mj, sd, all the regulars - you know who you are..

You may all remember this story where ZDNet caught Microsoft employees emailing each other a reminder to vote in a .NET vs. Java poll in order to influence the results. Well, last week's story about Microsoft's new CIFS license linked to the license which allowed users to rate it. Not surprisingly, many Slashdot users decided it would be a great idea to vote in the poll in order to influence the results. Finding this amusing in an ironic sort of way, I proceeded to egg everyone on a little.

You might be interested to note that Microsoft has quietly removed user voting results from the License.

Update: 04/08/2002:
Wakko is right. Maybe their ASP server was just crashed? Maybe someone at Microsoft reads my journal religously (most likely the case). Anyway, before writing this story I got a MS-SQL error when attempting to rate the document. Now, four hours later, the results are back. Maybe their software is just flaky.

Right now, the document is rated:
Rate this page: 21454 users 1.2 out of 5

This letter was emailed to CmdrTaco on 04/02/2002. I will update my journal immediately if I receive a response. In the absence of that update, you can assume the response to be: "No Comment".

Updated for accuracy, 04/04/2002

      Why do you refuse to document your user Blacklist?

First: Thank-you, Rob, for updating the FAQ to reflect the fact that Editors do 10% of Moderating Slashdot. Thank you for addressing the Anti-Troll filters that impose semi-permanent bans on users.

Second: Since you have been so forthcoming in the FAQ about the previous two topics, why don't you change the FAQ to include the Big Question that came out of the original Meta discussion: Can some Moderation activity can get you banned from the Moderation and MetaModeration systems? Considering that the purpose of M2 is to evaluate the fairness of M1, and that some people are permanently banned from this process, shouldn't you at least disclose this when citing M2 as proof of fairness? And furthermore, don't you think you should be open with your users about the fact that their actions can get them banned from the system?

Your Moderation Guidelines contain the following:

Why can't I suddenly moderate any more?
If you unfairly moderate a comment, you might have your access revoked, although this is almost never the reason people lose access.

Considering you banned upwards of five hundred people for moderating a single post, I personally believe that quote should be reviewed for accuracy. What does "unfair" mean? Who determines it? How can you find out that your access has been revoked? Are there any guidelines that determine what "unfair" means or how to avoid being "unfair"? What does "almost never" mean (aren't close to 18% of Moderators banned?). In any case, nowhere is there a mention of the fact that hundreds of users are banned, nor of the fact that they are banned from M1 and M2. This hand-picking of the M2 pool affects all claims as to the ability of M2 to judge "Fairness" and it is completely undocumented. What is written about M2 selection is misleading and untrue.

I don't think many people have a problem with you hand selecting Moderators and Meta-Moderators. However, I think a great number of people have a problem with you doing it in secret, and especially with leaving misleading documentation in place of the truth:

"
It's probably the most difficult part of the process: who is allowed to moderate. On one hand, many people say "Everyone," but I've chosen to avoid that path because the potential for abuse is so great. Instead, I've set up a few simple rules for determining who is eligible to moderate.

  - Logged In User
  - Regular Slashdot Readers
  - Long Time Readers
  - Willing to Serve
  - Positive Contributors (+karma)
"

You fail to mention the fifth case that affects eligibility:

Non-blacklisted users

I'm not saying that you don't have a right to have a secret policy that is misleadingly documented. IYSYCDWYW (It's Your Site, You Can Do What You Want). But you hold other people (Microsoft, Oracle, Disney) to such a high bar that when you fail to make that bar yourself, it hurts your credibility. Haven't you gotten enough angry emails from users who have been secretly banned?

In short, my question is this:

Why do you refuse to document your user Blacklist?.

"I'm open to any suggestions, but anything angry will simply be ignored." - CmdrTaco

"You caught me. I don't give a fuck. Thats why I'm diligently responding to people who are being rude to me about a service we provide for free to them." -CmdrTaco

If you're eligible to Moderate on Slashdot, read on, because I have a very special challenge for you. First, though, some background.

