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Dev.SN ♥ developers

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-so-meta-even-this-acronym dept.

jcd writes:

"I'm rather excited to get going with Soylent and to watch it grow. Nay, help it grow. I have lurked in /. for more than a decade (note: I'm not the same username over there, I know, how sneaky), and always wished I could have been involved with the beginning. So this is a great opportunity, and I joined as soon as I saw what Soylent was doing. Not to mention the fact that I felt right at home with the old style. It's very comfortable.

So here's a question for everyone. Are we going to be the same as slashdot? A clone that focuses as entirely as possible on tech related news? Or will we branch out to other topics? I'm interested to see either way. I posted a comment to this effect in one of our two existing polls, and it may be a community-wide assumption, but I do think it merits a discussion."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:40PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:40PM (#3741)

    It may be hard, occasionally, to distinguish the semi-literate from the non English-as-mother-tongue folks. I would hope we don't mistake someone making a their/there/they're error for someone with no valid ideas.

    On Slashdot, uninformed, ignorant, and stupid, are names too often (and too quickly) applied to people with which one simply disagrees. It seems far more often the case, that a pejorative will be flung into the conversation than a link or two to an educational source.

    If SN could find a cure for the people who believe they have to "win the internet" every time they post, it would be miles ahead.

    Perhaps we should add a mod category of "bad behavior"?

    --
    Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +4  
       Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Underrated=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by kebes on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:56PM

    by kebes (1505) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:56PM (#3760)
    I've often wondered whether moderation should work like this: Every comment has an 'agree score' and a 'quality score'. The 'quality score' is the usual Slashdot style, where select people are given mod points, and are told to upvote based on whether comments contribute to the discussion (insightful, informative, etc.).

    The 'agree score' would be available for everyone to click on at all times (i.e. not restricted to moderators). This score would be displayed alongside each comment, but would not affect comment visibility. Thus, it would act as a signifier of how many site readers agreed with the comment, independent of the quality of the presentation style.

    Since this 'agree score' doesn't affect comment visibility, you might wonder why bother having it at all? My suspicion is that by providing an agree/disagree button, it would reinforce the idea that the usual mod-score is not related to agreement. This would (hopefully) make moderators more focused in giving mod-points. Additionally, everyone loves giving their opinion, so it's a simple way to engage the community in commenting (it's a simple way to agree with someone without posting a 'yeah I agree' in reply). Displaying the final 'agreement percentage' could then of course provide some useful information to other readers.
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:17PM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:17PM (#3785)

      Yes, the pacifier buttons.

      You're starting to see those Thumbs up / Thumbs down buttons a lot. It gives people a way to feel involved without having to take the time to post a constructive rebuttal, agreement or counterpoint.

      I Don't know how I feel about that, but it MIGHT soak up a lot of "Me too" posts or name calling flames.

      I still think we need a "bad behavior" mod to stamp out the name calling and flaming.
      There are better ways to make a point than flinging invectives.

      --
      Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
      • (Score: 2, Funny) by mtrycz on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:19PM

        by mtrycz (60) on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:19PM (#3788)

        So much +1!

        • (Score: 4, Funny) by Kell on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:08PM

          by Kell (292) on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:08PM (#3943)

          Don't you mean +1 agree/+1 quality?

          --
          Scientists point out problems. Engineers fix them.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by lennier on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:56PM

      by lennier (2199) on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:56PM (#3834)

      This is a great idea, and I second this entirely. Wish I could mod you up for this post - but I'd rather have an Agree button.

      Look, I enjoy using Facebook despite loathing the company, and a big part of that enjoyment is that I can click 'Like' as a very simple way of sending 1 bit of positive feedback to the author of the post I enjoyed. There are a lot of things that are evil about Facebook the company as a totalitarian privacy-devouring world-consuming financial-speculation bubble behemoth: but the Like button isn't one of them.

      Slashdot was a very early implementation of crowd moderation and the strength of Soylent right now is that it's a small and passionate community of early adopters, so we have room to experiment. Let's try this thing. Separate 'Agree' vs 'Quality' ratings.

      --
      Delenda est Beta
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by umafuckitt on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:01PM

      by umafuckitt (20) on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:01PM (#3888)

      This is similar to how the new technocrat.net is doing it.

