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CDLinux 0.9.2 Community Edition Review (DistroWatch Weekly #310)
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Comments (11)
Actually, the Mono debate has infected DistroWatch Weekly, proving that no forum is safe. As usual, no meaningful conclusion is reached.
Is it me or has the quality of DWW gone down? It is it just this week because someone mentioned Mono? It looks like half the comments over there were written by 15 year olds Youtubers and Diggers. I remember DWW audience being more mature.
@Sander: It isn't just you and actually the comment level has been really poor for a while now. Ladislav probably deleted 20 comments or more last week. This week, for the first time, I have moderator rights as well. Yeah, the children sadly destroy the comments. What really makes it sad is that there are still intelligent people making insightful comments but they are drowned out by the noise. I don't know what to do to improve the signal to noise ratio over there. Ladislav has generally been loathe to really moderate heavily and I can understand why.
Depending on the way it is implemented, a comment rating system and user rating system could work. To see it implemented badly, have a look at Digg. To see it implemented the right way, have a look at StackOverflow.com. I'm still not quite sure why it works on StackOverflow and not on Digg though...
What about the ./ system?
I liked the old system of tweakers.net (Dutch site), but the new one also has some drawbacks. You see, there are also troll-moderators and shill-moderators. Before you now it, some company will devise a moderation-gang to mod-up comments the company likes and mod-down (and most of the times that means hiding) the comments they don't like. Worse, tweakers.net has such system that if you don't agree with the 'general' opinion, meaning if you differ too much from the average when moderating, the system assumes you're a troll and you lose your moderator rights for some time.
stack overflow seems to be free of a lot of the flame war mentality.
People go there when they have a problem and are looking for a solution. So far people seem content to actually only give input that helps solve the problem.
For instance if someone is having trouble configuring Microsoft sniggle widget 3.4 in a shared environment. People who know sniggle widget answer. If they don't know sniggle widget they tend not too say anything. After all, what good does it do to add some snide comment saying "you should use GNU-Widge 2.6 you corporate shill".
users can vote questions and comments up and down, but I think it isn't out of hand because it hasn't attracted the wrong crowd yet.
People go there when they have a problem and are looking for a solution. So far people seem content to actually only give input that helps solve the problem.
For instance if someone is having trouble configuring Microsoft sniggle widget 3.4 in a shared environment. People who know sniggle widget answer. If they don't know sniggle widget they tend not too say anything. After all, what good does it do to add some snide comment saying "you should use GNU-Widge 2.6 you corporate shill".
users can vote questions and comments up and down, but I think it isn't out of hand because it hasn't attracted the wrong crowd yet.
There's another option. Gamedev.net also has a nice system for rating users. The trick is that it's the difference in user rating that determins the real rating.
E.g: UserA and UserB have a rating of 1000. UserC a rating of 1500. When UserB rates UserA up then UserA's rating only goes up a small amount (i.e. 1 point) because the difference between UserA's and UserB's rating is negligible. When UserC rates up UserA then his rating jumps a lot. Say, +15 points. When UserA rates up UserC then the rating doesn't go up at all (i.e just 0.05 point or so) because UserA's rating is much lower.
The same happens with down rating. When UserA and UserB try to rate down UserC it will hardly have any effect. But UserC can significantly lower the rating of the other two with a single down vote.
The *real* trick is the initial set-up. Registered users start at 1000, Moderators at 1500 and Admins at 2000. All that the mods and admins have to do is not rate up any digg kids and rate people up who (a) post good comments and (b) don't like the juvenile digg crowd either. The respective distance between ratings makes it impossible for the juvenile crowd to create a voting block and drive out the good content by sheer numbers.
That system has been running at Gamedev.net for ~2 years and is working pretty well. It would take an ordinary user with rating 1000 a massive number of votes of low ranked people to gain any significant rating increase. And even if they do, just two or three moderator/admin votes will rectify the situation.
E.g: UserA and UserB have a rating of 1000. UserC a rating of 1500. When UserB rates UserA up then UserA's rating only goes up a small amount (i.e. 1 point) because the difference between UserA's and UserB's rating is negligible. When UserC rates up UserA then his rating jumps a lot. Say, +15 points. When UserA rates up UserC then the rating doesn't go up at all (i.e just 0.05 point or so) because UserA's rating is much lower.
The same happens with down rating. When UserA and UserB try to rate down UserC it will hardly have any effect. But UserC can significantly lower the rating of the other two with a single down vote.
The *real* trick is the initial set-up. Registered users start at 1000, Moderators at 1500 and Admins at 2000. All that the mods and admins have to do is not rate up any digg kids and rate people up who (a) post good comments and (b) don't like the juvenile digg crowd either. The respective distance between ratings makes it impossible for the juvenile crowd to create a voting block and drive out the good content by sheer numbers.
That system has been running at Gamedev.net for ~2 years and is working pretty well. It would take an ordinary user with rating 1000 a massive number of votes of low ranked people to gain any significant rating increase. And even if they do, just two or three moderator/admin votes will rectify the situation.
@Sander That sounds like a pretty good system...
Sounds interesting Sander.
And if moderations for a certain comment differ a lot - which happens with every discussion with 2 camps - let a moderator/administrator look at those comments. People moderate a lot by means of agreeing with you or not, not by means of deciding if your comment adds to the discussion.
Or maybe an administrator / moderator could look at the moderations 'ordinary' members do, and reward them with a higher ranking if they moderate using the guidelines and not '(non)-agreement with what's being said'.
Ideas for Distrowatch enough, it seems.
And if moderations for a certain comment differ a lot - which happens with every discussion with 2 camps - let a moderator/administrator look at those comments. People moderate a lot by means of agreeing with you or not, not by means of deciding if your comment adds to the discussion.
Or maybe an administrator / moderator could look at the moderations 'ordinary' members do, and reward them with a higher ranking if they moderate using the guidelines and not '(non)-agreement with what's being said'.
Ideas for Distrowatch enough, it seems.
Quoting: It looks like half the comments over there were written by 15 year olds Youtubers and Diggers. I remember DWW audience being more mature.
Aww, they're just cute little FUDlets running around meeping for mama.
Pretty much, tuxchick. I just had to delete one that was pure anti-China bigotry.
Reviews are, by nature, opinion pieces and are never going to satisfy everyone. The adult critiques I read and take seriously. This week's review was actually the result of requests for more looks at mini-distros. Positive suggestions are always welcome as is constructive criticism. The stone throwers I ignore.
Reviews are, by nature, opinion pieces and are never going to satisfy everyone. The adult critiques I read and take seriously. This week's review was actually the result of requests for more looks at mini-distros. Positive suggestions are always welcome as is constructive criticism. The stone throwers I ignore.
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