Dev.SN ♥ developers
Sections
Dev.SN
mattie_p paraphrases Barrabas, who uttered these words (mostly):
To everyone who contributed to the initial roll out, thank you! It was an amazing effort, and we couldn't have done it without you.
I've set down some notes, with an overview of where I see the project heading in the next few weeks. As always, we can stop and discuss if the community feels we should be moving in a different direction.
We have had a wildly successful launch, and can now proceed at a slightly more leisurely pace, at least for the team that handles code development. I have always intended to do development the right way; with a strong foundation of tools and with leaders to oversee and coordinate the effort between individuals and other groups. As a result, this upcoming week I've told our system administrator team to take a break. They can certainly do minor bug fixes at a leisurely pace if they feel bored, but I want a team that is relaxed and refreshed.
Speaking of a team, we actually have at least five of them. There is a systems team, which are primarily concerned with systems and server issues. There is a development team, consisting of people who contribute code to the site. There is a content team, consisting of our editors, artists, and administrators of our wiki, forum, and IRC channels. A fourth group is style, representing those who help determine how the site is presented. Finally, we have our business team, which includes marketing, legal, finances, and other such issues.
This has been an exciting time. I understand there has been some concern about decisions made during first roll out. I promised that we would operate by community consensus, and I will abide by that. Look for opportunities to contribute to the future direction of SoylentNews over the upcoming days and weeks.
(To read the full story in his words, simply go to Barrabas's Journal Entry. (internal hyperlink))
(Score: 5, Informative) by NCommander on Wednesday February 19 2014, @04:37AM
To be honest, take any moderation scores from the other site with a grain of salt. The fact of the matter is the old algo skewed the potential pool of moderators, and then compounded the problem when firehose replaced M2, which was a huge factor in determining how points got handed out. Right now, I want to leave it "as is" for at least another week or two, and see how the spread works its way out. I suspect this problem will correct itself.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by quadrox on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:10AM
I believe the problem is more psychological in nature. When one has modpoints to spend and finds a good comment, there is a natural tendency to upvote it, even if it perhaps is "correctly" moderated at +3/+4 already and is not quite desevering of a +5 score. This is just human nature.
With my proposal moderators would be led to make more "fair" assessments quite naturally, instead of blindly upvoting a comment.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DarkMorph on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:50AM
Let's wait a short period first, let the userbase growth settle down a bit and the story submission rate stabilise, before returning to any considerations of refining the moderation system. For the time being, from what I'm seeing from one story to the next, is that the current algorithm is rather decent. I can't think of a legitimate complaint that would warrant an urgent modification at this time.
At the very least, what might work well for a small userbase right now might be poor for a larger, more active group and vice versa which only further supports the notion to just wait until things settle down.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by B1ackDragon on Wednesday February 19 2014, @12:30PM
While I think it's a good idea to explore moderation concepts, I admit to being a bit skeptical (conservative, even), so I'm glad to see a "wait and see" approach. Compared to almost every other rating/up-and-downvote system I've seen, the -1 to +5 mod system seems to work well in promoting and displaying good discussion. I'm not sure why exactly, though I'm sure the quality of the community has a lot to do with it too!
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Wednesday February 19 2014, @12:46PM
The decision to scratch the old system was NOT made lightly, especially because we had nothing resembling real world data to base it on. Its running off educated guesses and has had one major revision post launch. Once the numbers come in (slash gives pretty decent stats of moderation) after a couple of weeks, then the floor will be open to revising it more :-).
Still always moving