Duped stories are common on /. Everyone is aware of this. However, most people seem to be enraged by dupes, I think this is really uncalled for and they actually have value. I'll go over this point by point:

• It is possible to miss the first posting. This is especially true if you have something of value to comment on the article, but your words woulod be buried in the original thread, but may have a chance of being seen in the dupe. Remember that not everyone collects the rss feeds like old women collected beenie babies.
• The articles referenced are often different. They may be of the same topic, but they are normally by different people who may have different information or perspectives. Sure, you could google on a topic of interest, or you could probably find links in the original article's thread, but this is handy as well.
• If the thread isn't going to be used for discussion of the article it can be used for off topic discussion which normally would be frowned upon. Honestly, if we're not going to make dupes productive then we shouldn't be wasting mod points on the discussions. If we're a community then we should benefit from off-topic discussion sometimes.

I'll add more if I think of them. I could have sworn I had thought of more before I started writing. The point is, there is value in an article posting, even if it's a dupe.

I joined /. because I started reading, and I was often more interested in the comments than the stories (depending on the story), and every now and then I'd throw my two cents in. Thing is, when you throw your two cents in as an AC it's really $0.00. This is, of course, because most ACs are just trolls that would have horrible karma as a registered user.

What I realized when I joined is that this doesn't mean that my contributions will be taken any more seriously than an AC posting, even if they have more likelihood of being read by others. In earnest, I tried to say what I would honestly say in such a conversation if I were to have it in person, even if I secretly feared that sometimes my jibes were remotely trolling or off-topic. I like to make snide comments about things, that's me.

Much to my surprise, it took thirty or so posts before I had a single negative moderation. That moderation, naturally, was on the first post I made with a karma bonus. Say bye bye to karma bonus. People listen better with a +2 to start, when you're heard then you're more likely to be punished or rewarded. Such is life. I got the karma bonus later anyway, through no whoring or anything like that, so my personal karma need not be bothered by the extra karma I get as a poster.

This isn't really a complaint that I've been negatively moderated, though. It's a complaint that I've been inappropriately moderated consistently. For example, half the things that I've posted that are modded highly funny are really just a rewording of the same lame /. jokes and I happened to be the first on the scene to reword them. In contrast, the only time I remember being modded redundant was on a post which not only wasn't redundant because there wasn't anything posted like that beforehand, but I couldn't find any post like that in the entire conversation.

Posts that should be informative or insightful and vice versa. Sometimes posts that aren't informative, insightful, or interesting (except in a very very narrow view) are moderated as such. It's just all over the place. I was modded informative for linking someone to the FAQ because they posted (a rather off-topic) comment about karma whoring for +5 funny. I pretentiously responded that you don't get karma for that, so someone modded me informative. I responded to my post that it was funny that post was modded informative, so that post got modded informative as well. There's humor there, but it's still an abuse of a social system that seems to ignore too much good information. It's a waste.

Naturally I wouldn't be writing all of this whining drivel if a post wasn't mis-moderated (in my opinion anyway) again. In this review they forgot to link to the actual article. Early in the replies someone pointed this out with a link to the article. I tried to follow it, and the site was thoroughly /.ed. I decided to comment, as it's just as informative that a link isn't working as it is to tell what the link is. I also decided to point out that it was kind of funny that the review didn't include the link but it ended up /.ed. This ended up moderated as a troll. How about informative? How about funny? How about no moderation at all? Why on earth is a comment that's true and not off-topic to the parent or even to the review a troll?

In the end it doesn't matter, because eventually someone appreciates my contribution and mods a post or two up. I just think that it'd be better if mod points were better used than they are, because I don't think my highly rated contributions are anywhere near the best. Oh yeah, and they're normally rated wrong anyway.