Re: news.gnome.org again

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Alan Cox <alan redhat com> writes:

> > > It doesnt work at all for slashdot. Sane messages not expressing the approved
> > > site viewpoint are moderated to oblivion. 
> > 
> > Well, at least to me, I get to enjoy a lot the posts that are bumped
> > up to +5.  
> 
> That doesnt mean the system works. Lets take an imaginary situation where every
> X employee moderates down every post by any E employee and up every
> X employee.
> 
> news.gnome.org then reflects the view of company X and shows it as if there is
> no dissent. 
> 
> There are a lot of algorithms (even more research) on group moderation, but the
> slashdot algorithm is like the lesson number 1, why the obvious approach does 
> not work.

I really don't think we need complicated algorithms.

If we simply:

 - Require people to register an account before posting
 - Require the account registration process involve receiving mail.

Then we establish a chain of accountability; if people feel responsible
for their postings, they will be less inclined to troll and flame.

 - Yes, it's a little bit more painful; however, I think from this thread that
   it is clear that having gnotices be a mini-slashdot is not something
   we need.

 - And yes, it can be spoofed by creating a temporary account on hotmail
   or something; as long as we make the process of creating an account
   comparable work to the process of deleting an account, we are OK.

 - Yes, this doesn't allow truly anonymous postings. I think there are
   other forums for that.

Regards,
                                        Owen