      • (Score: 1) by dmc on Friday February 21 2014, @03:10AM

        by dmc (188) on Friday February 21 2014, @03:10AM (#4138)

        mod parent up. While in some sense technocrat.net might be a competitor to SN (as both competitors to /.Beta), it seems SN has achieved critical mass already and I doubt anything will stop it. While technocrat.net seems to need more commenters. And clearly Bruce Perens' quality/comportment idea exploration is quite similar if not exactly what we are discussing in this subthread. I'd almost say you don't need to experiment with it here (anytime soon), but rather use technocrat.net as the place to explore that side of moderation. Likewise technocrat is an interesting alternate implementation. I.e. while here the path is clearly- fork the ancient slashcode, and then improve it in obvious needed ways over time, over there it is start from scratch with RoR? and an absolutely minimalist proof of concept first. Though also I don't mean to act like I'm an expert, but that's at least a start of why you should go over there and at least check it out. (Perens I think has already tried to deploy it long ago but shut it down because it didn't get enough traction. I think if we could nudge 5-10% of the traffic here over there, we'd get a 2nd good alternative to slashdot going)

        • (Score: 1) by umafuckitt on Friday February 21 2014, @09:06AM

          by umafuckitt (20) on Friday February 21 2014, @09:06AM (#4272)

          That's an interesting suggestion and I'm trying to spend a little time there and submit stories. Right now there's pretty much no comment traffic on technocrat, which is a pity. However, looking at the internet archive, it looks like there never really was any: http://web.archive.org/web/20050830003758/http://t echnocrat.net/ [archive.org] No comments, or comment counts under 10 per story, were the norm.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Angry Jesus on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:35PM

      by Angry Jesus (182) on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:35PM (#3909)

      I've been thinking basically the same thing for a few years now with one difference -- the "Agree Score" should be more functional. Let people choose to hide or elevate comments with large numbers of either kind of vote (or even lots of both kinds of votes, indicating controversy). At Ars getting enough disagrees will hide a comment and I think a lot of agrees will get it promoted to a special section at the end of the article. I don't think they have a way to tune the thresholds per user though.

      • (Score: 1) by weilawei on Friday February 21 2014, @02:14AM

        by weilawei (109) on Friday February 21 2014, @02:14AM (#4120)
        Let people choose to hide or elevate comments with large numbers of either kind of vote (or even lots of both kinds of votes, indicating controversy). +1 Agree, +1 Quality. If you have both kinds of scores (and I think it's an idea worth trying), someone will make a Greasemonkey script to reorder them/display them according to their preferred metric. Rather than futz with all that, I think it'd be nice to have both (agree, quality) scores and the option to sort/filter by either.
        • (Score: 1) by weilawei on Friday February 21 2014, @02:17AM

          by weilawei (109) on Friday February 21 2014, @02:17AM (#4121)

          Replying to myself because we STILL lack an edit button. I'd like to see posts with revisions, to avoid edit trollery. Original post should've been:

          Let people choose to hide or elevate comments with large numbers of either kind of vote (or even lots of both kinds of votes, indicating controversy).

          +1 Agree, +1 Quality. If you have both kinds of scores (and I think it's an idea worth trying), someone will make a Greasemonkey script to reorder them/display them according to their preferred metric. Rather than futz with all that, I think it'd be nice to have both (agree, quality) scores and the option to sort/filter by either.

          (Further edit: the Slow Down Cowboy message makes correcting your posts really hard.)

    • (Score: 1) by Murdoc on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:58PM

      by Murdoc (2518) on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:58PM (#4061)

      +1 Agree. :)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @07:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @07:28AM (#4240)

      I wish there were a "disagree" button to tell you how much I disagree.

      But wait, then I'd need a button to say "I agree with the second part only, while the first makes me indifferent".

      You know what? I will use comments instead of a flat +1/-1, and if I just agree and have nothing to add, I will add nothing, as honest as that.
      Having a head count on comments puts value on popularity.

      Now, go. Back. To. Facebook. (interleaved with Castlevania IV whip sound effect)

      (Sorry for the sarcasm :] )

      Anonymous neagix

    • (Score: 1) by Thexalon on Friday February 21 2014, @11:01AM

      by Thexalon (636) on Friday February 21 2014, @11:01AM (#4340) Homepage

      I actually proposed that exact idea back in a forum post [dev.soylentnews.org] before we had a functioning site. I called it the "hear-hear" button, but the concept is the same.

      The key reason to do this: Two posts that each have 3-5 moderators behind it may appear to be on equal footing, when in fact the real vote might be closer to 10,000 to 4. That doesn't mean the minority viewpoint isn't heard, because this wouldn't affect visibility, but it does mean that casual readers can get an idea of what the masses really think. Of course, if somebody really cared they could use various technical means to make a post appear more popular than it really was, but I think it would be a worthwhile and fairly low-cost experiment.

      --
      Every task is easy if somebody else is doing it.
      • (Score: 1) by neagix on Friday February 21 2014, @03:04PM

        by neagix (25) on Friday February 21 2014, @03:04PM (#4468)

        I am sorry but I am biased to think that popularity shouldn't be something we should care about. Popular != Valuable. We don't want to be popular, we want to be opinionated geeks, and to be right. That's at least my perspective

    • (Score: 1) by Common Joe on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:16AM

      by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:16AM (#4706) Journal

      Your idea has a lot of merit, but I think there are privacy issues here to think about. Sure, as soon as one post to SoylentNews, your opinion is now made public, but having a like / dislike button (agree / disagree) reeks of Facebook and it reeks of information gathering. I mean, unless anyone can vote any number of times (and ballot stuff), it becomes a requirement to information gather. There is no other way: login and vote.