I received two new Moderation Messages from the messaging system today, which I will reproduce for you below:

Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards"

        sent by Slashdot Message System on Tuesday February 26, @03:40AM

A user has given a Troll (-1) moderation to your comment, Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards , attached to When PC Still Means 'Punch Card' . Your comment is currently scored (0).

Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?"

        sent by Slashdot Message System on Tuesday February 26, @03:59AM

A user has given a Offtopic (-1) moderation to
your comment, Re:May I disable Modbombing? , attached to Quantum Programming with Perl . Your comment is currently scored (-1).

On the face, not really noteworthy. They're just negative moderations of two week old comments buried deep in a thread that nobody reads. So why a journal entry for them? Well, there's some rather interesting observations you can make about these Moderations:

• They were made at approximately 3:50AM
• They were made to comments that were archived

Since the messaging system claims that a user, not an Administrator, made these moderations, we can assume that it is now possible for users to Moderate Archived comments. The only other possibility is that some Administrator was staying up till 3 in the morning writing custom code to modify archived database records for the sake of attacking some user's karma. That idea is (of course) completely absurd. Add to this absurdity the fact that the messaging system would be lying to claim that a user moderated me down if an Administrator had actually done it, and you have complete and utter impossibility. The Slashdot Editorial Staff aren't lying control freaks!

So, here's my challenge for you readers out there:

Negatively Moderate a comment that has been Archived.

To win, you'll need to prove that the comment was Archived before you Moderate it down. A good way to do this is to pick one out of Google, so that you can show us the Google Cached version at Score:1, and then show us your Moderated version at Score:0. Contestants are encouraged to post their successes (or failures) in the comments section of this journal entry.

The winner will be the first user to link to a comment that they Moderated down after it was Archived. Discovering how this new feature works will be a huge boon to the Slashdot readership, because it means we can go back and correct Moderation mistakes made years ago!

Good luck, everybody.

-s.

For those of you not familiar with the fact that a few comments were removed from this story for this reason, you should read up before continuing further. Once you read what happened, you'll understand why I'm not going to mention Slashdot's reason for doing what it did, nor am I going to fault them for it. Stupid people do stupid things. And no, this is not a hoax, just a /bot who shot his mouth off.

Once you understand what's going on, take a look at the whole picture. That's the entire thread, post-comment-removal. Notice that some people actually replied to the idiot, without breaking the law? Let's take, for example, this guy. A 100% on-topic post with no intent of trolling anyone. Notice that the entire thread has been slapped down to -1 Troll, including non-troll posts? Ok, ok, maybe it's not the best Editor Threadslapping in the world, but they probably had their reasons. The Church of Scientology is one thing, but this is quite another. I'm not here to cry foul, but to ask this question:

If Moderation isn't Censorship, then why did they Threadslap the entire thread to -1 Troll?

Not so easy, eh Yossarian?

Update 2/25: Shortly after I posted the above text, a large number of On-Topic posts were restored to their original comment Threshold with approximately 10 "Underrated" Moderations. It's actually kind of disturbing how frequently my journal is read by people with unlimited moderation points. If you're reading, guys, maybe a little less time with the Moderation gun would prove beneficial. Consider it a research project. Go an entire week without Moderating your web site. See if page/ad views go up or down. If they go up, repeat. Who knows, maybe you're spending all this time just fucking yourselves over?

If you're thinking of starting a career as a crusader for Moderation reform, you should probably be aware of what lies in wait:

* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @08:34PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @08:35PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @08:35PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @08:35PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @08:35PM
    Moderation of "1700 Post Commemorative!" Friday February 22, @09:04PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @10:38PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @10:38PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @10:38PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @10:38PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @10:39PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @11:48PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @11:48PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @11:48PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @11:49PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Friday February 22, @11:49PM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @12:42AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @12:42AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @12:42AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @12:42AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @12:42AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @01:15AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @01:15AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @01:15AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @01:16AM
* Moderation of "Re:The Horrors of Punch Cards" Saturday February 23, @01:16AM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:17PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:17PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:17PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:18PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:18PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:29PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:30PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:30PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:30PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:30PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:42PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:43PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:43PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:43PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @10:43PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @11:00PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @11:01PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @11:01PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @11:01PM
* Moderation of "Re:May I disable Modbombing?" Sunday February 24, @11:01PM

