[Seattle-editorial] we can solve this problem--if we want to

[Ben Seattle]

Hi there Benjamin,

(see below)

> > If every person who read an article had the
> > chance to vote to delete a comment, then a
> > comment could be automatically deleted if it
> > received 5 delete votes from different computers,

> This is certainly a great idea, in theory.  However,
> if you think abusive spirited comments are bad, wait
> until these same people find out all they have to do
> to Zap everyone else's comments is get 4 other
> locations to vote them down.

The particular details of how we allow readers to help us filter
the newswire can make a big difference.  The particular method
described above (ie: 5 delete votes and the post is deleted)
would be relatively easy to abuse.

Other methods would be far more difficult to abuse.

> Remember that a huge part of the "mean spirited
> comments" are probably intentional sabatoge of what we
> are doing at our site.  Allowing viewers to voted down
> other's comments would be an avenue of sabatoge that
> would probably be used, which could cause even more
> havock than what we are doing now.

We need to consider effective methods of accomplishing our
objective.  We need to keep in mind that 95 percent of our
readers are on our side--and will consistently outvote the trolls
if make it possible for them to do so.  Our reading audience
_wants_ to help us.  Why not allow them to do so?

The real issue is whether we have the political will to make this
happen.  If we lack the political will--then any effort to allow
readers to vote would probably be half-hearted and might fail.
On the other hand--if we are determined to make this happen--we
can certainly do so.

> ONE thing we might consider, is requiring people to
> "log on" before posting a reply.  (Some IMCs do this.)
> I am not convinced of the value of totally annonomys
> contributions, particularly because of the various
> "Dear Karen" posts.

Realistically, we may need to try a few well-considered
experiments to see what works.  It should not be necessary to log
on in order to post--but we could make people log on in order to
_vote_ on a post (in order to reduce abuse)--or we could
institute other technical measures (there are _many_ possible) in
order to reduce overwhelming majority of attempts to cheat the
system.

Again--the only important question is whether or not we are
determined to make this happen.

Sincerely,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 18.Mar.2004
http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure)