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Journal SlashChick's Journal: "Fan Whores" 25

Journal by SlashChick

So it seems there is a new phenomenon on Slashdot. Instead of karma whoring, which quickly got old, we now have "fan whoring." I'm taking about the huge lists of fans that some people seem to have racked up.

As far as I know, I was the first one to put the fan-whoring stuff in my signature. I only had it in there for a couple of days, though... and then ekrout picked it up. (Oi.) It got worse from there, with people making accounts just to fan-whore.

I've now switched my signature to a fan-whoring signature so I can better fit in with the new Slashdot groupthink. :P (I just find it hard to take Slashdot seriously anymore. It's so overrun with copy-and-paste trolls that the good discussion is being relegated to the user journals, which are pretty much all I read anymore. I'll do another journal entry on that.)

P.S. Is anyone else finding out that it's now ridiculously easy for people to get +5 posts? Also, is anyone else completely unable to moderate? This account of mine hasn't been able to moderate, even though I got M2 access after this feature was implemented. Emails to CmdrTaco have generated no response. Any ideas?

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"Fan Whores"

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  • Yep (Score:2)

    by BWJones ( 18351 )
    Indeed. I was not filtering AC posts for a while, but the noise simply became too great. Therefore, to manintain any real time for reading content on Slashdot given my schedule, I have had to reinstate the AC filtering.

  • Your postscript (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aridhol ( 112307 ) <ka_lac@hotmail.com> on Monday February 24, 2003 @08:09PM (#5374946) Homepage Journal
    Is anyone else finding out that it's now ridiculously easy for people to get +5 posts?
    I fully agree with this. I think the solution would be to change the moderation system (ha!) so that points don't accumulate linearly.

    For example, for the post to get +1, it would have to be modded up once. To get +2, it would have to be modded up twice from +1. This means a total of 3 positive mods. Continue up to +5 (needing 15 positive mods)

    Of course, negative mods would have to affect your score, too. Each negative mod takes away from your positive total. If you have +5 (15 positive mods) and get a negative mod, you're now at +4 (14 positive mods). At that point you'd need four negative mods to be dropped to +3, and so on.

    I think this would keep posts near their "proper" level. For one thing, you'd need to convince 15 people that your view is insightful/interesting/whatever instead of just 5 people (4 if you post logged in, 3 if you use a +1 karma bonus).

    I'm not sure how to deal with the +1 karma bonus, though. Any thoughts?

    Also, is anyone else completely unable to moderate?
    I think I've been able to moderate once in the past year. I think it was early January.
    This account of mine hasn't been able to moderate, even though I got M2 access after this feature was implemented.
    After what feature was implemented? M2?

    I think a large part of this problem is that there are so many people eligible to moderate (due to the large number of +5 postings) that when they randomly choose n users, they only get a very small percentage of the total users.

    Emails to CmdrTaco have generated no response. Any ideas?
    I've emailed Taco with my idea, after he made a journal entry asking for comments, and saying that he's listening to email [slashdot.org]. I don't think email is the best way to contact him.
    • I'm not sure how to deal with the +1 karma bonus, though. Any thoughts?

      Simple. Just consider the +1 bonus as an automatic, system-applied up-mod. As soon as you post with this enabled, the system applies a "+1, Automatic" moderation to the post.

    • I find. Look at some of my recent throwaway one-liners - +4 or +5 for nothing to write home about. Guess the vaunted Moderation Percentages didn't do much, eh?

      The Fan whoring is pretty damn funny though. Porn links to get fans - what will they think of next?

    • "After what feature was implemented? M2?"

      No, the feature that I reqeusted in SourceForge. (The link is in my journal entry.) CmdrTaco wrote in his journal about allowing more users to moderate back in October or November -- that was part of it. Basically, I complained that since the newest 10% of users were unable to moderate, Slashdot was disallowing moderator access to some 58,000 people (at the time.) After he updated the code to make it a variable instead of a hard-coded 10%, I gained M2 access, but I've never had moderator access. I even M2'ed twice a day for a while, hoping to gain moderator access. Nada. I think I've been blacklisted, though I'm not sure why.