Every single one of those moderations was, as you may guess, -1 Offtopic. Editor Mass Moderation? You tell me. Notice that each set of Moderations is in blocks of 5 by datestamp? This means 1 of 2 things to me: either Editors are now rate limited as to how fast they can use Moderation points, or there's a user out there with a LOT of Moderator accounts. This account has -7 karma (don't worry, I can still post and I have lots of other accounts, I'll be fine).

Now here's a question: if this was an Editor, realize that they were staying up late on a Sunday night to moderate one user out of 250,000 down. If you've always wondered what the folks at Slashteam waste their time on instead of writing decent weblog code, you may now be one step closer to an answer. The possibility exists that modstorming a single user for hours on end is more important to someone that doing their job. Scary, huh?

Again; please don't worry about my karma. This account is just a research tool now; I use it to discover how the system works for the benefit of everyone reading. It looks like we need a much more accurate grasp of when Archival occurs in order to make Modbombing Disable an effective tool. The latter set of comments was posted late on a Sunday exactly on the Archive horizon (by hand of course; never break the rules and use a script). Once I've kwhored this account back to normal levels, I'll write an addendum to my HOWTO. For now, I'd stay away from the technique, as even late on a Sunday night, someone's got way too much time on their hands. (-;

Even if they do have a sense of humor.

-s.

Update 2/25: The good news is, my comments went into archive later that night, so my account is now entirely immune to retroactive user moderation! Proof that the Modbombing Disable technique is viable and effective. The technique is probably sufficient as-is for accounts that are less closely watched than mine, but I still plan to upgrade the process to cut the Archival Event Horizon much, much closer. Hope this helps!

Modbombing Disable HOWTO for Slashdot

Author : sllort

Revision : 1.00, 02/21/2002

Revision History
Revision v.100 - Creation

Table of Contents

1. Modbombing?
2. 1. What is Modbombing?
   2. Do Editors approve of Modbombing?
   3. Can Modbombing happen to me?
   4. Is Modbombing against the rules?
3. Disabling Modbombing
4. 1. Archiving
   2. Getting comments Archived
   3. User History Basics
   4. Putting it all together

1. Modbombing
2. 1. What is Modbombing?

   2. Modbombing is a pretty simple concept. Let's say that, for whatever reason, someone doesn't like you. Now let's say that person has moderator points. If this person is an Editor, they have unlimited points all the time. If this person is a User, they have some points sometimes. Modbombing is when a Moderator uses your Comment History to find old posts that you have made and moderate them down unfairly. If the Moderator in question uses Overrated, there is no accountability in Metamoderation for Modbombing activity. The point of Modbombing is to lower your karma under zero, rendering you effectively mute.

   3. Do Editors approve of Modbombing?

   4. That question is best answered by the Editors:

      "As for the other stuff, with a name like that, my guess is that many moderators will nail you anyway. Its your own fault I guess. If your comment history shows you has having [sic] trolled, many moderators will note that, and treat you appropriately." - Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda

      Trolling is just a subjective label from the particular discussion this comment was made in; the principle is Universal. Modbombing is an accepted practice for silencing dissent. In the words of Michael Sims:

      "If that's what you're bitching about, too bad. ... you should expect a bad result for that account." - Michael Sims.

   5. Can Modbombing happen to me?

   6. Well, there were 250,000 Slashdot Users at the time this document was written. If you post enough, or if you post things that someone doesn't like, the chances of you getting an enemy is pretty good. Slashdot Editors encourage retribution through Modbombing. The best way to answer this question is to wait and see it happen to your account.

