Flamesplash's Journal: Know Who Mod'd You?

Question/idea for the /. crowd. Has anyone ever suggested that mods be attributed to a user, instead of being anonymous? The mods are obviously tracked, so the data is there.

The benifit of this to me is being able to make more "friends" from those that think your posts are good, and being able to "foe" someone who mods inappropriately in your opinion. If they mod bad, then they probably post bad from your PoV too, and then you can use your foe comment modifier so you don't see their comments.

I'm kind of afraid that this would just get childish though.

Thoughts?

I wouldn't want it

[SPautz]

Personally, I don't think this would really bring any benefit, except maybe to deter malicious moderations, and I doubt many people do that anyway (or at least if they do, they hopefully won't be mods for long. ;-)) The Slashdot admins have said several times in the past that they're responsible for a lot of the moderations done (the FAQ [slashdot.org] says ~8%, but I almost remember seeing something like 1/3 of all moderations....) Either way, I'd imagine they want to keep their doings fairly quiet....

Also, since the friend/foe system seems to only affect the scoring of comments, lots of people (like me) who almost never post comments could becomes foes based on something they did rather than something they've said in a comment. I tend to mod down a lot of the comments posted on usability/UI design stories, mostly because lots of people on Slashdot are arrogant idiots when it comes to that subject, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to hear what those people have to say on other subjects. =P Just because someone has a different opinion doesn't mean they should be silenced; however, if they express that different opinion poorly or rudely, I say they deserve whatever they get. =) As long as comments and their ratings are the main focus of the friend/foe system, I think the friend/foe system should be based solely (or at least mostly) on what you write, rather than how you moderate.

On the other hand, nobody else should dictate who you should/should not be allowed to make a friend/foe. It only affects you, and it would certainly add a greater sense of responsibility to the moderator's task. Moderations, on the other hand, affect how everybody else sees your comment.

Overall, I don't think I would use something like this, although it would be kinda nice if there were a system where anybody who abused their moderation powers would be publicly called out on it. For example, if one of your foes spends 4 of their 5 points modding you down, their moderations will be undone and they'll get a notice of it on their user info page or something. In psychology they teach that the most effective punishments are "hot stove" punishments: immediate, painful, and the same for everybody. Maybe something like this could be done for trolls: if you have over 50% of your recent comments (and more than 2 or 3 comments total ;-)) marked as trolls, your computer/network access will 'accidentally' be slashdotted out of existence via a temporary typo in the next story posted. ;-)
Sorry about the long comment. I'll quit now. =P

PS - I actually modded up a comment [slashdot.org] by you today. ;-)