Journal: Moderated Down for an Opinion

It was kind of sad today to see how the moderation process breaks down when partial people hold all the cards. There has been a virtual battle over several of my posts today with rabid slashers leaving and taking points away from my posts. My karma has fluctuated from Good, to Bad, to Neutral several times in the past few hours. Currently, my Karma is low meaning that I can no longer post under this account.

This all started with the death of Robert Jordan. Immediately upon the announcement of his death to Slashdot, several contributers posted defamatory and rude remarks that were inappropriate for the day of Jordan's death.

I replied with tenacity to those posts pointing out where and why they were wrong. First I received several positive moderation points which enabled me to continue posting. Then it seemed as if a mass effort was underway to moderate me off the boards. People who felt differently retaliated and it's been a roller coaster ride ever since.

It seems to have bottomed out when someone with admin access steamrolled the discussion, modding several of the posts down. I suppose that is one way to end a flame war, but a simple message to my account would have sufficed.

I am not really important to this discussion except to say that my situation is one of several examples of problems with moderating points. Yet, the system is what it is, and I can do nothing about it. I just appreciate being able to participate here.

I'll deal with it, and in time things will be back to normal. I just find it difficult to understand how people could be this vehement against Mr. Jordan, a guy who just wrote some interesting novels.

I probably could have handled myself a bit more diplomatically in some areas, but I found it necessary to match the level of rudeness being exhibited by several highly modded posters.

So, I guess there really wasn't any point to this post except to let anyone who was curious enough to click on my account why my karma was fluctuating, and to let my detractors know why I had not responded to their posts. (when they click to make me a foe:)

Anyways, back to work :)