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Standards Too High? (Meta)

By pediddle
Sun Feb 2nd, 2003 at 05:20:23 AM EST

Last night there were almost 10 stories at one stage or another in the queue. Some were interesting to me, some were not. I posted comments to some interesting ones. This morning, it appears that all but one of them have been voted down or otherwise deleted.

The post threshold is 95, and the hide threshold is -20. In a community where users keep the standard so high -- which is a good thing -- the balance seems a little off.

 

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Remember that I'm not whining because some post of mine got deleted -- I've actually never posted before. These are merely my observations.

The system is essentially supermajority-ruled. There must be at least 95 more people that like a story than don't. If 300 people have voted on a story before a story is posted, then obviously the vast majority of people liked it. But if 300 people have voted before it gets dumped, then there is probably only about a 120/100 ratio of dislike/like. With that ratio, could the story really be so bad?

Stories about popular opinions obviously have a better chance of getting voted in (although ideally they shouldn't). Authors with minority opinions or with ideas for stories that aren't necessarily interesting to everyone therefore have a disadvantage. Stories that are extremely well-written or long also have an advantage, but we cannot expect all authors to have superb writing skills.

To me, the voting queue should merely be a place to make editorial comments and to weed out spam and trolls. With such a high threshold, it is instead a place to discriminate against imperfect, but not necessarily bad, stories.

A Solution?

It's bad form to bitch and moan without providing any suggestions. So here are three:



  • Simply lower the posting threshold to say, 20/-20. This will get good stories out of the queue fast, as well as mediocre stories that would otherwise sit for 36 hours before their fate is automatically determined. But it might get stories out too fast, before there is enough initial discussion. The fact that stories always have some comments by the time they are posted is good, since it stimulates the less active readers (who don't vote).

  • Change the system a little: use a simple majority (not counting voters who abstain), but only after a certain threshold of either votes or time. For example, post automatically after 150 votes, or after 12 hours. Instead of a simple majority, alternatively use the new auto-post system to factor in comments and ratings.

  • (My favorite idea:) Use a different threshold for each section, automatically determined based on the number of recent submissions and acceptions in that section. Our goal should be to keep Kuro5hin diverse and flowing. The system could set a goal of at least 2 stories a week for each section, with a certain number to the front page. If that goal is not met, lower the threshold accordingly. It would be nice, again, to factor in comments and ratings to the decision. And of course the threshold shouldn't ever be displayed, or else authors could start making off-topic posts to sections with lower standards. Finally, there should always be a minimum threshold to keep extremely slow sections free of spam.



Obviously we need to avoid decreasing the signal to noise ratio too much.  But what is an acceptable level?  I'm posting this query in the interest of spicing things up a little -- getting a little more variety and more stories into the section pages. The front page should remain sacred ground.

Is my story here good enough to meet the standards of you, the voting populace? Even if not, hopefully it will at least generate some discussion, even if the discussion is then lost forever. If any of you think the system needs to be changed, post your ideas below. If you don't agree, let your voice be heard as well. That's what it's all about.

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Poll
Should rusty change the voting system?
o Yes, and have different thresholds for each section, automatically adjusted to keep the stories flowing. 19%
o Yes, make it 20/-20. 2%
o Yes, make it simple majority after a certain amount of votes or time. 11%
o No, keep it the same. 54%
o Yes, make it even more unbalanced. 12%

Votes: 234
Results | Other Polls

Related Links
o More on Kuro5hin.org
o Also by pediddle

View: Display: Sort:
Standards Too High? | 240 comments (217 topical, 23 editorial, 0 hidden)
K5ers don't follow moderation guidelines (4.00 / 1) (#240)
by splitpeasoup on Thu Mar 27th, 2003 at 10:36:12 AM EST
http://apurvamishra.tripod.com

K5ers don't abide by moderation guidelines, so depending on your point of view, either the system works because of that, or it doesn't work because of that.

