Feature:Slashdot Comments

We've got a problem on Slashdot. Along with amazing growth we've experienced in the last 6 months, we've suffered some of the same problems as usenet. Namely the signal to noise ratio on the comments is getting out of control. There are real gems in the comments section, but wading through 'I got the first comment!' crap, or huge rampant offtopic debates is wasting bandwidth and time of the thousands of readers who just want the good stuff. Keep reading to read the deal. Updated read the end

I'm not really sure how to deal with this. I really don't want to step up the moderation. As it stands, we really only delete a tiny number of comments- only the really offtopic flamebait crap really. Just a couple of posts per article. In the case of the FPS of course comments are mercilously trashed, but I certainly don't have time to read every comment and check it.

So we've got 2 problems right now, and both are related. The smaller problem is First Post Syndrome (FPS), but it really is just an obvious example of offtopic posting.

The Options

I haven't decided anything really yet. These are just the options as I see them.

Just Ignore It
Ok this is an option. Just ignore the problem and hope it goes away. I'll put it to a poll. If the majority wants me to ignore the problem, I will.

No Anonymous Coward Posting
This isn't really an option. I respect that some people don't want to leave their names here, but if they want to post, I want to let them. The restriction now is that you don't get your name in the proper space. That's as much as I want to do. It allows people to immediately skip anonymous posts if they don't like them, but it also allows those of you who don't mind to read them.

Anonymous Cowards can't post First?
This is kinda a nutty idea. Simply don't let Anonymous Cowards post first. On a typical Slashdot article, that means that ACs will have to wait only a few minutes anyway, and the First Post problem would go away, as most FPS comments are ACs. This isn't a bad idea imho. But it really doesn't address the bigger issues.

Filter Comments containing /firsts*comment/i
Frankly this won't work. If I filter out 'first comment', someone will post 'f1rst comment'. Software could be used to intelligently moderate a website to a certain degree, but it runs to high a risk of deleting something valuable. Besides that, people would obviously just play games to get around the automatic detection. About 30 people this week have suggested it, but lets be realistic, it just won't work. Especially when every time I release the source code, I'd have to rewrite the regex's because folks would find new annoying ways around them.

Voting System
This is probably the trickiest to implement cleanly. What imagine this would work like would each comment would have some sort of score. Comments could be given points or have points removed based on how many people vote somehow.

The problems with this system are many:first off, its a hassle to moderate, and most people wouldn't really want to do it. Second, it would be open to abuse. I don't want 'unpopular' comments to go away, just stupid ones. I'm all for disenting opinions: I don't want someone who disagrees intelligently to be deleted just because another thousand people think what they say is wrong. And let's face it, if anything pro microsoft was posted (even if it was true!) it would be voted out of the system in about 7 seconds.

More trusted Moderators
There already is a nice system in plce to handle comment moderation (hell, most of you have seen the buttons when we having some problems a few weeks/months ago). Currently only small number of people have access to do it, and we really don't use it much.. I could find trusted people and give them access to delete. This relies on getting good trustworthy people. I know there are thousands of readers who would fall in that catagory, however keeping a handle on all these folks would be crazy. Probably a dozen people would be enough. Perhaps each article would have a moderator assigned to it. The moderator would be the only person with the right to delete comments for that article. This would allow us to distribute the email to the right people easily as well. If "Bob" is the moderator on article Foo, you can send email to "Bob" and not "Dave" or "Rob" who are already quite busy doing other things *grin*.

Options to not display anonymous posts
This kinda has the same problems as any sort of changes to the AC system. I want to let ACs post. I don't want to muffle them, I just don't want anyone to make any mistakes about the fact that they have 0% reliability. An option to filter anonymous cowards would reduce the value of their comments much more than the existing system.

Wrapup

So I guess those are the options. Something needs to be done. The simplest solution is to find a dozen folks, give them delete access, and hope they are trustworthy enough to not unfairly skew the comments. The whole goal here is to sift through the contents and pick out the good stuff (or at least, weed out the dumb stuff).

I've recieved over 50 emails and MSGs today alone related to this problem. We need to work it out. What does everyone think?

Update: Ok, compiling the majority opinion so far, how about something like this:I pick a dozen or so folks (maybe more. maybe 50?) who go in and flag articles. If 2 moderators mark an article down, it disappears from the homepage, but can still be viewed on another page. Sound reasonable? This probably wouldn't be very hard to implement, it prevents 1 rogue from being a jerk, doesn't actually delete anything, and but still allows us to filter stuff out. Yes/No? Perhaps moderators can 'unhide' as well to provide some checks.