      I'm not saying the purpose of SoylentNews is information gathering. That was never the goal of this project. Still that's what this idea will lead to and I think the community will ultimately reject that and it drive away some people.

      Even if that were implemented, I'd stay. I don't often click those like or dislike buttons on Facebook. (Hell, I barely log in to Facebook at and the only reason I have an account it to help keep up with my friends and family in other countries.) It wouldn't be a requirement.

      I'm not giving my explicit like or dislike here. I write this merely as food for thought.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:03PM

    by mcgrew (701) on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:03PM (#4025) Homepage Journal

    It may be hard, occasionally, to distinguish the semi-literate from the non English-as-mother-tongue folks. I would hope we don't mistake someone making a their/there/they're error for someone with no valid ideas.

    That's a very good reason to point out to the aliterate and the ESL student as well. The internet is an awful place to learn written English. I don't know the stats for other English speaking countries, but although less than 1% of Americans are illiterate, 97% of them are aliterate. Teaching is never a bad thing, especially if you can make it humorous. Or humourous if you're British.

    But there are commenters who make those mistakes, are corrected, yet continue. Those people are just stupid. I mean, it isn't like they can't check it out with an authority, like maybe a dictionary or something.

    On Slashdot, uninformed, ignorant, and stupid, are names too often (and too quickly) applied to people with which one simply disagrees. It seems far more often the case, that a pejorative will be flung into the conversation than a link or two to an educational source.

    If SN could find a cure for the people who believe they have to "win the internet" every time they post, it would be miles ahead.

    Perhaps we should add a mod category of "bad behavior"?

    Agreed completely... except doesn't "troll" cover "bad behavior"?

    --
    Free Nobots! [mcgrewbooks.com]
    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday February 21 2014, @01:06AM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday February 21 2014, @01:06AM (#4087)

      Yes and No. Troll seems to acquired a lot of baggage, and has assumed a separate category all its own. In fact, the wiki definition [wikipedia.org] seems to grow every year to include yet more things that someone somewhere objects to.
      In fact modding someone troll has come to mean modding them "disagree".

      One may troll politely, not calling anyone names, simply stating an unpopular view.
      (And occasionally that's not always bad, people need to know their beliefs are not universally held).

      But hurling insults and calling people morons or idiots just seems unnecessary, and modding them troll can't be distinguished from modding them "disagree".

      There seems great reluctance to add new mod values, both here and on Slashdot. So when I suggest doing so, I may be trolling, but I'm not misbehaving. (At least not egregiously).

      --
      Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
      • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday February 21 2014, @11:56AM

        by mcgrew (701) on Friday February 21 2014, @11:56AM (#4381) Homepage Journal

        In fact, the wiki definition seems to grow every year to include yet more things that someone somewhere objects to.

        Well, at slashdot I'd go by their FAQ definition, here I'll go with the Soylent FAQ definition (which I think is identical).

        One may troll politely, not calling anyone names, simply stating an unpopular view.

        As to "unpopular view", well, that depends. In many cases you're right. In a story at a nerd site about space exploration a comment that says money for space exploration should go to the poor is certainly a troll, no matter how polite. Same with logging on to an AARP messageboard and advocating the end of Social Security or Medicare, or logging on to a Christian messageboard with a statement about what great ideas Richard Dawkins has, or an athiest site saying "repent before you wind up in hell".

        Just being abusive is flamebait. Some comments are both flamebait AND troll.

        As to "disagree" equaling "troll", I consider that an abuse of moderation. If you simply disagree, don't moderate, comment. If someone is wrong, correct them (politely if possible).

        There seems great reluctance to add new mod values, both here and on Slashdot. So when I suggest doing so, I may be trolling, but I'm not misbehaving.

        I don't see it as trolling OR misbehaving. It's your honest opinion and you shouldn't be afraid to voice it.

        --
        Free Nobots! [mcgrewbooks.com]
  • (Score: 1) by M. Baranczak on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:26PM

    by M. Baranczak (1673) on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:26PM (#4039)

    It may be hard, occasionally, to distinguish the semi-literate from the non English-as-mother-tongue folks. I would hope we don't mistake someone making a their/there/they're error for someone with no valid ideas.

    The people who make this error are almost always native English speakers. If you learn English a little later in life, like I did, you learn the spoken and written language at the same time. When you do that, it's bloody obvious that "they're" and "their" are different words.