All of this was suggested (in various forms) about two years ago, but perhaps now with the lack of active moderators, such an implementation might be perceived as more viable than it was at the time.
brainiac wrote:
The problem is there's no clear line in the sand between a small edit and removal of all text in a message, so I don't think we can easily solve the troll-deleter type behaviour.
I do think that some kind of accountability might improve things in the Canon forum without the need for excessive moderation. I am going to talk to Fred about all this. It would be very easy to install a simple voting system with a view to developing a more karma-like system in the future. Maybe then this karma will run over their dogma ;-)
Are you planning to have each vote labeled with the user account that cast it?
What about allowing everyone to view previous versions of posts, rather than just the current one?
I think having a seperate forum for flame wars is a terrible idea. I've been participating in internet forums for nearly ten years. I can think of a few forums that have done that over the years and they have gone straight down the drain. You might as well hang a shingle that says "welcome trolls and trouble makers". They won't just stay on one forum and the petty arguments bleed over into the other forums. It may be fun to see people make fools out of them selves at least for a page or two but if that's what you want just tune in on Dpreview for a few minutes. FM just needs a few moderators not a flame war pit.
invalid2:Are you planning to have each vote labeled with the user account that cast it?
Yes. No. Let me clarify. In the db each vote belongs to the casting member, so a member could not vote twice on the same comment. But there would be no visible indicator on the site of who had voted how for what, just the scores.
>What about allowing everyone to view previous versions of posts, rather than just the current one?
That's a very good idea. It means people can edit without being unaccountable. An edited post would have a link which you could press to view a pop-up of previous versions.
I don't understand...you vote on other people's posts?
Please explain because at first blush, I don't think that sounds like a good idea...or at least it sounds like an idea that could quickly lead to problems.
Do you have a link for an example of another discussion forum where this is being done...maybe I'm just not grasping the concept.
invalid2:Are you planning to have each vote labeled with the user account that cast it?
brainiac:Yes. No. Let me clarify. In the db each vote belongs to the casting member, so a member could not vote twice on the same comment. But there would be no visible indicator on the site of who had voted how for what, just the scores.
So that would me that if user A does not like user B, user A can find all of the posts by user B and vote them down. Or, for those who don't care about the rules that much, would it really be that difficult to register a bunch of sock puppets and use each one to vote as a separate user?
If you are going to do limits based on IP addresses, what about multiple real users behind a NAT gateway?
If you really want votes, maybe you could make it only negative votes, and the only outcome is what a moderator will investigate first. That way, sock puppets would be more risky, and there would be little benefit from bad voting.
>>What about allowing everyone to view previous versions of posts, rather than just the current one?
That's a very good idea. It means people can edit without being unaccountable. An edited post would have a link which you could press to view a pop-up of previous versions.
I am glad you like the basic idea. I have a few side ideas or clarifications:
- please don't use pop-up windows, there are other (imho) much slicker ways to do it. One would be a "post history" button - press for a menu: what version(s), diff-mode, entire thread for that version of the post, etc...
- showing the individual changes for individual posts would provide all the information, but it might be helpful to have the change history for the entire thread.
- I think the idea of providing the diffs between two versions would be really cool - but it might real work, but I don't think it would add that much over the general history idea.
- searching for all versions as an option could be really neat
Shane Canfield wrote:
I don't understand...you vote on other people's posts?
Please explain because at first blush, I don't think that sounds like a good idea...or at least it sounds like an idea that could quickly lead to problems.
Do you have a link for an example of another discussion forum where this is being done...maybe I'm just not grasping the concept.
I think the idea is that "the community" can directly offer feedback on posts, so if some post is rude and insulting, everyone else can vote it down. The flip side of this is that people who find a post enlightening or helpful can vote it up.
If you want an example, you might try checking out slashdot.
invalid2 wrote:
I think the idea is that "the community" can directly offer feedback on posts, so if some post is rude and insulting, everyone else can vote it down. The flip side of this is that people who find a post enlightening or helpful can vote it up.
If you want an example, you might try checking out slashdot.