What I am referring to, of course, is that people vote -1 very liberally, whereas the -1 is intended as a tool to weed out submissions that are abysmally bad, or spam, or both. From the moderation guidelines page:

"When you should vote -1:

This is almost the inverse of when to vote +1. Stories with horrible formatting (to the point where it is painful to read), broken links, and flamage-inspiring content are generally not liked by too many people. This applies to any kind of content, be it "NT sucks," "Linux sucks," "VMS sucks," etc. Another good thing to vote -1 on are advertisements. We don't get these often, but it does happen. Most of the time it's unintentional (a person is working on something with a company, and it just happens to be interesting), in which case it's best to leave an editorial comment about what's wrong and see if the author responds. If the story itself could be interesting in a certain context, but doesn't have "wide appeal," just vote +1 to the section it's listed for and be happy."

Obviously, this is not what people do.

-SPS



"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
There is another way.... (4.00 / 1) (#237)
by MajorMajor on Fri Mar 7th, 2003 at 04:28:46 PM EST

I don't generally post, but have been frequenting K5 for several months. I find that there often aren't any interesting new stories for several days. I think there should be a system where there is a new story posted every 24 hours (or maybe 23, so that different time zones get to view the story first on different days - that would give some of us a chance to post when the story is still hot, as opposed to just festering). The highest rated story would get posted at the start of each time slot. Possibly the different sections could have stories posted at different rates, e.g. maybe MLP could be updated more frequently.

Improvement Badly Needed (5.00 / 2) (#236)
by OldCoder on Fri Mar 7th, 2003 at 05:11:44 AM EST

The political censorship in Op-Ed is just to fast and too nasty to continue, as genuinely controversial and well-written articles are shut down in just a few minutes. Most recently it was a pro-war article "An alternative view of the US-UK-Iraq situation", that actually raised some interesting issues regarding the "America First" movement that many K5-ers probably don't know about.

Maybe if there were a "Disagree" button in addition to a "Don't post" button it would allow people to express themselves without censoring opposing viewpoints.

--
By reading this signature, you have agreed.
Timing, geography, and censorship... (5.00 / 2) (#235)
by skyknight on Tue Feb 18th, 2003 at 01:48:16 PM EST
(awgibbs@awgibbs.com) http://www.awgibbs.com

One thing that I find particularly odious about the present voting mechanism is that a story is instantly hidden upon reaching a certain threshhold score. Since the threshshold of -20 is so small, a little bit of up front negative noise can have a sufficient additive effect as to blow a good piece out of the water before the whole K5 populace has a chance to vote. This flaw seems to manifest itself with a high frequency in the politics and op-ed sections, where many people would rather squelch unpopular ideas than debate them, as opposed to other sections where voting is more typically based upon quality of writing. If one makes a post at a particular time of day such that the active audience is sharply opposed to one's views, a perfectly good article can get shot down in what is effectively preemptive censorship.

So, how can we fix this? I think the answer is simple... We can have threshholds based on percentages, but the really important thing is that we have a 24 hour voting period, and then the hide/show decision is made based upon a snapshot of the score after 24 hours of voting. The 24 hours is crucial, as it will make posting at any given time of the day non-discriminatory as to time zones. Otherwise, people with controversial views are left trying to guess which time zone is awake and voting, so as to optimize the chances of their story getting voted up. This, in my mind, seems quite silly.

The standards are just fine (none / 0) (#233)
by krogoth on Sat Feb 8th, 2003 at 03:29:12 PM EST
(garandnet.net@richard) http://www.garandnet.net

See this story, mirrored since it won't last long in the submissions queue. Stories like that should not even need 20 people to vote against them.
--
In other words, "he's highly learned, and I'm [ignorant], therefore I'm right." Oops.
:wq
fiction section (1.00 / 1) (#229)
by cronian on Wed Feb 5th, 2003 at 01:30:41 AM EST
(aim:cronian)

I think the fiction section needs lower standards. Just look at how few stories actually get posted in there. What is the point of a fiction section if nothing ever gets posted there?

Some things are obvious but it's not obvious what is obvious
Answer to your title's question: (3.66 / 3) (#216)
by mcherm on Mon Feb 3rd, 2003 at 12:00:32 PM EST
(8v3tew902@sneakemail.com)

NO. The standards are not too high. They are sufficiently high.

-- Michael Chermside

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -- Brian W. Kernighan
K5 Theory (3.00 / 2) (#207)
by 5s for Everyone on Sun Feb 2nd, 2003 at 07:27:34 PM EST
(uce@ftc.gov) http://ashitaka.home.attbi.com/panyo/

If a majority of K5 wants a story to be posted, it will eventually be posted (although if it's a 51% majority, it may wind up being posted without reaching +95), no matter how high the threshold is. If a majority wants it junked, it will be removed from the mod queue quickly (-20).

