Island Life: Who's laughing?
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blessed are the dicks for they make me feel smug...at night...in my duvet, until I realize...what a dick I am
well said.
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Needs two-factor authentication... so here's what we'll do: before you can post, you need to send a message with a random combination of alphanumeric characters, let's say 30 or so to make it secure, to Love... erm, Public Address.
The moderator will then receive notification and check out your comment. If it's OK, he'll hit a button and a response SMS will go out with an authorisation code to entered by the comment poster.
To deter abusers, the system will operate through one of my Premium SMS lines, and be charged at the low rate of $5 per message to offset some of the inevitable costs of providing a free service to the public.
Quite all right, no need to thank me; pleased to be of service, etc.
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DPF,
Alas Che I am profoundly deaf when there is background noise (called having a low signal to noise ability) so the comment was not heard, and I indeed have no idea which particular person you were. But nice to know people will laugh at you rather than introduce themselves. Even Paisley and Adams manage to be polite to each other now.
And no I don't think I am being referred to as the one commenting on women's shoes only. Just to live up to stereotype I'm not a legs man, I'm a xxxxxxx man.
I would have no problem with you, or any other reasoned blogger, as my substitute when I am overseas. I suspect you being a civil servant might be the bigger hindrance. Also I don't know who decides who the replacements are. TVNZ have the final say but I suspect they'll ask for suggestions.
Finally in terms of standard of comments, it might surprise some but it drives me crazy also. If there was some magical way to improve them I'd love to know about it. I actually admire that PA System has a much much better signal to noise ratio in the discussion threads. I think it helps that you set the culture right from the beginning, while kiwiblog has just evolved.
I am moving to wordpress as a platform shortly and that will allow commenters to register and may in fact become compulsory. That plus a tougher moderation policy may help.
What I would really like is some system where people can rate how good a comment and a commenter is, and easily set it not to display those below a certain level - like on slash dot. Then the loons and trolls could have their place to insult each other, but most people wouldn't see them unless they chose to.
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damn... so much for my hilarious joke...
What I would really like is some system where people can rate how good a comment and a commenter is, and easily set it not to display those below a certain level
actually, that would be a great tool.
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Hey DPF - good job on switching to WP - definitely the way to go.
I believe there exists a plugin for WP that allows voting on comments - see this URL. If you don't find that sufficient, drop me a line, I'd be interested in developing something similar for a high traffic WP blog.
</advertising> :P
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Finally in terms of standard of comments, it might surprise some but it drives me crazy also. If there was some magical way to improve them I'd love to know about it.
actually, i've been thinking about this.
david, the fact is that you need to take greater control of your comments threads. a great many of these dicks obviously look up to you, so maybe it's time to start using a bit of that influence.
just tell them to reign it in, ban a few of the worst offenders, and maybe get commenters-who-are-also friends to act as moderators.
that should, IMHO, start to drop your dick-to-reason ratio. because to be honest, some of the complete assholes commenting on your threads are doing your site and your reputation as a site host a disservice.
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merc,
Second that, DPF I'm sure there's more to you than the levels that some of your commenters drag down your blog.
It tends to have a strange impact on my feelings towards National as well, some of your commenters come across as little better than cultists. -
some of the complete assholes commenting on [Kiwiblog's] threads are doing [Kiwiblog} and [DPF's]reputation as a site host a disservice.
That would be complete assholes of either orientation...
But "trolls" versus "loons": anyone care to offer a conceptual analysis of the differences between trolls and loons? And is there a distinction between nutters and loons?
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And don't forget the blutters! Won't someone think of the blutters?!?!
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merc,
And those Star Belly Blutters, they need to have their belly stars removed, that's for damn sure.
Loons are good regardless, I like Loons. Trolls distort data, trolls are bad machines. Nutters, once again, like Loons, fine by me. -
Oh, OpenId perhaps?
Not in the Freudian sense of course.
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juha, you got any more of those great ideas for web identification?
lemme see your del.icio.us account?
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I do have a del.icio.us account but it's fallen fallow and barren and what have you. Not heaps useful.
The Premium SMS Moderation Service (PSMSMS) has wings though... I'm not being greedy here. Honest.
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are the wings to stop unsightly staining around the edges?
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DPF,
Thanks Hamish - that looks potentially very useful. Will check it out.
I don't actually read all the comments myself as there are so many. Im fact generally I stop reading most threads at 40 or so comments as I figure any good points will have been made by then. People may not see them all, but there have been quite a few warnings by me to people lately, plus considerable editing of comments by me.
