Re: Moderation gone mad?

I've seen this in a couple other places in the last 24 hours.

Gut feeling? New employee, with a thinner skin than Trevor Pott (scary, that!).

Honestly, kids, moderating requires moderation ...

Re: Moderation gone mad?

@diodesign

Thanks for the feedback. One of my posts was removed. I don't suppose you could indicate where I went wrong especially if you consider it legally unsafe. Not trying to have a go but if you really think there was a potential issue with it I would like to know in case I post something similar where it isn't removed.

I challenged Andrew O's view that "linking" constitutes criminal copyright infringement in the UK and commented that I thought Dwyer's decision to accept the fine in the US was a good one. I would normally paste or quote the post but repeating it doesn't seem like a good idea in this case.

Merry Christmas,

J

The comment window appears to have been an hour and a half.

Probably not the best idea to leave it as the headline article in that case. Just frustrates the comentards.

Re: "I've just seen a thread closed"

Ah, I now see the one in the OP was closed for legal reasons. Might be the same here. It was a lot of unneeded backlash from the commenting/reading community on a published article/opinion piece. So not to worry anyhow.

Must be hard holding the fort, so I don't expect perfection, seems things are ok now.

@diodesign (was: Re: nichomach)

RegHardware has always has always had a thin skin. Toys & games folks tend towards not being exactly comfy with the RealWorld[tm].

Suggestion: Have someone other than the author moderating toys & games commentardary. Proper moderation requires moderation on the part of the moderator.

Re: nichomach

diodesign,

Happy New Year!

I'd be interested if you had an update on this article. I was either in a hurry when I read it, or on the iPad (where typing on crap onscreen keyboard often deters me from posting).

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was furious about the article, but I did consider starting a thread here about it, to have a bit of a whinge (so must have been at least irked). There'd been plenty of flaming in the comments already, so there didn't seem much point in joining in.

Firstly the article was a bit crap. It was called stocking fillers, and from memory the cheapest thing there was £50 - mostly over £100. And a lot of it didn't look all that good anyway. I've seen articles like that in Hardware before, often round Father's Day or Chrimbo. My working theory is you've got kit lying round in the office that hasn't been reviewed, or is too dull to merit it's own review, so it gets bunged in a Christmas hamper. Either that or the sponsors want the stuff covered. I've no problem with either (you've got to eat). Though the 'stocking-filler' bit was badly judged, and I've seen the commentards flame that before. I hope you're well paid enough that you regard over £100 as a stocking filler, but given you make Andrew O use Windows Phone 7, I doubt it...

However item 2 was some sort of 'anti-radiation' cover for a mobile phone. Which is an enormous pile of steaming excrement. And this is a techy audience. If you'd taken the piss out of it, you might have got away with it. But the article spouted the marketing BS, and then had a little aside at the end saying, 'if you believe in that stuff - otherwise it's a nice mobile case.' Which it bloody well ought to be at £50!

Anyway, I strongly suspect it's that which stirred your dear readers into a frothy commentard-y rage. Which El Reg deserved, in my not so humble opinion. At which point, I'm not sure closing the comments section helps, as people do like to have a good vent. Although, as your guidelines say, 'it's your house - your rules'.

I generally like Hardware's output, as they have some nice round-ups that I can forward on to non-techies without them drowning in spec lists. And when I need to actually buy, I can do the proper research on specs, while not bothering when I'm just keeping vaguely current. For example, I liked the monitors article today, I hadn't realised IPS monitors had got so cheap, and it might be time to dust off my credit card... But I do think Hardware often forgets about the lower price end of the market. I remember an article on iPod docks where the cheapest mentioned was over £150.

An update would be interesting. Otherwise I thought I'd communicate my thoughts. You are of course free to ignore them. Keep up the good work.

Re: Passive moderation

New commentards, repeat offenders, people who have had comments rejected, and people commenting on stories that are not auto-moderated will sit in a queue awaiting moderation.

How long, or how many accepted posts, does it take to get back off the naughty step after some rejections?

@Larry F54 (was: Re: Passive moderation)

"How long, or how many accepted posts, does it take to get back off the naughty step after some rejections?"

Didn't you "give up" on Thursday at 22:55?

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/1768899

ANYway, the answer to your question seems to be "as long as it takes, longer on weekends & holidays". I speak as a dude who has been on the "naughty step" more than once. It's ElReg's forum, they set the rules. I have no problem with that. Neither should you. Unless you are paying the bills, of course.

Re: Is there a flag somewhere to suggest which category?

Andrew Orlowski's articles are usually delay moderated. I assume they mod the comments in order, but it will still seem like others are being approved ahead of you (filling up the thread), as they'll have posted first but also been awaiting the mod's nod.

I didn't think El Reg moderated for swearing. Something I've done on here a few times. Perhaps I should do a test. A different swearword each day, to see what effect it has...

I remember being a moderator on a large site that didn't allow swearing. We were even supposed to stop the fcuk's of this world. Which was particularly difficult on the Irish forum. You seemingly can't tell an Irishman not to say feck. You certainly can't stop them doing it...

Simple enough to test.

As my biker buddies like to put it, "Fuck you, you fuckin' fuck! <sfsf>"

Re: Simple enough to test.

Nope. That's not it.

Re: Simple enough to test.

Heh. I came across a forum once that replaced pretty much all swear words with 'gently caress'... one I moderated until recently replaces swear words with a 'cloud 9' emoticon.

Re: Interesting nix ...

"The comment has been restored in a safe state"

Making it no longer my comment. So kindly take my name off it, and put ElReg's name on it. And while you are at it, kindly place the actual date/time that ElReg posted it on it. Ta.

There is nothing wrong with using the word "perp" in that manner. Cops on both sides of the Pond use it when talking to the press, along the lines of "we took the perp into custody".

And as a side-note, many of ElReg's strap lines have been far worse.

Re: @diodesign (was: Interesting nix ...)

I was under the impression that editing a single post implied you maintained Puplisher status over the entire site's content and were thefore responsible for same, whereas if you do not edit user generated content, your site acts more like a common carrier.

Nixing, on the other hand is along the lines of "forum rules" ... Kind of a "no shirt, no shoes, no service". I'll see if I can't dig up the case law when I get a minute ... Gotta get back to digging the garden for spring veg.

"Puplisher" (was: Re: @diodesign (was: Interesting nix ...))

Typo, obviously ... We're kenneling[1] Mum & her five 8-week-old Bedlington terrier pups while the owners are in New Orleans for a couple weeks. Lucky bastards guessed right & got flights & hotel rooms about a year ago, long before the litter was decided on.

[1] For small values of kenneling ... They've had the same free-run of the place as our own pups do at the same age since they got here, at least during the day ;-)

There's a disturbing trend I've noticed amongst UK news organisations recently. To be fair they may always have done it, but I've been too dim to notice... While being scrupulous with sub judice and innocent until proven guilty in British cases, as soon as something happens abroad the headlines and copy get an awful lot less careful. So I applaud El Reg for remembering that people are innocent until proven guilty, and long may it continue.

Gun control is easy.

A good sight picture, a steady hand, and squeeze not pull.

Loony control is unfortunately a lot harder in this society, alas.

Violence control is a wetware issue, not a hardware issue.

Re: Not allowed to criticize a Reg author?

Larry F54,

Despite what you may think, it is not actually polite to accuse a journalist of being biased. So if you've done so in a comment, that comment was not polite, by any reasonable definition. Just saying things without swearing does not politeness make...

Of course there's nothing stopping you commenting on why you think an article was wrong. Also, I'm not accusing you of this as I've not seen your posts, but just because a commentator disagrees with someone, that doesn't necessarily make them a shill, or biased, or an idiot. Too many commentards seem to find it impossible to comprehend the idea that other people have different opinions.

The El Reg House Rules are here. In them they state something like, please don't insult our writers or accuse them of being shills. Then go on to say, it's our house so our rules - in the same context. So if they see something as an attack on the writer, rather than the article, their mods can delete it. That's reasonable, as they say, it's their forum.

Finally, expect inconsistency. Mods are human (despite what users say), and see lots of posts. I think the Reg ones are also their sub-editors, so they've got a real job to do first, modding second. They'll make mistakes. They don't have a 'punitive' modding system, so I guess it's a pretty quick decision to just hit delete on a post, rather than spending too much time with a process. Having done it myself, on a million user forum, I can tell you that modding can be incredibly time-consuming.

However if you accuse their writers of bias on their site, you've no right to complain if they don't let you. Especially as the Reg are very tolerant of criticism on here, I've done it plenty of times and never had a post nixed.

Re: Not allowed to criticize a Reg author?

Good reply, thanks!

just because a commentator disagrees with someone, that doesn't necessarily make them a shill, or biased, or an idiot. Too many commentards seem to find it impossible to comprehend the idea that other people have different opinions.

Absolutely, but if author $Y repeatedly and consistently bashes organisation $X, isn't it reasonable to ask the question of whether someone else should be covering the topic?

it is not actually polite to accuse a journalist of being biased

I don't there's anything inherently impolite in raising the question, as long as it's done politely. If someone made repeated remarks that suggested racism (for example), it would be reasonable to ask for the issue to be considered. I don't see why bias against organisations is exempt. The idea that you can't suggest bias when you see evidence of it puts journalists in something like an "above the law" position.

Re: Not allowed to criticize a Reg author?

Larry 54,

Thanks for the response. I guess if you can be bothered to go back through a bunch of their articles and say they were wrong here, here and here all about the same company, then you can make a polite accusation of bias with evidence. Obviously, everyone's got their biases anyway, it's just a matter of how successful they are at keeping it out of what they write. I've seen plenty of other posters say it about Reg writers, so I've no idea why you got your posts nixed though...

Also, a quick scan through your posting history doesn't show any deleted comments. Are you sure you weren't posting on Andrew Orlowski's articles, where all posts are usually delayed for moderator approval - and they're now up there? Or have you changed username?

I guess it's also hard to say what's bias, and what's a legitimate opinion. For example Andrew O gets accused of anti-Google bias, but then he's got a valid (even if it's not correct it's defensible) criticism of the big G. So just because he mentions that in relevant articles, does that make him biased against them, or is he just doing his job? I happen to agree with quite a lot of what he says about them, so it may be he's the most biased anti-Googler in the world except for me...

If you'd had a post modded for it once, then I can imagine all the next ones getting the same treatment, if they're close together in time. But they normally let that sort of thing go, if polite, so I've no idea what the problem was.