   7. Is Modbombing against the rules?

   8. As they stand, only in spirit. It is entirely possible that every time you are asked to moderate, you decide that "User X" has 5 Overrated comments that he posted last week. Considering that Taco has publicly endorsed Modbombing, the chances of any consequences for the Modbomber or their account is essentially nil, especially since Moderation is anonymous.

3. Disabling Modbombing
4. 1. Archiving

   2. First, we'll need to understand the Slashdot Archiving system. After a few weeks, older Stories (and their comments) are Archived. This means that Moderation totals are fixed, and the comments can no longer be moderated. Archiving happens to stories that are about 15 days old. You can find the Archival Event Horizon, which is the point at which one old story is archived but the next one is not. To do this, click this link, and then change the field in the URL that reads issue=YYYYMMDD to read the date that is exactly 15 days ago. Now, search for stories with the string "This discussion has been archived. No more comments can be posted". When you find the exact story which directly precedes an archived story, you have found the Archival Event Horizon.

   3. Getting Comments Archived

   4. Once you've found the Archival Event Horizon, this is pretty easy. Find the oldest non-Archived story, and load it at -1, Nested, Newest First. Find a very, very obscure AC post, and reply to it. In about an hour, the post that you make will be Archived, and the chances that anyone will find this post between when you make it and when it is Archived is almost zero. If you are clever, you can make your post almost minutes before the story is archived.

   5. User History Basics

   6. There's a very important Slashcode bug which is key to understanding how Modbombing can be disabled. Look at your User History. This is what all Slash users see when they look at you. Notice that there are at max 24 entries? This means that any comments except these 24 are invisible to other Users. A potential Modbomber wishing to find posts other than the ones in your User History would have to recursively load all of Slashdot and then search this file - and recursively loading all of Slashdot's database would get a User IP banned for a DOS attack. In short, it is impossible to find any post you have made other than the first 24 in your User History.

   7. Putting it all together

   8. Imagine for a moment that you posted 24 comments to a story that sat just minutes in front of the Archival Event Horizon. A few minutes later, every comment in your User History would be Archived. Archived comments cannot be moderated. Viola! You are immune to Modbombing! Now, whatever you post can be moderated down, but potential Modbombers can only spend one point on you before moving on. They cannot trash your karma and wreak havoc with your account. 24 comments may seem like a lot, but in my experience the time spent Disabling Modbombing can prove extremely helpful, especially if you have something unpopular to say. Not sure what to put in all those comments? Let me start you off with Chomskybot, a wonderful program that creates a unique, completely valid Slashdot comment that will pass the Lameness Filter every time. Keep in mind that Editors have the ability to look at every post you've ever made, so if you Disable Modbombing but still get Modbombed, you've just been Modbombed by an Editor. In this case, I can do nothing to help you. You're screwed.

   Please use this information to promote Moderation Fairness and to help others. Good luck!

   -s.

Update (5/28/03): The information in this journal is outdated and no longer reflects the state of Slashcode; this journal is a historical record but is no longer accurate.
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Slashdot Moderation : Exercising Agreement

A journey into the statistical methods employed to create Comments That Agree .

As I discussed in my previous journal entry, nearly 500 moderators were manually and permanently removed from the pool of potential moderators for giving positive moderation to this comment. While the manual banning of potential moderators by the Editorial staff is not documented, the source code used to accomplish this is readily available and the practice appears to be quite commonplace. The reasonable questions that arise from this practice are: how many moderators are being banned, what is the objective, and what are the actual results? The Slashdot Editorial staff has repeatedly stated that they don't have time to answer these questions (they're certainly not addressed in the FAQ), so it's up to us, the readers, to ponder them.

