illumin8's Journal: Slashdot banned my IP for no reason

For some reason Slashdot decided to block my IP from posting. I tried to post a comment this morning and got the rather rude message:

Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner . If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email [e-mail] with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "b7f55ff546593c6a8a2122edc93f82e1" and "41b55072759372690f7363ed52c288ea" and (optionally, but preferably) your IP number "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" and your username "illumin8".

So, I sent them a message with the following text:

I've been a Slashdot member for years and have never abused Slashdot. If there is another user on my IP range that is abusing please let me know and I will hunt them down and have their internet access revoked. I'm sysadmin at a small company and have the authority to do this.

The response I got fairly quickly was this:

You have been downmodded too many times and are in timeout for a bit.

This is getting ridiculous now. I just checked my posting history and of my last 24 comments (you can check it now if you want) I've written, only 1 was modded "Flamebait" (an unfair mod, I might add, if you read the comment you'll see). I also have 3 posts moderated Interesting, 4 posts moderated Insightful, and 1 moderated Informative.

What's more, I've been a Slashdot regular for years and have Excellent karma... What kind of BS are they pulling on my by banning my IP?

I've gotta be honest with you guys... The quality of Slashdot's editorial staff has always been really poor. Dupe articles are constantly posted, the editors feel free to write whatever blatantly biased comments they want to after the submitter's article, and all kinds of other BS go on that sometimes I get sick of putting up with. But, I keep coming back just because occasionally you'll get a good article. Lately, though, there have been days on end where I haven't seen even 1 or 2 good articles. Have you noticed this same thing happening as well, or is it just me?

Slashdot better get their shit together or I will leave here and not come back (except maybe to read my friends journals).

Unread.com

[elmegil]

Go bug FortKnox. Or at least make sure you're reading his journal for updates. He's working on an alternative.

wonder how they select who to ban?

[Mantorp]

because I frequently post irrelevant garbage that gets modded down all the time and I've never seen that message

Glad to see that I'm not the only one

[eclectro]

I haven't tried to post as AC for a long time, but tried to today to answer another AC with an completely on-topic but insignificant post and didn't want to raise it above the cruft when I got the same message as you.

The downmodded explanation you got makes complete sense to me now. I like to throw yuc-yucs up on slashdot occasionally, and more than one moderator thinks that I'm less than enlightening.

So what happens is I suffer from what I call "yo-yo moderation" with moderators coming along and modding

Re:Glad to see that I'm not the only one

[illumin8]

So what happens is I suffer from what I call "yo-yo moderation" with moderators coming along and modding me up, with the next moderator to come by and put me back down. Inevitably, another mod comes along and puts me back up.

I have the same thing I think. The thing is, I don't always follow the Slashdu'h line of Linux Good, MS Bad! IBM Good, Sun Bad! This tends to piss off some moderators and some of my comments will get downmodded for no reason at all. It's obvious abuse of the moderation system, but