I've been kicking around the idea of a slas site for some time, and one of the things I want to change is the way moderation works. In all fairness though it seemed important to know just how the system Slashdot currently has started. This journal entry is going to be an annotated bibliography for that project.

• The FAQ

• This has got to be the best place to start on this topic. The FAQ contains imformation on the current state of Moderation. Starting with in the Comments and Moderation section and continuing through the Meta-Moderation section gives the reader a good idea of where things stand now. It should be noted that most answers clame to have been updated June 6, 2000 so "now" may be a little out of date, but this also attests to the stability of the current system.

  Of particular interest to this endevor is the section How did the moderation system develop? This section give a brief background, and hints at the struggle to comu up with the current system. Unfortuinatly for historians it leaves out any source material.

• First Moderation Story September 17 1998

• The beginnings of the current moderation system can be traced to this story. I have actually fornt two previous posts ( here from April 15 1998, and here from January 08 1998 that descuss the problem but offer no solution) This artile is also interesting for some other reasons. First, it refers to deleting comments, something that would now be held in ill regard but which apperently was the predisesor of comment moderation. Second is the closely related issue of anonomous posting. Once again something that is a sacred right of slashdot in the present (again refer to the FAQ) was being concidered for removal at this time. Lastly, there is the poll. When I read the story the following results were displayed: No Moderation 346; No AC 375; A Dozen Moderators 819; Public Voting System 187. I record these sence the poll is still live and I voted in it to find out hence the 188 in the last field.

  Note: Up until sometime in 1999 comments were deleted after 2 months so none of the actual comments rrefered to show up. I wonder of CmdrTaco has any of his e-mail from this period.

• The First Moderation Scheme Explined September 19 1998

• Here is where the first 25 moderators come from. Actually there were only to be a dozen, but close. While this is not the general moderation we know and love today, all the general elements are there: Limits on effect, Ability to use or ignore moderation, mod up or down with a points system, and number of moderation proportional to number of comments.

  In this post is also the growing realization that any system opened to the public will be abused if the opprotunity exists. This satns in stark contrast to many previous posts when both the community and the internet were smaller.

• Implimenting the First System October 13, 1998

• This is sort of a in the middle post that contains some references to the chalenges of implimenting moderation. This most significant bit for me is "please don't bother emailing and asking for moderator access. I've sort of unofficially decided that anyone who asks will be denied simply to be fair." This is all part of the question of who will moderate.

• What to do about ACs October 30, 1998
• More AC Fun: Thresholds November 08 1998
• Slashdot Moderation Phase 1.1: 400 New Moderators March 23, 1999

• Note: This is the first post with comments still in existance

  Note: Sense moderators were still perminate, it was necessary to keep there identies obscure. roysrgnr was the only user I could find of the first 408 and that only becaues he or she posted a comment to that effece and had his or her access revolked.

• -1 to 5 Scale Set March 25, 1999

• See Point 8

• Trolls September 05, 1999
• Karma and Meta-Moderation(M2) September 06, 1999
• Metamoderation September 07 1999

• Ok, I'll fill in the rest of this when I have time. I wnated to get the links down on paper.

Democrasy is the worst form of government -- except for all the rest

Prime Minister Winston Churchill

Ok, I know that no system is perfect and that the slashdot moderation system is better then anything else out there, but I'm going to gripe anyway.

People have complained that the Over-rated and Under-rated Moderations which are immune from M2 are abused by moderators. In general I tend to agree with this, and as a point of personal ethics aviod using them. I am now having to rethink that decission.

When I moderate, I as general rule look for two good comments in the range of 1-3 to mod up, one or two comments goatsx type comments to religate to -1ism and at least one comment that has gotten into the 4 or 5 range that is factually wrong, Just trolling for reaction, or flaming a parrent post without any real reason other then the "I dissagree and your stupid to say that" type of thing.

Slashdot does not currently have a "Factually incorrect" moderation, but it does have Troll and Flamebait. When I use these to kill a "Taco Smokes Crack" post all is right with the world (of M2), but if I use them to shoot down a +5 post that starts "Anybody who is stupid enough to use when in deserves to get hacked. All users are big loosers." and never give any facts or even compelling opinions then M2's come back as unfair. In my opinion, just because a post is on topic does not necessarly make it a good post, but apperently the slashdot M2 community dissagrees.

Except when I'm moderating, I read threaded, highest score first, with a -5 modifier to funny comments. I what to read the 10 most interesting, insightful, and informative comments and go ont to the next story. When I moderate, I try to put the pssts that I want to read closer to the top, to ones nobody wants to read off the map, and the post that made it to +5 because it was posted 30 seconds after the story went live with a viseral knee jerk reaction out of the way of those comments that are actually worth reading.

Upon reflection, it seems to me that this is just the kind of thing the Overrated moderation was created for, but because it is not M2'ed it can be easily abused. I think the best solution would be for the kind people who M2 comments to hold a higher standard for what a good post is. In otherwords to acknoledge that there are trolls that are far more sifisticated than the 14 year old script kiddie who posts "Linux Sucks" for every story about Linux. There are people who with great verbosity and pomp will wax elliquent about "Linux Sucks" with not an original thought in the whole thing. To spite there way with language these post are no more then Asses in Silk Undies.

So what do you think. A couple weeks from now when it is once again my turn to moderate should I use overrated to knock down these gift-wriped gonads, or stick to real moderations and suffer the consequences in M2. JFMILLER

Ok, The battle has starter:

I got an old $100 533Mhz Duron slapped a second harddrive in in and put a stage 1 Gentoo install on. Ive gottent all the basics working. mysql is up and works as it should. But the apache mod perl thing is driving me up the wall.

Slashcode is very picky about how mod_perl gets installed. The istructions give step by step style instructions about how to have mod_perl install apache for you, but Somewhere my install is bauched and without good instructions I can't troubleshoot.

That being the case I've set things aside and I'm whining about it here. As Far as I can tell no one reads these thing so I'm safe.

Anyway, it's time for the master (CmdrTaco) is going to answer questions.

Ok, so my real interest is in testing this journal thing, but I have an idea that I want to write down somewhere besides my brain.

As an avid reader of Slashdot, I enjoy the fact that I don't have to sift throught the rubble that is todays mass media to find stories about technology, and the culture, law, etc. that surround it.

But, as a Seminary student at CDSP I realize that there is much more to life then "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters." So I have no choice but to sift though the rubble of the mass media to find the story on page B17 under the add for women's undergarments about the social justice and Church related issues I'm interested in.

My idea, (I told you I had one) is to create a SLASH sight with the goals of:

• highlighting news stories in the areas of social Justice, Religous Life, and World Politics that would be of interest to a like minded Christian audience.
• Foster a dialog among the diverce Christian denominations and with the wider faith community about these issues.
• Provide a forum for prominate secular and religous leader to air their opinion and get responces from the community-at-large.

There are no firm plans at the moment, I am more interested to find out if such a sight would be appriciated.

JFMILLER