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posted by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @03:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-with-longer-half-lifes dept.
*cough*

Ok, I meant to have an open forum about moderation *way* before this point. I did read the various feedback and comments left on my journal and the last moderation, and have made some changes to the moderation system.

First, mod points now expire after eight hours. I'm willing to extend this to 12 or 16 hours after I'm sure comments will still reach +5 fairly regularly. With luck, we'll get to the point we can extend mod-points to last a full 24 hours which I suspect will end most of the complaining on them vanishing too soon.

Second, I'd like to open the floor to making a more fundamental change to the moderation system. Specifically, allowing people to post AND moderate in the same discussion. We've seen plenty of posts get up to +5, which means 3-4 people gave up their right to post to keep our comments high quality. This was brought up during our last plea for stories, and I wanted to solicit more feedback before unleashing this upon the site.

I've floated the idea on IRC, and it seems there's a fair bit of support for removing the post/moderate split, though we'd need to make some changes to prevent rampant abuse. Here's what was suggested to keep things sane:
  • Mod points won't roll back after a post
  • Moderators can post in the same discussion (either before or after moderating), but can not moderate replies to their posts.

I've heard various ideas such as limiting it only after mods have expended their points (this will require implementing a cooldown to prevent a user from getting points again too soon). I want to hear your feedback, and I'll roll together something for the next major update of the site. Leave your comments

 
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  • (Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:07AM

    by lhsi (711) on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:07AM (#24023)

    Would it be a good idea to figure out what needs metamoderation first? I often get the impression that "Overrated" mods (or the downmods in general) are used when someone disagrees with something, but can't refute it in a comment (and don't want to add a comment repudiating it lest they look silly), so "punish" the poster with a downmod.

    If this is the case then metamoderation would just be showing a list of comments that got a downmod (including what the previous score was) to see whether it was correct to downmod or not.

    Someone would have to look over what moderations are actually happening to determine whether this or something else actually needs focus, however.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:11AM

    by NCommander (2) <mcasadevall@dev.soylentnews.org> on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:11AM (#24116) Homepage Journal

    I've never really liked overrated/underrated, especially because they ARE immune to metamoderate (metamoddable is set to 0 in the DB). I realize they serve a purpose, but I feel like its something that can be handled in a better way ...

    I'm open to ideas on this.

    --
    Still always moving ...
    • (Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:35AM

      by lhsi (711) on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:35AM (#24135)

      I don't think I've ever used underrated, so I would be in favour of just removing it. I would say that overrated should only be enabled if a post has had 1 or 2 positive mods already*. If a moderator wants to use a downmod on a post with no other mods, they have to have a reason for it (and the other downmods are easier to see if someone is abusing the moderation system)

      *maybe something like

      if (positiveMods - negativeMods) > 1

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:41PM

      by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:41PM (#25300) Homepage

      Unlike the other poster, I have used 'underrated' often enough. Its meaning to me is kinda "none of these other upmods really fits, but it deserves to be seen, so... 'underrated' it is."

      'Overrated' seems most often used to mean 'I disagree' but I'm still not sure it should go away.