Journal damn_registrars's Journal: The overrated tag has got to go 14
I have seen several of my posts knocked down as "overrated" lately, including some that were never moderated up. Some of this is partisan moderation - which is inevitable in a public forum. But other cases leave me wondering if I have pissed somebody off. Examples:
I was asking about McCain's VP Pick (Palin from Alaska) and I suggested that they may have chosen her to take her out of politics, rather than to promote her. That initial post was quickly moderated up to "+4, interesting". Then just as quickly came three "overrated" tags, putting it at "+1, interesting". My posts start at +2, due to my karma bonus, so at that point my post had been down-modded to a score below where it started. Later someone applied "insightful", scoring it as "+2, interesting". For this case, I'll admit that what I said was controversial and based on some assumptions that people clearly did not agree with. However I would still say it would be more appropriate for someone to post a response than use the cowardly "overrated" tag.
In what I would expect to be a far less controversial post, I questioned whether the iPhone / Flash incompatibility should be blamed on Apple or Adobe in the topic related to the British Government claims regarding the iPhone incompatibility. That comment was moderated all the way up to "+5, insightful", before being knocked down to "+3, insightful" - again by "overrated" tags. Someone later tagged it "interesting", scoring it back to "+4, insightful".
Yet another example of bad use of the "overrated" tag - this time on a non-moderated post - was in the discussion of Terror Watchlist Crippled by Technical Flaws, where I replied to a post and suggested that our poorly-maintained watch list was well known to be poorly maintained around the world. This was first moderated down "flamebait", then moderated back up "funny", ending up "+2, funny". Yes, this wasn't a misused "overrated" tag, but the flamebait was also not reasonable, and possibly missed in meta-moderation as well.
And finally, the first post of mine to recently recieve a non-sensical "overrated" moderation. Under the recent poll How Much Olympic Coverage Have You Watched? I commented on how the excessive media coverage had made this into the Michael Phelps Olympics. Two people responded in agreement that swimming has a disproportionate number fo medals for an Olympic discipline. But yet one person attacked with the "overrated" tag, when no moderation had been applied to that comment.
In summary, partisan moderation is no surprise. It was inevitable. But the "overrated" tag is cowardly. I have never seen one come up in meta-moderation, which makes them pretty bullet-proof for people to down-moderate postings that they don't like (or from people they don't like). Overrated needs to go. It should be replaced with something that actually allows someone with moderator points to say something about why they want to down-moderate a post.
I was asking about McCain's VP Pick (Palin from Alaska) and I suggested that they may have chosen her to take her out of politics, rather than to promote her. That initial post was quickly moderated up to "+4, interesting". Then just as quickly came three "overrated" tags, putting it at "+1, interesting". My posts start at +2, due to my karma bonus, so at that point my post had been down-modded to a score below where it started. Later someone applied "insightful", scoring it as "+2, interesting". For this case, I'll admit that what I said was controversial and based on some assumptions that people clearly did not agree with. However I would still say it would be more appropriate for someone to post a response than use the cowardly "overrated" tag.
In what I would expect to be a far less controversial post, I questioned whether the iPhone / Flash incompatibility should be blamed on Apple or Adobe in the topic related to the British Government claims regarding the iPhone incompatibility. That comment was moderated all the way up to "+5, insightful", before being knocked down to "+3, insightful" - again by "overrated" tags. Someone later tagged it "interesting", scoring it back to "+4, insightful".
Yet another example of bad use of the "overrated" tag - this time on a non-moderated post - was in the discussion of Terror Watchlist Crippled by Technical Flaws, where I replied to a post and suggested that our poorly-maintained watch list was well known to be poorly maintained around the world. This was first moderated down "flamebait", then moderated back up "funny", ending up "+2, funny". Yes, this wasn't a misused "overrated" tag, but the flamebait was also not reasonable, and possibly missed in meta-moderation as well.
And finally, the first post of mine to recently recieve a non-sensical "overrated" moderation. Under the recent poll How Much Olympic Coverage Have You Watched? I commented on how the excessive media coverage had made this into the Michael Phelps Olympics. Two people responded in agreement that swimming has a disproportionate number fo medals for an Olympic discipline. But yet one person attacked with the "overrated" tag, when no moderation had been applied to that comment.
In summary, partisan moderation is no surprise. It was inevitable. But the "overrated" tag is cowardly. I have never seen one come up in meta-moderation, which makes them pretty bullet-proof for people to down-moderate postings that they don't like (or from people they don't like). Overrated needs to go. It should be replaced with something that actually allows someone with moderator points to say something about why they want to down-moderate a post.
wtf (Score:2)
One thing that makes it unlikely for a single user to be behind this, however, is the dates when the tag has been applied. While I kn
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Nah, it doesn't need to go - it just needs to be available for M2.
That might be an acceptable compromise. It does, on exceedingly rare occasions, serve a purpose.
Though I'm not sure that there is really enough meta-moderation done to correct for the wanton, crooked application of the overrated tag.
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Beta metamod updates
http://slashdot.org/~CmdrTaco/journal/209567 [slashdot.org]
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However, in the end it doesn't do anything to prevent abuse of the "overrated" tag. It does offer the possibility of a post regaining its proper score after being hit with "overrated", but it doesn't clearly do anything to discourage its (mis)use.
Should it even apply when a post is already 0? (Score:2)
Not "-1, troll", or "-1, offtopic". Just "-1". I don't understand how a post that has already been knocked down to 0 could possibly be "overrated". Shouldn't some justification be required to demote a post from 0 to "-1"?
One possibility... (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe your posts are overrated?
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Maybe your posts are overrated?
Funny that I don't see many other posts that go up at +2 get hit with the "overrated" tag. Really, how is a post at its starting value possibly "overrated"?
If a post needs to be demoted from its starting score, shouldn't it be because it is "troll", "flamebait", or "offtopic"? And even more so when post it down-moderated when it is already down to zero or "-1"? One of my other posts [slashdot.org] has been pushed down to "-1" from "+2" solely by the "overrated" tag. Does that even make sense? I could understand t
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If I see a factually wrong post that is at +2 because of the karma bonus I'll mod it overrated. None of the other negative mods are deserved, and it has been self-modded by the poster, so I think overrated is reasonable. I don't think I've ever used overrated on a post that was less than +2, although theoretically I might to, e.g., an AC's post. It's possible that multiple people could load the same post while it was highly rated and all mod it overrated, even if none of them would even want to mod it do
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If I see a factually wrong post that is at +2 because of the karma bonus I'll mod it overrated.
Why would you use a moderation point to push something down as overrated? Why not just reply and point out what is wrong about the post?
I don't see how anyone is better served by the overrated tag.
Beating the hell out of a post... (Score:2)
Amen! Preach it! (Score:2)
I've been saying all this stuff for ages! It's like you took the thoughts right out of my head. I wish I'd collected up all the times I've seen the Overrated mod being abused so I could post them here in one giant list. This mod option is the dream tool of anyone trying to quietly stifle controversial opinions, and as a bonus they get away scot-free.
It definitely has to go >:(