As I said I hope to impose tougher rules when the new platform goes live, as it will allow me to actually register and ban people. I can only ban IP addresses at present.
In terms of a public statement, I am working on a rant about terms which should not be used, and just piss me off. They include:
Klark
Liarbour (was only funny the first 500 times)
any derogatory term for gays
any reference to the PM being childless. Jesus - get over it.
any reference to communists (unless backed up by research from Trevor Loudon)
any reference to child beaters, unless referring to someone who actually does
any reference to hating poor people
any threats of violence against any MP
any referring to a female MP as a bitch -
Fixed nyms are good. Nothing wrong with heavily moderating new ones, or restricting their creation when times are tough. Nymshifters and sockpuppets are usually pretty easy to spot, especially so for mods.
The trolls are usually best politely dismissed in brief and otherwise watched with amusement, it's better to chide those who feed them than try to improve a wrecker. I'm not a real believer in bans amongst grownups either, tends to stifle the group something chronic (or worse, leave you with a mindless collective), and the vast majority of bad eggs get over themselves sooner or later without it.
Flooders do need banned, at the ISP level preferably, but that's quite different.Remaining signal to noise issues are easily resolved with a good strong signal; any group can be dragged back on topic. Don't want people talking shit about the Rt Hon HK? Start talking about the real problems with HK, her real flaws, and her real strengths too. Do it properly and you'll leave the noisemakers in your dust. Ditto for any other ministers, friend and foe alike.
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Alas Che I am profoundly deaf when there is background noise (called having a low signal to noise ability)
I have exactly the same problem - i blame those litte earbud headphone things. And last year this guy made it a lot worse.
It means I don't go to the pub much anymore since the experience consists of smiling and nodding and wondering what the fuck people are saying to me.
Also, no matter how many times you tell your partner you simply didn't hear her because the dishwasher was on she'll never believe you.
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Heh - amidst the faintly righteous back-slapping about how tolerant we are in comparison to other blogs (and rightly so), I feel a little unease about sentiments aimed at 'limiting these dicks' - even though dicks some of them most truly are ......
Like anyone who dares to questionthe liberal/left leaning of this forum
Thanks, "merc" for the nice little clever racist dig you got in when I dared do that -
deaf when there is background noise
audiologists call it 'cocktail syndrome'. it's a common condition symptomatic of the early stages of hearing loss.
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merc,
Thanks, "merc" for the nice little clever racist dig you got in when I dared do that
Really? Did I do that? Didn't intend to put a racist dig in there, and if you read one of my comments, you may note that I consider myself a dick, so don't like limiting them.
Haul me up if you want, but please make it clear what you're pinging me for. -
Although the behaviour David was originally talking about goes way beyond trolling into scary dangerous stalker loon stuff.
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merc,
That is funny.
I find being called a nice little clever racist digger quite scary though, if he only took the time to know me... -
good one Stephen
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Okay, prefacing this by saying, I've been in online customer service/moderation/adminning for five years and I've reached near-toxic levels of cynicism. The net would be a much nicer place without all those fracking users buggering it up.
In terms of a public statement, I am working on a rant about terms which should not be used, and just piss me off. They include:
Strong statement of redirection, yes. Itemised list, no. It's like a dare. You'll have 'Gaybour' and 'threats of violence against MP's families' before you can refresh the page. Users are like virginity-pledged teenagers, they'll find any loophole you leave open. What's wrong with just 'no threats of violence'? Does anyone's political discourse really benefit from it?
The problem with increasing the signal to noise ratio at Kiwiblog isn't just the people who are there, it's the people who aren't, the ones who might actually have given you signal but who've given up and snotted off because the culture in the comments is so openly hostile to reasoned discourse.
God complex in mods is very easy to deal with: you take away their status if they start acting like jerk. That means they need really clear guidelines: nothing is so stupid that people don't explicitly have to be told not to do it. We had an admin I begged our boss not to fire because every time she did something, I got to add a new section to the manual. If you can't keep up with your comments and you genuinely want to change direction, you need mods, because you need at least a short period of hard enforcement. Yeah yeah, free speech, blah blah, it's not a license to be a dick. Our manual contains a quote from Star Trek: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Except 'one' has been replaced with a word too rude to use here.
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We had an admin I begged our boss not to fire because every time she did something, I got to add a new section to the manual.
What a wonderful observation. Emma, you have changed the entire direction of my client discourse.
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