Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

Dev.SN ♥ developers

posted by mattie_p on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-really-do-it dept.

By now, you have had the chance to read the updates of both NCommander and Barrabas. Nonetheless, you may still be wondering quite a few things about the site and its staff. Here is your chance to ask us anything. These questions can be general in nature, in which case the staff will select a spokesperson to answer it, or it may be specific to an individual. If the question is for an individual, please ensure you identify that person specifically enough.

We will select the best questions from the thread and provide answers to the community. These questions may not be the highest rated, although we will probably use those first.

In keeping with tradition, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:10PM

    by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:10PM (#2686)

    I'd like to point out, and this is just my opinion I don't speak for anyone else, that /. seems to be full of sock-puppets and PR management people trying to sell to the tech crowd. I think in the long run we'll probably end up in a similar situation here as SN gains in popularity. At the moment I think we're just off the marketing team(s) radar.

    One of the things I think will help us combat that is there are more mod points floating around, we get them much more often and it's much less skewed who gets them. I hope "real" users will take advantage of that. I also hope as a community of technical people we'll work hard to keep the "I've been using windows 8 for ten years and LOVE IT!!!11!!!1!" (yes it's hyperbole) post where they belong. That is, on /.

    --
    "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:28PM

    by GeminiDomino (661) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:28PM (#2699)

    One thing I've noticed about SN is that a lot (maybe 80%) of my mod points are expiring, because I'd rather participate in the conversations. Maybe that'll change when the story density goes up.

    Not really a complaint, mind. Just a single-datum observation.

    --
    "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:43PM

      by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:43PM (#2720)

      That was one of the things on /. that was skewed. Mod points seem to be given to people who prefer to log in and read, but not comment on stories. I could see someone having a ton of sock-puppet accounts specifically just to get mod points to horde or spend and keep out of the hands of people that might actually mod up conflicting views.

      I also don't think expiring mod points is bad as long as the turn around is short. You could go months on /. without mod points, but SN seems to give them very frequently. I don't care if my mod points expire if I'm going to have more in less than 24 hours. I've had mod points almost every day since Friday. Sometimes two or three times a day.

      --
      "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
      • (Score: 2) by dargaud on Wednesday February 19 2014, @04:13PM

        by dargaud (364) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @04:13PM (#2800)

        Mod points seem to be given to people who prefer to log in and read, but not comment on stories.

        Wrong, at least for me. I could go 6 months without mod points, but as soon as I posted something (rarely), I'd get mod points the next day.

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:31PM

          by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:31PM (#2881)

          Mod point distribution was/is skewed toward older (low UID) *readers* rather than newer or active commenters.

          "The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system" wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

          Note "based on the number of comment" doesn't imply more comments,

          NCommander has confirmed as much in IRC dicussions of his mod system rewrite.

          --
          "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
      • (Score: 1) by jturpin on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:39PM

        by jturpin (1985) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:39PM (#2976)

        I haven't noticed what you are describing on /.. I created my account years ago but didn't use it until about a year ago, when I started posting. At that point I got more mod points than ever (only good for 2-3 days, I would use maybe 1/3 of them). I post comments about 5 days a week and always seem to have mod points.

        For the record, I just signed up here and have no mod points... And I have a very high UID on this site. Maybe the highest.

        • (Score: 1) by paulej72 on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:27AM

          by paulej72 (58) on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:27AM (#3161) Journal

          I hardly posted on /. but I did read daily. I got mod points about every other week recently.

          --
          Team Leader for SN Development Dev Server [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 1) by boltronics on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:02AM

            by boltronics (580) on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:02AM (#3335) Homepage

            Agreed. I was a lurker for years, rarely commenting, and it was a real shock whenever I received mod points because it happened so rarely. This never really changed up until the last 6 months or so when I suddenly seemed to be getting mod points maybe a couple of times a week.

            --
            It's GNU/Linux dammit!
      • (Score: 1) by albert on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:39AM

        by albert (276) on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:39AM (#3205)

        Consider two posts. The first has no moderation. The second has 100 up mods and 101 down mods. I strongly think the second post is more interesting; people care about it. Most likely it is a well-argued post that expresses an opinion that some moderators are trying to suppress. For example, it could be of a political nature.

        The fix is asymmetric moderation. A simple and easy method would be to square the up mods. So 10 up with 10 down becomes 90. (10*10-10) You could use a fractional exponent, or you could raise one type of mod to an integer power that is slightly different than the other. For example, raise up mods to the 8th power and raise down mods to the 7th power.

        (originally posted in journal entry http://dev.soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=124&cid=218 0 [dev.soylentnews.org] where nobody saw it)

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by dilbert on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:44PM

      by dilbert (444) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:44PM (#2724)
      I've only had mod points once so far, and put all 10 into the three stories I hadn't commented on. I suspect most of the good posts I've seen that haven't been modded up are because of what you stated, people wanting to comment.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by cwix on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:45PM

        by cwix (873) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:45PM (#2772)

        I've had mod points here twice. The first time they expired before I had a chance to use them. This morning I got the opportunity to use three of them, but they had expired before I got to work. I dont mind the mod points having a short expiry time. But perhaps 8, maybe even 12 hours would be nice.

      • (Score: 1) by frojack on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:54PM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:54PM (#2941)

        Yeah, that's the way I play it too.
        Its less than Ideal, because some of the stories I'd like to post on, I end up moderating instead.
        Oh, well....
        I look at it as adding quality rather than quantity.

        --
        Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.