There should be a moderation -1: Unfunny. It's oh-so-common on Slashdot. Yet another formulaic 'Profit!', 'Soviet Russia' joke. Nearly all of them are terrible. 'Overrated' is close, but Unfunny is more appropriate.

110010001000 in his journal makes a very good point: that in order to get modded highly the most important thing is to post quickly. Wait more that an hour and you will never reach +5 - but post in the first 30 comments or so, be inoffensive, and you are almost guaranteed +5. See this comment of mine - not exactly groundbreaking but still +5. (I'd say that it deserved 2 or 3 - it was new to the discussion at that point, but pretty obvious to anyone who RTFA).

My guess is that as an article is made live, tons of mods with points to burn hit the article (some read, some don't). With only 30 comments to spend them on, they don't have much choice. Perhaps the total number of mod points available (ie the number of /.ers given mod points) should be proportional to the number of posts already on the article. Perhaps it already is and I'm mis-informed...

btw my blog-ish is at dodgeit.com: alex

Finally got an account after years of AC posting. Oooh, feel the rush of the +1 bonus! My comments are not, by default, invisible to other readers! And I'll be able to find my old comments easily and see if people reply to them/ mod them.... alex