Fiddling with the thresholds won't change anything; it might get the liked stories posted faster, but I don't think we're in any rush. The only way to get more stories posted is to tell people to vote +1 more.
--
This post is licensed under the DadaPL. Please read and understand the DadaPL before attempting to quote more of this post than fair use allows.
No further progress is possible. (3.66 / 6) (#206)
by Noam Chompsky on Sun Feb 2nd, 2003 at 06:48:05 PM EST
(avramchompsky@hotmail.com) http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2492/1.html

The only way to improve this Tupperware party is to hire strippers.

--
Faster, liberalists, kill kill kill!

Standards too high? (4.33 / 6) (#200)
by dogwalker on Sun Feb 2nd, 2003 at 04:49:16 PM EST
http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~sargentm

Nope.

I have only two suggestions:

1. Dumped stories get automatically converted into a diary entry for the author, comments intact.

2. Get rid of the fiction section.
--
share and enjoy
Consider this (1.42 / 7) (#197)
by Under OS X is Linux on Sun Feb 2nd, 2003 at 03:07:39 PM EST

We will always need taxi drivers and janitors.  Not everyone is destined for success, as is evident by the members of this Web site.
There is definitely a problem (4.75 / 8) (#192)
by acheon on Sun Feb 2nd, 2003 at 01:32:28 PM EST
(acheon@linuxmail.org)

It's pretty obvious that when one third of the articles a voting system selects for the front page criticizes it, then the system has a problem.

I should also say that no system will do the job if the majority of *voters* have a problem too. Too many times I've seen people dumping stories for idiotic reasons instead of abstaining (either symbolically or for real).

Such reasons being :
a) NO SUBMISSION should be voted down because people are bored with the subject. Let it even be about Iraq. The only similar case is for dramatically redundant submissions, in what case pretty much everything has been said about it anyway.
b) NO SUBMISSION should be voted down because it's "too X-centric". Besides, most often it looks more like a pathetic excuse to boot a story people simply disagree without being able to bring in arguments.
c) NO SUBMISSION shoud be dumped simply because people disagree with the author's conclusions. If one disagrees with the article, he should *comment* instead. The only similar case when a story should be dumped is if the article is so drammatically inaccurate that one can -- and does -- provide a certain amount of references to refute it. What too few people do ; instead, they just claim it to be inaccurate but "they won't waste their precious time showing it". Yeah, sure. Go to Hell.
d) Last is for our dear friend rusty : NO ONE SHOULD EVER EVER VOTE DOWN A SUBMISSION BECAUSE HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT IT. In that case, one should *abstain* instead. That kind of mentality is partly responsible for this situation in the first place ; since the voting system sends to the front page only articles a vast majority of the crowd likes, and that the crowd is hardly unanimous on anything, then this is no surprise most people will agree the system sucks (since it jams the queue), post submissions about it and vote them up, and that an always greater proportion of the front page articles deals about it.

What I believe in my heart is that most people here don't have the maturity to vote according to such guidelines. But just in the fortunate case I'm wrong, I'd like such voting guidelines to be stated clearly, posted on the front page once a year, permanently linked from both the FAQ and the bottom of the front page, and bold-blink-linked from the Moderate Submissions page. If that works then there is hope. Otherwise it'll shortly become just as pathetic as The Other Site.
Repeating a comment I made elsewhere... (4.00 / 3) (#191)
by Ubiq on Sun Feb 2nd, 2003 at 11:32:00 AM EST
(jfy@ay.yvahk.bet) http://www.logreport.org/

It would be nice if there were two ways to vote a comment down, just like there are two ways to vote one up. Something like:--
  • Don't post. (-1)
  • Dump it! (-1)


That way people can continue their conversations even if the majority of k5 thinks the article is not interesting and trash still gets eradicated from k5. Plus, rusty can keep his calm because they don't end up in the diaries :)

This article (5.00 / 6) (#188)
by godix on Sun Feb 2nd, 2003 at 05:25:20 AM EST
(buggeroff@goaway.screwoff)

I would like to point out that this article made section without getting 95 votes. What was that about needing to reform K5's voting system?


