It's been about a month since I last got mod points, and I don't think that I found anything that I wanted to use them on before they expired. I haven't been posting at all, and my meta-moderating is way down from what I used to do. In fact, it seems like I'm not as eligible to meta-moderate as I once was. It seems like I used to be asked to do it three times within a 24 hour period, but lately it's only been once or twice.

More mod points in just eleven days.

It looks like they're back to the old schedule again, or something.

I haven't posted any comments in the discussion threads since before I got the last batch of points, and have only been meta-moderating four or five times a week lately.

The informal study goes on...

Neither rhyme nor reason...

Holy crap - I got five more mod points! I wasn't expecting to see more for months, at the rate things had been going. I wonder if it has anything to do with having posted the other day for the first time in months. The Taco moves in mysterious ways...

I got five moderator points a couple of days ago, for the first time in four and a half months. I used three of them the first day, couldn't find anything that I felt like moderating yesterday, and the remaining two disappeared before I could use them today.

The thrice-daily request for meta-moderation used to say that users who meta-moderated were more likely to receive mod points. That bit was dropped awhile back, and even though I was meta-moderating three times a day I went for a long, long time without getting new points.

There seems to be just as many moderated posts as ever, so I assume that they are using new criteria to determine who gets points. It may be based on how often a person posts in threads, considering that I rarely post anymore and also rarely receive mod points. I didn't spend a lot of time online during the holidays, and only meta-moderated once a day at the most, and I haven't gone back to moderating thrice daily since then.

It's getting harder and harder for me to wade through all of the idiotic crap that people post in Slashdot threads. Most of the posts that I read these days, outside of a very few threads of specific interest to me, are the posts that I meta-moderate.

OK, I've checked back frequently enough to see that I'm still eligible to metamoderate three times in a 24 hour period - I guess that's the norm. (I might even be eligible to do it more often, but I'd rather sleep than check...)

I actually managed to use all five moderation points this time. Let's see if I'm more likely to get them more frequently if I actually use them, or if it doesn't make any difference.

I find that I tend to use them on gaming threads more than others, because they interest me and because they aren't as flooded with replies as many other subjects. Some threads have so many posts that it's just painful at times to read through them all at -1.

I've taken to browsing at +2 or +3 in those threads when I don't have mod points, because I honestly don't feel up to wading through the racist crap and flamebait and run-of-the-mill stupidity. I may miss some good posts doing that - but life is just too short...

I got five more moderator points today. The last batch expired unused a few days ago on September 2nd. These will expire on September 9th if left unused.

I seem to go several weeks without new points, and then get two or three batches in rapid succession.

When I first started getting them months and months ago it seemed like I was getting them constantly, with just a few days between the expiration of one batch and receiving a new one.

Then I started getting requests to metamoderate, and the regular mod points started coming less frequently. At one point Slashdot would ask me to metamoderate three times a day. In recent weeks that seems to have dropped to twice every 24 hours, or maybe I'm just not checking as frequently.

I'll try to start recording how often I'm offered moderator points, just to see if there's any rhyme or reason to it. I rarely use my full complement anymore when I do get them, because I can't find any meaningful posts to moderate when I have points available. (I try not to use them to slap people down as much as to encourage worthy posts, and I metamoderate the same way.)

And of course, once the latest batch of mod points expires I always find a thread with lots of worthwhile posts...