ILikeRed's Journal: Improving Slashdot Moderation

Here's an idea for improving moderation for the Slashdot Editors.

Ask the members what Slashdot Topics they are experts in. This data could then be used for two things that would be useful to Slashdot, improving moderation, and targeted advertising.

Improving moderation might only be useful if that data is verified, but Slashdot could get verification with a large number of users with data they already have - email addresses. If the member has an ibm.com or sun.com email address, verify them for Unix, Software, Networking, etc. Similarly, an oracle.com or postgresql.org email would verify the user for databases and software. cs.university.edu addresses would verify other areas. With verification comes extra moderator points in those topic areas, with extra authority. They would not get so many points that no negative comment is ever seen about apple or gnome again, and keep the bonus topic specific so that one topic's expert moderators can be reigned back without punishing the experts from all topics. If it is successful, you can look at ways to verify moderators in ways other than by email address.

Better targeted advertising should be obvious....