It's from Indymedia. It sure as hell is fiction.
- Rusty
I like K5 just fine (3.50 / 4) (#181)
by halo64 on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 10:07:07 PM EST
http://www.plasticshoestrings.nu

I don't always vote and I don't always comment, but I read the stories daily and visit the queue. Most of the time when I don't vote it's because I really could care less whether the article posts, doesn't post, or whatever. Sure I should use the Abstain choice, but I don't because I'm too lazy to push it and wait for the screen to reload so I can read the comments. I also have to agree that by the time something reaches the front page or the section, I've read the article and posted as much as I am.


/* begin sig here
I don't have one because I'm lame
finish sig here */
+1 Archive (5.00 / 4) (#176)
by Eight Star on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 07:48:35 PM EST
(eps@newfire.org) http://newfire.org/eps

Why not have a special area where unapproved stories go? Have a +1 Archive voting option, if a story doesn't qualify for the front page, and over a certain percentage of votes are +1 Archive, then the sotry doesn't go to it's section, but to an archive. If I understand correctly, all posted stories are kept stored, even if they are voted down they just aren't linked to, so this wouldn't increase storage requirements. This way, the things that are interesting, but not good enough, will be relatively easy to find. Spam and trash will still be de-linked. (because it won't even get enough +1 Archive votes) And articles will get out faster, because people will be more willing to give a +1 archive, because it won't affect the actual site.

If you disagree with me, moderate my post and shut up.
In part, I concur.... (5.00 / 2) (#159)
by artsygeek on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 04:05:51 PM EST
http://artsygeek.blogspot.com

It should be harder for folks to slam a story dead... perhaps lower the rejection threshold to, say -30 or -40, at times -25 could allow a story that actually is good to come back....*shrug*

Not really that bad of an idea (none / 0) (#158)
by X-Nc on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 04:00:52 PM EST
(tendotcn-xatdog) http://www.x-nc.net

I do think that the ratio could use a little adjusting. Maybe use 95/50 or 75/20. Just make it a little harder to shitcan stories. I mean, this one here is at +26 (when I voted) but it's so completely and obviously a +1 FP that it isn't even funny. Anyone who does not like this idea should be voting it up. But that makes to much sense. Then they'd actually have to explain why they want to keep the current system in place. Oh, well.

--
Aaahhhh!!!! My K5 subscription expired. Now I can't spell anymore.
Good point, but more options should be available (5.00 / 2) (#156)
by cribeiro on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 03:25:24 PM EST

I voted for your story, because I believe that there is a lot of room for improvement. However, I don't agree with your proposal; in fact, I was a little upset because you forgot to include an option to 'change to something else' on your poll.

The first thing that comes to mind is that there should be a difference between 'just dump it' (for thrash and /. style stories), and 'not good enough but still a valid attempt'. The thresholds have to be set in such a way to avoid thrash from permeating into K5, but still leaving room for some stories to be discussed and probably kept in a separate location.

Another related suggestion is not to change the voting method, but simply to add more options to locate 'dumped' stories, and to check them out - why were them dumped, etc. They're also part of K5, after all... Of course, this will take up some disk space, and it is one more feature to administer and support, but it's still a relatively simple change that does not mess up with the voting method.

Going a little bit further with the idea, one possible solution to limit disk occupation is to keep just a limited archive of dumped stories - for example, just the last 100 or so... but that's up for discussion. That's my $0.02 worth.
No way (3.75 / 4) (#155)
by richardo on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 03:01:44 PM EST

Do you have any idea how much crap would make it's way to the front page if we lowered the threshold? It would be like slashdot!

Sorry dude, the way things work now are fine.
Another suggestion: votes for discussability (4.00 / 2) (#153)
by glor on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 02:41:57 PM EST

As interesting as the articles themselves on kuro5hin are the discussions they generate. An article which lingers without being voted up or down, but generates hundreds of topical responses, clearly has merit and perhaps that merit should also push it towards publication for general, non-voting consumption and further discussion.

