Discovery

[andrewducker]

Having realised that life is just too damn short I have switched to reading Slashdot at 3. Suddenly the world seems a happier, shinier place. If only life had a similar function.

Brief explanation - comments on Slashdot are rated by other users (moderated up or down). They start at 0 (for anonymous people) 1 (for people with accounts) and 2 (for people who have been moderated up enough times to be considered trustworthy) and then can be moderated up as far as 5. Reading at 0 is akin to plunging your head repeatedly into a large bucket full of particularly stupid squid, reading at 2 means that you get to read everything that anyone at all thinks is a vaguely sensible thing to say, reading at 5 means you never get to see discussion, just statements, 3 seems to be a reasonable compromise. What I'd really like is for it to set it to a level that gives me the top-rated 50-ish comments, but that would be far too sensible.

Comments

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

I like that system.

I'm curious - how is it possible to get a -1?

[andrewducker]

There are these things called integers which consist of the set of all numbers which can be reached by either subtracting or adding 1 to another integer. The number -1 can be reached by subtracting 1 from 0.

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

And the serious answer is that posts can be rated downwards - for being off-topic, trolls, redundant, or "overrated" (nice subjective one there). Each of those subtracts one point from the overall score for a comment, and they can take it down to -1. Also, if a commenter has sufficiently bad "karma" (that is, they've posted lots of comments which have attracted negative moderation), their comments can start out rated at 0 or -1, rather than the default 1 for people with normal karma.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

Ahh :) Thanks!

Nice to meet you today, by the way :)

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

Likewise ! Always good to match LJs and "real people" :-)