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Slashdot's system works better than Reddit's or HNs, but unfortunately Slashdot fell for other reasons (gross mismanagement, nonexistent editing, etc) Slashdo

Slashdot's system works better than Reddit's or HNs, but unfortunately Slashdot fell for other reasons (gross mismanagement, nonexistent editing, etc) Slashdot's moderation was great though. Specifically, I really like the way Slashdot provides more categories for rating comments. '+5 Funny' vs '+5 Insightful' is a very useful distinction. '-1 Off Topic' vs '-1 Flamebait/Troll' is a useful distinction. I don't want to read off topic spam, but I often do want to read unpopular dissenting opinions. Slashdot let me read the "trolls" (dissenters) without having to wade through the literal spam. Great system, HN and reddit would be better if they had something similar.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
I was seemingly randomly selected to be a moderator a couple of times on Slashdot. I don't remember how long each term lasted, maybe a couple of weeks? It seemed like a good system to keep anyone from being in the role for long enough to be the target of corruption and to prevent much damage if the selected person was simply a shitty moderator.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The way I remember it working was it would randomly select users, and you were given the ability to give +1/-1 to posts for a certain period of time (day? week?) and you could only use that in threads that you were not posting in. And once in awhile you'd get picked to meta moderate where you'd be asked if the moderation choice of another user was reasonable.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    Yes, this is exactly how it worked. It sounded good in theory, but in practice wasn't that great IMO. By only giving a few random users the ability to mod up/down posts, for a limited time, and ONLY in threads they didn't post in, there just wasn't much incentive to moderate. Personally, I frequently got mod points, used them, and then wanted to respond to something somewhere else in that thread, and so making my post would undo all my moderations. It was a choice between my speech being stifled, or being able to do my civic duty of moderating, and I chose to exercise my speech most times, so I probably was not a very effective moderator. Perhaps if they had made it more fine-grained it could have worked better (so you can't mod in a subthread you post in).
incompatible 3y ago
I'm not sure that having a horde of posts trying for '+5 Funny' really helps their discussions. On HN, you tend to get downvoted for posting lame jokes, and even some good ones.
- George83728 3y ago
  That's not the way conversations tended to go on Slashdot, from what I recall. It wasn't like reddit. Furthermore, because Slashdot's system differentiated funny from other kinds of ratings, you could specifically suppress posts rated funny, or raise posts rated Troll, etc. This functionality was built into the interface.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

I was seemingly randomly selected to be a moderator a couple of times on Slashdot. I don't remember how long each term lasted, maybe a couple of weeks? It seemed like a good system to keep anyone from being in the role for long enough to be the target of corruption and to prevent much damage if the selected person was simply a shitty moderator.

bombcar 3y ago
The way I remember it working was it would randomly select users, and you were given the ability to give +1/-1 to posts for a certain period of time (day? week?) and you could only use that in threads that you were not posting in. And once in awhile you'd get picked to meta moderate where you'd be asked if the moderation choice of another user was reasonable.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  Yes, this is exactly how it worked. It sounded good in theory, but in practice wasn't that great IMO. By only giving a few random users the ability to mod up/down posts, for a limited time, and ONLY in threads they didn't post in, there just wasn't much incentive to moderate. Personally, I frequently got mod points, used them, and then wanted to respond to something somewhere else in that thread, and so making my post would undo all my moderations. It was a choice between my speech being stifled, or being able to do my civic duty of moderating, and I chose to exercise my speech most times, so I probably was not a very effective moderator. Perhaps if they had made it more fine-grained it could have worked better (so you can't mod in a subthread you post in).

incompatible 3y ago

I'm not sure that having a horde of posts trying for '+5 Funny' really helps their discussions. On HN, you tend to get downvoted for posting lame jokes, and even some good ones.

George83728 3y ago
That's not the way conversations tended to go on Slashdot, from what I recall. It wasn't like reddit. Furthermore, because Slashdot's system differentiated funny from other kinds of ratings, you could specifically suppress posts rated funny, or raise posts rated Troll, etc. This functionality was built into the interface.