      BTW, I was able to post in CmdrTaco's journal... once. Now I'm no longer allowed to. What's up with that?
      • Ack...didn't see the link because I pasted the journal entry into my reply, which of course killed the links. Something else that could be fixed - replying to a posting gives you the posting at the top of the reply page, while replying to an article gives you the separate page (the reason I cut-and-paste). Sorry.

        Maybe you were able to post in CmdrTaco's journal before he discovered/created "only friends can comment". His journals are all friends-only, as far as I can tell.

      • When they first implemented blacklisting, it would remove your ability to metamod as well as your ability to moderate. Unless they've changed things, it is totally possible for you to detect your blacklist status by using metamod, and seeing if the ability does not return the next day.

        I get mod points about twice a year.

        I almost never use them. Waste of my time. My only complaint with the mod system is that I can't defang overrated. I've defanged everything else, but I'm sure there are very interesting posts that are getting hidden from me via the overrated mod. Not a huge deal.

        Also. The downside to fan whoring is that it's a little more meaningless when someone ads you as a friend. When they have to go through the regular process, at least you're know they intend to read your posts. I certainly prefer it that way.
    • It's funny because when I first started reading slashdot back in the day I assumed the point system was not linear because, you know, that would be stupid.
  • +5 comments have always been easy, just look at my history.

    As for \$+exygal, I'm all for anything that gets me porn.

    Slashdot has always been a game, Karma manipulation is all thats left. Cmdrtaco is stupid to think people come for anything that isnt a direct result of whoring. Instead of capping karma, they should of added a High Scores page for us.

    Sorry for the bad formating and random ideas, I posted this while in the middle of doing way too much.
    • Well, we also come for the results of whoring. The idea is that to get karma you need to post well. I'm all for anything that'll improve that situation. I'm therefore completely behind a linear or even exponential increase of moderation requirements to increase a post - but I expect that Slashcode isn't up to correlating the Karmic balance of matching post levels to Karma points.

      Friends are actually kind of neat this way since, in theory, anyone whose contributing to your fan whoring can revoke their contribution if you turn out to be annoying. For instance, there's a least one 'dotter who got yanked from my friends list for posting frequent, inane Journal entries. (You may start the pool as to whom I am referring.)

  • So it seems there is a new phenomenon on Slashdot.

    Are there more /. users currently fan whoring, besides myself (and now you)? I haven't noticed anyone else doing it.

    --gal

    • ekrout was the original fan whore. (Well, technically, I was, but I didn't pick up the idea and run with it like he did.) Then he apparently lost access to his account, but the editors just kind of snickered about it. [slashdot.org] (My guess is that someone got his password, logged in, and changed it. Doh!) He's now back as Amsterdam Vallon, but that account isn't doing too well. [slashdot.org] (Thank God.)

      Slashdot has really gone downhill. I'm no longer really interested in the stories. Every time I read a story and see a +5 post which is just a bunch of Google results, [slashdot.org] I get a little more annoyed. This post [slashdot.org] says it best... but I think the problem could also be alleviated by a) more intelligent posts in general (Slashdot seems to have a problem with people wanting to post first rather than well) and b) requiring more moderations to get a top-rated comment.

      Bring on the new websites. I'm bored with Slashdot. :)
      • Not to steal your thunder, but my sig like a year ago was something like "Journal: 250 fans and growing!" You did put the 'add friend' in your link, and I just put my journal.

        Honestly, I am kinda sick of being put in everyone fan whore's list. Look! Wil wheaton has X fans, Taco X fans, and I'm about to beat FK's X fans.

        I try to pride myself on having fans that want to read my journal, not because I'm supplying porn or in a contest like some people ($$$exy and ekrout... although I heard ekrout got banned...).