I'm not sure how the mathematics should work. Perhaps each post should count as a fraction of a vote (1/20th or so), so voting against and then writing, "-1, you're a moron (nt)" is still a vote against. Perhaps top-level posts shouldn't contribute to the score, but replies by other users (indicating actual discussion) should. Perhaps the weight of each post could be determined by the voter-to-poster ratio: if everyone who read my article felt compelled to comment, I'm having an affect on them regardless of what the comments say.

Maybe instead of posts counting as partial votes, you could say that certain numbers of posts reduce the voting threshhold for that story: twenty posts drops the threshhold to 85, fifty posts drops it to 75, one hundred to 65, two hundred to 55, and so on semilogarithmically like that. This is similar to posts counting as partial votes, but has the interpretation that a large discussion votes for itself.

I like that kuro5hin has high standards that favor the publication of long, well-written articles from the general public. That fills an important niche on the web and shouldn't change. But I think that often, even when the articles are weak, the discussions they generate speak for themselves.
Some observations that I've made (4.83 / 6) (#151)
by Rogerborg on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 01:37:43 PM EST

Many people who enjoy making comments on stories haven't actually submitted any.  Nothing personal godix, I just liked the comment linked to above and was therefore disappointed - but not surprised - to find that you haven't submitted any articles.

I have to wonder why this is.  There is no K5 cabal, and it's not that hard to have articles accepted if you just take care to pitch them right (and I should know).

What I'd really like to hear is why people choose not to post articles.  It seems blindingly obvious to me that we - yes, you and I and nobody else - are responsible for what K5 is.  There is no cabal.  If you, dear reader, want to see more articles make section or front page, then vote them up.  If that doesn't work then write your own.

Complaining that K5 isn't what you'd like it to be seems like rather a waste of effort when the solution is in your hands.


"Exterminate all rational thought." - W.S. Burroughs
One idea (none / 0) (#150)
by skim123 on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 01:07:08 PM EST

It's similar to your suggestion #2. The positive votes needed to get a story through the queue would decrease as time went on. That is, for a story to get posted quickly, you would need 95 more people than the majority, but, say, two days after sitting in the queue, only 50 more people than the majority need to like it. If it's been in the queue for so long, then a simple majority is all that's needed...


Ah Andy Kapp, you wife-beating drunk.
What if (2.00 / 3) (#141)
by GRiNGO on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 06:51:13 AM EST
(weejoejoe@hotmail.com)

That when voting we see the intro copy only. That way we could vote for stories that we think might interest us, and not vote something down because we disagree with the writers opinion. This would be too open to abuse... but what if trusted users could see the whole story

--
I send you to Baghdad a long time. Nobody find you. Do they care, buddy?

-1 just in case (4.00 / 2) (#137)
by lvogel on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 05:11:13 AM EST

I don't think the "fiction" category was a good idea, nor do I think your idea of making things "fair". If anything should change, rusty should only allow paid subscribers to vote. Make a buck or two.
-- ----------------------
"When you're on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog!"

-a dog
The problem (5.00 / 5) (#135)
by epepke on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 04:55:27 AM EST

The Fiction section just got created, and a bunch of people who were obviously waiting for the opportunity fired off a bunch of fiction posts.

If you want to evaluate how K5 works, do it during a time of relative equilibrium.


Humans are at least as numerous as pigeons, their brains are not significantly costlier than pigeon brains, and for many tasks they are actually superior.--Richard Dawkins
I like the second point (5.00 / 4) (#126)
by ryochiji on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 03:22:06 AM EST
http://ryo.iloha.net

>use a simple majority (not counting voters who abstain), but only after a certain threshold of either votes or time

Personally, I think this is a good idea. For example, if an article gets 300 votes and manages to stay around 0 (+/-5) it most likely means that it's a controversial topic and also worthy of discussion.

I think part of the problem is that most people seem to vote based on whether they agree with the author or not, instead of looking at whether it's a worthy topic or piece of writing. It therefore becomes a question of how many people in the K5 crowd agree with the article, which in turn may eventually become self fufilling.

---
IlohaMail: Webmail that works.
Current problems with k5. (4.38 / 26) (#124)
by la princesa on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 02:48:22 AM EST
(torduange@yahoo.com) http://torduange.port5.com

Firstly, a significant chunk of 'voters' are single users or small groups with multiple accounts voting things up or down at their whim.  This puts the lie to that notion being tossed round that voted-down anything was voted down necessarily because 'everyone thought it crap'.  That's not the case for a majority of voted-down stories.  