How many moderators are being permanently banned from the moderation pool? No one knows for certain except perhaps the Editors. Let's look at what we do know. Five hundred moderators were banned for moderating this comment. If we assume that one such comment is posted on a daily basis, that is approximately 185,000 potential moderators banned per year. That post was probably an exception, so we must revise our number. Jamie McCarthy made a post to a User-Created discussion which is deleted every two weeks, so I must reproduce his comment by cut & paste:

"Well, again, we have the logs, so we know what we're talking about. We log both how many times we give mod points, and how many times we would have given mod points but didn't. In the former category: 99.73%; in the latter, 0.27%." - Jamie McCarthy, Slashdot Editor

Additionally, Rob Malda made a related comment in a User-Created discussion:

There are a quarter of a million daily readers, but (and I just checked) only 1.2% of them post. So understand that those of you posting in the forums are already a minority of the community. - Rob Malda, Slashdot Founder & Editor

Now we have some numbers to run with. Of the 250,000 people who read Slashdot, 3,000 of them have an "Interest Level" high enough to post comments here. This "Interest Level" stands at 1.2%, or .012. Now that we have the "Interest Level" for comments, we can use it to determine the "Interest Level" for Moderating & Metamoderating. Moderation requires less personal risk, so let's assume (to be as conservative as possible) that far more people want to moderate comments than post them. Let's assume that up to five times as many people want to moderate comments. There are probably far fewer, but since we are dealing with an assumption, we should make it a conservative one. This makes the "Interest Level" for Moderation about 6%, or .06. Now, Jamie has stated that 99.73% of readers receive moderator points and are not banned. Their "Interest Level" is .06, which means that (99.73 *.06 = 5.98) 5.98% of these people (at most) actually use their points. Now we have the banned moderators, the .27% that Jamie mentioned, who have been banned for bad moderation. Banned moderators have an interest level of 100%, because they have all used their points to get banned by an Editor. So, now we have a figure for the number of Moderators and Metamoderators who are included and excluded by the manual intervention of the Editors. (.27/(.27+5.98)) = .045, or 4.5%, is the lower bound for the percentage of moderators being manually excluded from the pool. If you run the numbers again assuming that the Interest Level for Moderation is the same as the Interest Level for posting comments, you arrive at a figure of 18.4% of moderators being manually banned. This would be our conservative upper bound. So, depending on how interested people are in moderation, between 5 and 18 percent of moderators have been manually banned from participating by the Editors.

What is the objective of the Editorial staff in manually removing User Moderators? That's a really tricky question to answer. Keep in mind that the Editors have gone to extensive lengths not to answer that question, so we must assume that it is an emotionally loaded subject. However, we can interpret some of their actions to arrive at an answer. The post mentioned in the beginning of this article was repeatedly moderated as Offtopic by many Editors. Rob Malda described it this way:

however only a smaller percentage of those moderators actually use their points... hundreds of users moderated it up [and I subsequently banned them all] I modded it [the comment] down a few times too. - Rob Malda, Slashdot Founder & Editor

Note that text in brackets was added by myself to reflect what we've learned. Reading that statement makes it pretty obvious that the purpose of removing Moderators from the pool is to ensure that the results of the Moderation system are consistent with what Rob Malda believes that the results of the moderation system should be. Moderators are chosen from a pool of Slashdot users who have not moderated contrary to the wishes of the Editors in the past. As the Slashdot FAQ states, "The Slashdot Editors have unlimited mod points ... These moderations represent approximately 8% of all moderation". In short, nearly ten percent of Moderation is accomplished manually by the Editorial staff, and the rest of User Moderation is accomplished by users that have not disagreed with the Editors about how to Moderate. What does this mean?

When surveying the impact of the Moderation system, there is one overridingly important statistic. That statistic is that over 99% of Slashdot readers do not post comments. Keep in mind that the default view of Slashdot has a threshold of one. This means that if you're moderated to zero or less, 99% of the people who would have read your comment... won't. Books could be written about whether or not blocking communication to 99% of the possible audience constitutes "Censorship", whatever that means today, but for the purposes of this essay, the point is moot. Suffice it to say that Moderation determines 99% of visibility, statistically. Now, consider that the Slashdot system, as a whole, is a constantly evolving system in which Moderators can transition from unbanned to banned, but not vice versa. Moderators who moderate differently than the "guide" Moderations of the Editors (which constitute 10% of the Moderation) are removed from the pool of influence. Therefore, Slashdot as a system moves in only one direction: towards promoting comments that are Moderated in agreement with the Editors. What is the role of Metamoderation? Let's look at the FAQ:

according to Meta Moderation, the fairness of these [editor Moderations] is statistically indistinguishable from the moderation of non admin users (92-93% of moderations are ruled 'Fair').