      • Slashdot has really gone downhill. I'm no longer really interested in the stories.

        Yeah, I think the shills and trolls (and trying to figure out who is / isn't one) have worn everyone down. Also I think Mr Taco et al have become bored with this site, and are just doing it as a job.

        I think the problem could also be alleviated by a) more intelligent posts in general

        Yeah, that is a problem, but how would you solve it? Make people take an intelligence test before they post and/or moderate? If a good poster is in a silly mood, how do you stop them from posting a silly / stupid comment?

        (Slashdot seems to have a problem with people wanting to post first rather than well)

        The problem here is so many people post to slashdot, by the time the first posters are done, almost everything has been said.

        b) requiring more moderations to get a top-rated comment.

        I don't know if this is a solution... Maybe moderators should be reading at 0 or -1. The reason a post will jump to 4 or 5 after it's been moderated up once, is because too many moderators read at 3, 4 or even 5. They only see modded posts, so they only moderate posts which have already been modded up.

        Also I think everyone with a certain level of good karma should moderate. Tweaking the mod system like this may have seemed like a good idea (and worked at first), but now it doesn't seem to be any better than just letting everyone moderate.

        Bring on the new websites. I'm bored with Slashdot. :)

        I think a new forum would be a temporary solution at best. When I first got on the internet several years ago, Usenet wasn't so bad. Yeah, there were trolls and clueless stereotypical AOL users, but for the most part, it wasn't too bad.

        Nowadays there are hardcore trolls, shills, faq nazis (who claim every post is either already covered in the "faq" [ they claim page 671 of obscure, out of print Unix manual is part of the faq] or offtopic. Often they are people who don't even participate in the group and never have.), troll censorship (where some wacko sends false / misleading abuse complaints about you to try to get you kicked off your ISP or deny your access to Usenet), and countless other crap.

        Slashdot is having many of these problems too. I don't know what the solution could be. Any other site will end up with the same problems. Perhaps if you hand pick who can post, it won't be as bad, but you also won't have many posters.

        One interesting system may fix this problem. It was called something like a "trust based system" or something like it. I saw this on a P2P program called "The Circle" [thecircle.org.au]. I think the guy who wrote it said he got the idea from a site called Avagato (sp?).

        More or less it works by giving people you like a high trust value, and you are more likely to see their posts and less likely to see the posts of people you don't like. It also factors in the trust factors of those you trust, so you can see people you don't know but may like, and you will not see people you probably won't like. It's kind of like Slashdot's friend / foe system, but everyone moderates (you can change the trust value of individual posts too), and it is more analog (you set levels, not just call them your friend).

  • jeez... I must have moderator points every other day. dunno what's up with that.
  • I have a not-inconsiderable number of fans (142 at last count), but most of those have joined (I hope) as a result of reading my comments and journals. I did have what might have been described as a fan-whoring sig for a few weeks, but most of my fans came well after I stopped using that sig.

    Funnily enough, I got mod points today for the first time in several months. I think the fact that I've been reading mainly journals the last few weeks may have been a contributing factor...
  • I think Slashdot has the same problem that our so-called "justice" system has, esp. with the jury. All the important decisions are made by a random selection of members of the public.

    By definition, this means that almost all decisions are AVERAGE, usually not GOOD, and almost never GREAT. This is the price we pay for trying to have disinterested judgement.

    Evolution (might makes right) does have advantages over the current system. I don't know where the balance is.

  • Since I've recently posted on the matter of moderation [slashdot.org] and later found myself to be incorrect [slashdot.org], this should be taken with a grain of salt. I believe this was because I was viewing the sourceforge 2.2.6 release [sourceforge.net] rather than the Slash CVS [slashcode.com]. Just the same, two things: rtbl and receiving mod points.

    As already noted by someone else [slashdot.org], it would appear that rtbl no longer affects M2, but still bans one from M1. [Sllort is somewhat unclear about that matter, seemingly suggesting that rtbl does nothing. It does still ban M1 as near as I can tell.] Kind of a pisser, but I guess it's a little more fair than a secret black list.