Secondly, when the non-multiple account-holders do get in a vote somewhere, it's hardly a paean to quality.  That is, stories are rarely, if ever, voted up on sheer quality of writing.  It really is a popularity contest of sorts, sad enough.  This puts the lie to the notion that stuff is uniformly voted down because it's bad writing.  

Lastly, the fucking troll obsession has done more to fuck up the writing and discussion quality of this site than anything else.  The little rapid-reload and irc-k5 cliques scamper round claiming any story or comment they don't like is a 'troll', or 'too well-written'.  People have actually been fucking inane enough to say that things should be voted down BECAUSE THEIR HIGH WRITING QUALITY MIGHT PERSUADE PEOPLE TO CONSIDER AN ALTERNATE VIEWPOINT TO THEIR OWN.  Holy fuck, could that maybe BE the point of discussion?  Just possibly it could be.  But no, k5ers want only to proclaim their views to an audience of equally self-absorbed minds and never learn a goddamned thing.

And this article, fuck, the comments in it do nothing but prove me correct.  You've got shit with giant fucking spelling errors uncorrected getting voted up, things more incoherent than anything dear turmeric has thrown down being praised to the heavens and voted up, and yet people have the gall to actually dare say stories are chosen based on quality.  Fuck you and your delusioned, treacherous lies.  Fuck you and your incorrect belief that your pablum is sweeter than non-internet pablum.  Fuck you and your ultimate average patheticness, that believes itself more literate and well-written and open-minded.  Couldabeen contenders, the whole sorry lot of you.  Enjoy that bland schiess you lot call 'quality writng' (that's the way it would appear in a voted up story, of course.)      

 

___
<qpt> Disprove people? <qpt> What happens when you disprove them? Do they disappear in a flash of logic?
Kuro5hin isn't a true democracy (I think) (4.40 / 5) (#123)
by lvogel on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 02:28:36 AM EST

But the voting system provides the next best way to represent one, at least in very basic terms. Unless we are fraudulent and have multiple logins(and shame on those who do), you only get one vote for each article, though you get four options. I've never taken the time to really think a whole lot about how it works, just like I never think about what galaxy that missing sock goes to, but I trust rusty enough that my favorite time-killing web site is adequately designed to provide a fair balance to voters when it comes to modding a story up or down. If I were rusty, I'd only let paying subscribers vote, so all of us cheap bastards should thank rusty for not being me.
-- ----------------------
"When you're on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog!"

-a dog
Just checking (5.00 / 5) (#122)
by twistedfirestarter on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 02:21:13 AM EST

you do know that you can get to a story's comments by taking the kur5hin.org/story/XXXX/X/XX/XXXXX/XXXX/ link and replacing story with comments. I didn't know this for ages and so was really pissed off when discussions disappeared.

It should be in the faq, it wasn't when I last checked.
Totally Disagree (4.91 / 12) (#114)
by DarkZero on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 01:07:10 AM EST

Personally, I think that 95 is too low a threshold. It allows stories that are popular with a small group of people at a certain time, such as the dumpster diving one (which I, personally, liked, but I digress), to be posted almost instantaneously without a lot of people seeing it and being able to vote on it. The "Three Day Rule" of stories that are three days old and still in the queue being immediately posted has also put some real shit into the sections in the past and that bothers me.

You, on the other hand, think that the threshold should be radically reduced and stories should be automatically posted after twelve hours so that fewer stories will be voted down. I think you are far too lenient and would allow crap to be posted to the sections and front page, but most people would probably say that I'm sort of a bastard for having ridiculous standards and voting -1 on most of the stories that I read on K5... and that's exactly why the queue is perfect as it is. It's a compromise and it's one that works. A harsh person says it's too lenient and a lenient person says it's too harsh, which is exactly what a sane and moderate system should be.
+1 Section to generate comments. (4.25 / 4) (#113)
by Imperfect on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 01:06:55 AM EST
(imperfect.AT.imperfexion.DOT.org) http://www.imperfexion.org

It's an interesting convo, I say.
Not perfect, not quite.
The Ghetto (4.80 / 5) (#103)
by spcmanspiff on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 10:31:02 PM EST
(~)

The answer is simple ... stories that don't get posted instead get stuck into a (logged-in-users-only?) "ghetto" section that is invisible to all without a preferences change.