OK. Let me pose this...what if someone finds a post rude or insulting, they make that known by posting a reply? I do this by either countering or by quoting and saying 'agreed' or some such thing. At least that way a person knows where the other view is coming from. What is the advantage of having people be able to vote and not make themseleves known to others? If a sense of community is desired, we want to encourage posts rather than lurking...? What if a person is posting good info but some find the manner or speech off-putting. The person getting a neg vote might be posting great inf in a less than poliet manner, but it is still worth listening to.
I say this because many times emails are mis-read because some people are "facts only" writers and some are "facts only but written in a very way" and some are both. I would hate to vote on someone's style rather than content.
Thanks for your points everyone - it's really good to have this discussion. Yes, slashdot is a paradigm example of how peer moderation can dramatically improve the usability of a site and the quality of its content. Trust me, it would be a lot worse without its very successful moderation system.
> I do this by either countering or by quoting and saying 'agreed' or some such thing.
...and you still can, but I think we can agree if 200 people all write 'I agree with Shane' then the thread becomes quite hard work to read. Moderating with votes allows the 200 people to express their approval or disapproval without polluting the thread. Why is that a benefit? It's a benefit because you could ignore any post that you can see has a score of -1847. That helps you to get the peer approved information quickly. You can always read the dead wood if you want, but you can also now avoid it if you're in a hurry. Another benefit is that people will not enjoy achieving a score of -1847 so they may, just may, be more inclined to keep abusive, irresponsible, or otherwise unpopular posts to a minimum.
> So that would me that if user A does not like user B, user A can find all of the posts by user B and vote them down.
Yes, absolutely, so be nice.
>...would it really be that difficult to register a bunch of sock puppets and use each one to vote as a separate user? If you are going to do limits based on IP addresses...
That's exactly what I intended to to. Remember, you can only have one account with the same email address. How often will two people from the same IP address vote on the same comment? In the situation we point out, i.e. two people voting on the same comment from the same ip address, yes, the second ones' vote will be ignored. I don't think that will happen often enough for it to be a real concern. If it does then we will have to think about moving to a more karma-like system, where members have to earn and spend mod points.
I don't know...could go either way on this I guess...it could always be removed later, but then again, with only so many resources, picking what project to do and which to let go is always tricky.
I guess voting reminded me of a popularity contest...which strikes me as unappealing.
Shane Canfield wrote:
(earlier parts deleted)
OK. Let me pose this...what if someone finds a post rude or insulting, they make that known by posting a reply? I do this by either countering or by quoting and saying 'agreed' or some such thing. At least that way a person knows where the other view is coming from. What is the advantage of having people be able to vote and not make themseleves known to others? If a sense of community is desired, we want to encourage posts rather than lurking...? What if a person is posting good info but some find the manner or speech off-putting. The person getting a neg vote might be posting great inf in a less than poliet manner, but it is still worth listening to.
I say this because many times emails are mis-read because some people are "facts only" writers and some are "facts only but written in a very way" and some are both. I would hate to vote on someone's style rather than content. ...Show more →
I have seen posts that were inexcusably rude and insulting - no matter the content. Though I agreed with the basic idea of what the poster was trying to say, the post was bad enough to warrant attention from a moderator. In cases like this, posting a response of "that is rude, please play nice" does not seem like it would help at all - it may be more likely to encourage the rude poster.
I don't much like the voting idea, in part because I don't think it will help posters be more polite, but I don't agree that people should be encouraged to make content-less posts. I think (reading the rules and various posts) that the idea is to encourage meaningful comments in the posts.
EDIT: Another possible negative about voting/karma/etc: I think it might change the character of the forum. I thought the changes were supposed to keep things mostly the same, but with minor improvements, not large changes. And maybe somewhat related to this - if voting is supposed to improve accountability, what accountability is there for the voters?
Edited by invalid2 on Feb 04, 2008 at 01:26 AM GMT (Reason: noted in post)
Why not just have an active moderation like before that can tone things down when they get personal rather than on point?
Someone actually has to do it. I'm not sure where Fred is in recruitment of new moderators.
I do agree with you that the voting system is a multi-edge sword that can be used in a negative way. We have forums with cliques with each having member numbering in the teens.