    On the second matter, when reading through slashcode I noticed something in moderatord (the script primarily responsible for awarding moderation tokens) [slashcode.com]:

    my $c=sqlSelectMany("users_info.uid,count(*) as c",
    "users_info,users_prefs, accesslog",
    "users_info.uid < $eligibleusers
    AND users_info.uid=accesslog.uid
    AND users_info.uid=users_prefs.uid
    AND (op='article' or op='comments')
    AND willing=1
    AND karma >= 0
    GROUP BY users_info.uid
    ORDER BY c");

    If I read the above correctly, it indicates that you are elligible to receive mod points if the last page you loaded was comments.pl or article.pl without consideration for rapid reloading. Granted, there is also some filtering done in moderatord earlier and later that I may be overlooking, but nothing seemed to check for massive reloading. So this seems to mean to me, so long as you always reload a comments page after loading the front page or someone journal, you'll keep yourself just about always elligible for moderation tokens. So at that point it's just a matter of time and a bit of randomness. Don't know what to say about the veracity beyond that it's given me mod points reliably every week for about a month now.

    On the rtbl flag, and its preventing one from moderating, the following code appears in the same file, in

    if ($rtbl) {
    # The Realtime Token Blackhole List - this user is not eligible
    # to cash in their tokens for moderation points
    moderatordLog("Not giving $I{maxtokens}/$I{tokensperpoint} " .
    ($I{maxtokens}/$I{tokensperpoint}) . " to $uid");
    } else {
    moderatordLog("Giving $I{maxtokens}/$I{tokensperpoint} " .
    ($I{maxtokens}/$I{tokensperpoint}) . " to $uid");
    }

    There's also the interesting fact that in the slashcode from SourceForge, there apparently was a field rtbl_reason for each users:

    <TR>
    <TD WIDTH="100"><B>Real time black list</B></TD>
    <TD ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100"><INPUT TYPE="checkbox" NAME="rtbl" [% useredit.rtbl %]>&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Reason <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="rtbl_reason" VALUE="[% useredit.rtbl_reason %]"></TD>
    </TR>

    Checking the CVS [slashcode.com], this field is now gone.

  • Getting those +5s is actually rather easy once you work out the trick to it. I may node it [everything2.com] some day when I get around to it [everything2.com]. I haven't even read slashcode before figuring it out.

    Simply put, you post as soon as possible on the top story - preferably making it close to first post. Post something that nobody will disagree with. Now, it still requires you to post something that people will find interesting to read - sometimes this equates to a one-line joke, sometimes a longer anecdote or piece of opinion - but the fact that you're posting it before almost anyone else makes it much easier to make a 5.

    Getting your post in first is the important technique if you're really "whoring for fives". If you wait until your chosen topic has had 234 comments posted it becomes a lot less likely that a moderator is going to read the story or your comment. Odds are, after all, that he read that story yesterday, and even if he does take the effort to re-read the comments just to moderate the new comments, the odds of him seeing and choosing a post made at 1 among two hundred others are far less likely. By comparison, a post made at 1 (2, if you've been whoring for a while) on a recent story most likely has only to contend with two fp!s, a troll (most likely, these start at 0 and are already moderated to -1 before you see them) and seven other quotes that aren't as good as yours. Suddenly that five you're after becomes much easier to get your hands on.

    I've e-mailed CmdrTaco (I think - or was it CowboyNeal [everything2.com]?) about the possiblity of a more qualified comment voting system - by this, what I mean is that a moderator can (and should) look at a post and ask themself if it's really worth rating this post at a 4 instead of a 3. This would be better than the current system, IMHO, of voting up what you like and down what you don't - this system almost always ensures that a post cleverly enough written and placed to warrant a four will almost certainly become a five, for example.

    Unfortunately, he didn't like the idea - he was happy with the current system as it was. Oh well.

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