That way, the site as a whole can still have high standards without running the risk of "losing" anything; the Ghetto section might even become a sort of stomping ground for those who would either cause trouble / get bored and disappear, much like the Diaries section is now.

 
Will code for climbing gear
And they really do just vanish (5.00 / 7) (#102)
by nsayer on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 10:30:44 PM EST
http://www.kfu.com/~nsayer/

I suppose this is asking too much, but one story that was accepted is still available under the 'your stories' link. One of the ten stories that vanished last night was one that I submitted. I don't mind that it was voted down (much), but it's not available in the 'my stories' link, so I can't read any of the feedback that was left that might help me improve the article and try again or whatever.

If nothing else changes, then at least rejected stories should be fetchable by the submitter, if for no other reason than so they can go get the story text.
k5 (5.00 / 5) (#94)
by calimehtar on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 08:55:50 PM EST

I like k5 just fine. As others have pointed out, bitchy moderators are what makes k5 what it is. I'm sure I voted down most of the articles you refer to myself.

Since the addition of the fiction section a lot of really pointless (not necessarily bad) stories were posted which deserved to go on another site specializing in fiction

The pure democracy of k5 is an important part of what it is. I wouldn't spend nearly as much time on this site if all the editorial decisions were made by others. If I want a site edited by smart people I'll read the Globe and Mail, or you know, something other than CNN. If I want a site edited by geeks I'll go to Slashdot. K5 is something completely different and that's why I'm here.
re: the sudden rise in child kidnappings (4.00 / 5) (#91)
by dr k on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 08:38:19 PM EST

It seems like every other day there is another child kidnapping on the news. This situation is reaching near epidemic proportions! We need to pass stronger laws now and get those criminals behind bars!

On the other hand, not many celebrities have died recently. We really ought to do something about that.


It's the great Edit Queue Bonanza of 2003! Current goal: 100 stories in edit mode.
Dump the democracy (4.40 / 5) (#88)
by kholmes on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 08:25:58 PM EST

"Stories about popular opinions obviously have a better chance of getting voted in (although ideally they shouldn't). Authors with minority opinions or with ideas for stories that aren't necessarily interesting to everyone therefore have a disadvantage."

Bingo.

If you treat people as most people treat things and treat things as most people treat people, you might be a Randian.
Got a shock reading that... (3.33 / 3) (#84)
by Imperfect on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 08:15:59 PM EST
(imperfect.AT.imperfexion.DOT.org) http://www.imperfexion.org

Check the end of paragraph 6...

To me, the voting queue should merely be a place to make editorial comments and to weed out spam and trolls. With such a high threshold, it is instead a place to discriminate against imperfect, but not necessarily bad, stories.


I thought he was referring to me!!!

lolroflassaoendoanedorfofloloo!!!11
Not perfect, not quite.
No (5.00 / 5) (#78)
by Big Sexxy Joe on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 07:50:46 PM EST

Real K5ers only read the stories in the queue and are tired of them after they post unless they're in the middle of argument or the story posts very fast.

So, either a story is dumped quickly because it sucks, dumped after a while because it's medicore, or it posts. So the stories that post are good and of interest to casual readers, and stories that are okay are found by the obsessive K5ers who care.

By the way, -1 my Scientology auditor told me to vote it down.
I demand UN inspectors come smell me -Stick
The story's current score (4.14 / 7) (#77)
by Control Group on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 07:49:39 PM EST
(user_1d10t@hotmail.com) http://ctrlgroup.blogspot.com

Either fortunately or un-, depending on your point of view, the current score of this story rather makes the poster's point. After two hours of being in the queue, it's got 72 posts, only 9 of which are editorial. The rest are topical comments either for or against the idea. To me, this is indicative of a story which has engendered discussion - which, in my mind, is K5's goal.

Out of 159 votes, 78 were for dumping it completely. What makes this article worth banishment? What standard has it not achieved which it must to be saved? Please read this as an honest question - I've already registered my official opinion as a vote, and I'm not trying to sway others into changing theirs. If well-written articles which foster discussion aren't the standard to which submissions need be held, what is?