Keep in mind that the 5 to 18 percent of Slashdot Moderators who are banned from participating in Moderation are also banned from participating in MetaModeration. The purpose of MetaModeration, therefore, is that of reinforcing agreement. Those who have agreed with the Editors in the past are allowed to vote on whether the Editors moderate fairly. Not surprisingly, this subset of potential MetaModerators often agrees with the Editors. If they didn't, they'd probably have been removed already! MetaModeration, therefore, serves to reinforce agreement with the Editors among the selected Moderator pool, and Moderation serves to enact agreement with the Editors among the comments visible to 99% of Slashdot's readership. We only need one more quote from the FAQ to understand what this means:

Goals [of Moderation]: 1.Promote quality, discourage crap.

Since the Moderation system is a self-reinforcing system that promotes comments that agree with the Editors, we must assume that this comment means two things:

1. What the editors believe is quality.
2. What people who disagree with the Editors believe is crap.

That may be a strongly worded value judgement, but it stands as a conclusion easily & objectively reached. But aside from this value judgement, Slashdot stands as an example of a best-of-breed solution for those who wish to create a community that promotes agreement. Slash appears to have been specifically designed for this purpose, and it can be employed to create a community that agrees about.. just about anything! For instance, ask a Slashdot reader if Linux is a great Operating System. The answer will almost certainly be an emphatic yes! Rob Malda has created an excellent system for managing a userbase into agreement, and for the most part, the users agree with the system. Which was probably the whole point.

Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters. Comments that Agree.

Update (5/28/03): The information in this journal is outdated and no longer reflects the state of Slashcode; this journal remains as a historical record but is no longer accurate.
--
Quite a few of you are aware of the existence of this post which has currently been moderated over 700 times. Many of you are also aware of this discussion created by CmdrTaco for users to have a META discussion about topics on Slashdot.

Few, however, are aware of what is happening to the people who moderated up the post in question. They are being systematically banned from Moderating and Metamoderating. Every last one of them. The phrase "being $rtbl'd" refers to the tripping of a silent flag called "$rtbl" in a user's Slashdot account record which removes that user's ability to Moderate and Metamoderate.

Finding out whether you've been $rtbl'd is possible. Here's how. If you are allowed to Metamoderate, you will be given the option to Metamoderate at the top of your browser every day. After you Metamod, the dialog will go away till the next day. If you are $rtbl'd, the dialog will go away and never come back. It's that simple.

I've opened this journal up for comments. I'd like to hear from anyone who moderated up The Post, on whether or not you've lost moderation priveleges. So far every single respondent has indicated that their moderation priveleges are gone. No response has been received from anyone @slashdot.org about this either.

I'd also like to hear from the Slashdot audience: do you believe that this action is fair or unfair?

Discuss.

Update: 1/28/2002. At this point, the fact that every moderator who moderated up the post in question has been banned from the moderation system is no longer in doubt. Every single person who has replied in this discussion has confirmed their loss of moderation privleges. Repeated requests to the editors in the Slashdot META thread for confirmation of this fact as well as repeated requests via email for confirmation have all gone ignored. The message appears to be that moderators will be banned for moderating posts like these up, and the Editors don't want to talk about it. This is their right - and I'm content to continue to discuss it in my journal. On topic.
Update: 1/30/2002 I'd like to invite anyone interested in the topic of Moderator banning to read my research paper on the subject, which addresses such questions as the percentage of banned moderators on Slashdot (appx. 5 to 18%), as well as the motivations and impacts of removing users from the voting pool. In the absence of any word from folks @slashdot.org, this paper stands as the definitive work on Slashdot Moderator bans. Remember, Metamoderation confirms that Editors moderate fairly, but only people who haven't been blacklisted get a vote...