0p7imu5_P2im3's Journal: Slashdot moderation has two obvious and condemning flaws.

1) It encourages new members to stay new.

I realize that no system is perfect, but this system encourages stagnation of ideas. If someone new signs up and starts with good karma and +1 bonus point, they have very low visibility and if one moderator disagrees once (mods overrated), even after tens or even hundreds of posts that were ignored by moderators regardless of value, they skip neutral and go straight to bad karma, losing their bonus point, and get relegated to anonymous postings. I have toughed it out for nearly a month, myself, and have found that it will probably be easier to create a new account than continue with this one. Which brings me to another point:

2) The potential to, and likely the actual occurance of, gaming the system is high.

All one needs is multiple frequently used accounts and one can moderate their own posts up and moderate opponents' posts down. There is nothing in place to stop them except metamoderation, and if they get demoted that way, they can just drop that account and build up karma in a new one (using the other successfully gamed accounts) to replace it.

It's very nice for OSTG to allow non-paying members of the internet public to participate, but with a system that is so discouraging of noob participation, is it really worth it?

Suggestions (because I'd be a jack-ass if my criticism wasn't constructive):
A) One possible solution would be a true feedback system.

Require an explanation of why a post was downgraded (without visible attribution of account name) and then moderators have to think about their rating rather than just modding something down because they consider it wrong. It would also give the damaged account holder some idea of what he said wrong. And metamoderators would have something to work with rather than a random post with no context and no reason to aid the community beyond their own personal vendettas.

B) Put a cap on modding up (or down) per account per time period.

If you record the number of mods versus who they modded and put the said cap into action, it will prevent vendettas from being actionable, at least, in the scope of one account per user. If someone doesn't like that they can't mod a racist post down because they modded the guy's on-topic, intelligent commentary on his favorite game as "overrated" earlier, then sucks to be him. He shouldn't have wasted his mod points on something so inane as disagreeing with an opinion.

To gamers of the system:
Malign me and mod yourself up all you want. I probably won't be posting under this account again anyway. At least, not for a few years. I'm going back to HardOCP for a while.

To subscribers:
I humbly suggest the tag "callthewahmbulance"
;)

Suggestion

[Archangel Michael]

"1) It encourages new members to stay new."

No, it encourages new members to start out in lockstep with the Slashdot meme, at least, in a creative way. One needs to be mindful that they are new, and because of that, are probably represented by a segment of /. already.

"2) The potential to, and likely the actual occurance of, gaming the system is high."

You are OBVIOUSLY a Noob, because the Mod points handed out each day are limited, and only a select (supposedly) random group gets them. So you having Mod Point

Some good ideas. Another: Expire karma

[davidwr]

Two things that would help a lot:

• Older moderations should influence karma less than younger ones. The +1 that I got 6 months ago should count less than the -1 that I got last week. Anything over a certain cut-off date, say, a year, shouldn't count for anything. This solves the "my account got trashed" problem.
• Accounts with only recent moderations should be automatically neutral. If you don't have any moderated posts between a year ago and a week ago, or if you have less than say 10 moderated posts in t

Re:

[Qzukk]

Anything over a certain cut-off date, say, a year, shouldn't count for anything. This solves the "my account got trashed" problem.

Hm, this would also solve the people who are just permanently at excellent karma and coast. The system should try to force everyone back to normal karma over time, unless they continually prove themselves worthy of either end of the spectrum. It would also solve the problem you listed in your second point, without giving trolls a free pass by repeatedly registering accounts...

Re:

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Knowing the dynamic of social groups, though, the concept of "ponder what they did wrong" is giving the advantage to people who game the system. If a group of trolls becomes well established and they do well in supporting each other then they can repeatedly smack people they've decided to target and any organized resistance, via correctly modding them as instigators of harassment, will be smoothed out as they coast from one sock puppet account to the next.

No

[Captain Splendid]

Slashdot has problems, but they're a lot more specific and tangible than the ones you mentioned: The Funny and Overrated/Underrated mods. Fix those first, then you can worry about the rest.

Re:

[Captain Splendid]

Absent the Funny problem, I don't see the problem with overrated and underrated.

Because they impact karma, but aren't subject to M2.

Gaming the system

[HomelessInLaJolla]

That's what it's all about. Think BugMeNot for Slashdot. The people who started the game, at some point, probably began a devoted effort of regularly creating accounts which they could bank at later dates. People who write online games tend to not like to lose control of them (See the EVE online example and accept it not as the exception, but as the RULE, with nothing but plausible deniability afforded by internet handles and semi-anonymity providing for the coverup). Through careful manipulation of soc

I had suggested this for a -1 wrong mod

[Qzukk]

Require an explanation of why a post was downgraded (without visible attribution of account name)

Way back when Backslash's first article came up and turned into a giant meta-slashdot discussion, one of the things that emerged from the deep was the idea of adding a -1 Wrong mod, that would dissuade people from referencing that post in a later backslash meta-article (Backslash seems to have long since died). I had suggested that the -1 Wrong mod require a followup post to explain what was wrong and cite refe