Re: New rating scheme at K5

Michael-
> On Thursday 09 October 2003 05:12, Erik Moeller wrote:
> 
> > Rusty (K5 founder) should be commended for not falling into what I
> > would call the Slashdot trap -- devising ever more complex schemes to
> > combat abuses from users.

> I don't know how you can write such a sentence - Kuro5hin has just 
> changed and increased the complexity of their rating scheme, to combat 
> abuses from users, while Slashdot's system hasn't changed significantly 
> in many years.

I see the compression of the rating scheme and the abolition of mojo
(the K5 equivalent to Slashdot's "karma") and trusted user status as a
simplification of the rating scheme. I love Slashdot, but I think that
it has engaged in a kind of arms race to combat trolling, adding things
like
- automatic insertion of spaces to stop page widening posts (also breaks
URLs)
- complex "lameness filter" to automatically detect posts which are
considered to be noise
- minimum posting time, maximum post frequency (K5 at least has the
latter, too, but it is significantly higher)

I'm sure there are other "troll blockers" which I am not aware of. You
will have to admit that useful posts get caught by these filters from
time to time, which certainly has the potential to alienate users.

K5 has in the past not needed these things because useless posts were
simply hidden by the rating system. It remains to be seen if the new
system will work as well as the old one to combat such abuses, or
whether the "culture of trolls" will grow as it has on Slashdot. (Some
would argue that it already has reached similar proportions -- I don't
think so, but I believe the unmoderated diary section on K5 has
certainly contributed to the growth of trolling.)

As for complexity, Slashdot has a sample of randomly selected users with
a high "karma" rating who are allowed to moderate for a few days, using
only a certain amount of assigned points to do so. Their moderation is
in turn kept in check by a scheme called "meta-moderation" where all
users can participate. On K5, on the other hand, all users are allowed
to moderate, so there is no need for meta-moderation. I would say that
again, that is a significant difference in complexity.

The Slashdot moderation labels themselves are more diversified than
K5's, which is not necessarily a bad thing, of course. In all fairness,
Slashdot allows anonymous posting while K5 does not, which of course
greatly increases the noise level.

> Personally, I'm glad Slashdot hasn't fallen into what I 
> would call the Wikipedia trap -- being obsessed with a website that 
> serves ten times (conservatively) the traffic that you do, to the point 
> that all your discussions center around it.

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, are you saying that all
discussions on Wikipedia center around Slashdot? I really don't see your
point here.

Regards,

Erik
-- 
Scientific Reviewer, Freelancer, Humanist -- Berlin / Germany
Phone: +49 (0)30 45491008 -- Web: http://www.humanist.de/erik
Editor of: http://www.violence.de, http://www.infoanarchy.org
    Save the Public Domain: http://action.infoanarchy.org

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, 
one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
  --Edmund Burke, 'Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents'


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