Personally, if an article generates discussion, I'm all in favor of it being maintained in a permanent fashion. To use a previously-cited example, Yellowbeard's recent post was parent to quite a bit of informed conversation (I'm biased, naturally, since I posted several times to it...), and is now banished into the aether from whence it came.

I would rather have seen both Yellowbeard's article and this one (if it gets the axe) end up on their respective section pages, and I voted accordingly.

On the other hand, even given the definition of this as a "problem," I don't see it as one susceptible to a technical solution. If the K5 voting populace, by and large, chooses to vote for or against articles based on whether or not it agrees with them, then that is the way the core constituency of the site wants it to be, and therefore that's the way it should be. The system as designed, IMHO, works excellently as a way of reflecting the will of the people who care enough to express it.

***
It's the nature of the insignificant to try to find some way to assert their own importance.
-Ambassador Oscagne
Hehehe (3.00 / 2) (#74)
by SwampGas on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 07:39:47 PM EST

Wouldn't the author be pissed if this got dumped real quick? :)

+1 FP though...I agree.
I think (5.00 / 4) (#73)
by heng on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 07:35:28 PM EST

I think that the emphasis should be on positive votes. Most of the time I really can't understand why 300 people think that a story is good and 250 think that it's crap. Is the story good, or is it crap? Voting clearly doesn't differentiate.

I'm sure a lot of people vote a story down just because they don't find it interesting, or they don't agree with it, which, in my opinion, is an abuse of a community moderated site. It's as bad as what much of the ranting is about (it's exactly what politicians do all the time - "vote" down unfavourable lines).

Of course, people are free to vote as they like, but I think people should think a little more before clicking the -1.

I cite an example of the recent link to the channel 4 streaming "Between Iraq and a Hard Place". In my opinion, that is exactly what an MLP is about. The article was well written and had some information about the link. The link itself was by far the best I have ever got from k5. So why was it voted down? I don't know. Anyone?
Voting (4.85 / 7) (#72)
by godix on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 07:32:21 PM EST
(buggeroff@goaway.screwoff)

If authors want me to vote +1 they need to follow a few simple rules:

If you write fiction then post to a site that's core purpose is to evaluate and post fiction. It'd also help if you could learn how to write, but after reading the submissions I realize that's way to high a requirement for most people.

If the basis of your article is 'I think...' then it isn't news, politics, or technology. It's op-ed. If it's mis-sectioned I'm voting it down.

There have been many articles on Bush, Iraq, and Israel/Palestine. Make sure your article on these topics has some original thoughts in it. 'Bush sucks' deserves a -1, I've heard it before.

If the article wasn't interesting enough to read in the queue then it won't be interesting enough to read on the front page. -1.

Any MLP that makes me think I'm reading slashdot or fark gets nuked. If I wanted that, I'd be reading slashdot or fark instead of K5.

If your article is based on facts, make some effort to get those facts correct. And link to them damnit, I'm not just going to take you're word for it.

If you're one of the small % of articles that doesn't fall into the above, then you're probably going to get my vote.


Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
-Terry Pratchett
You want to know why they were all dumped? (4.57 / 7) (#69)
by Talez on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 07:09:34 PM EST
(malcolmburtenshaw@hotmail.com) http://talez.ath.cx/

Because 2 were crap and the rest were fiction.

Quite a few people have not taken a liking to fiction. 99.95% of the section has so far turned out to be crap and many people (like myself) are implementing a blanket -1 to all fiction policy.

Let it settle down. Once people realise their stories aren't up to the level that K5 demands they'll hopefully either stop or write MUCH better fiction. If not, you can watch all the pretty submissions go sit in the queue and then dumped when they get to voting.

Si in Googlis non est, ergo non est
Solution (3.61 / 13) (#42)
by medham on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 06:14:35 PM EST

Allowing everyone to vote is clearly a bad idea. Stories at the mercy of whatever group of monkeys that happen to be logged-on at the moment. Intelligent stories during U.S. business hours have little--if any--chance, for obvious reasons.

So, I think a designated band of editors should be allowed to choose the site's content. Some voting could be used to choose them, but I think that attention to intellectual standards must override the donkey-braying of the masses, lest we seek ever further into the abyss of mediocrity.




The real 'medham' has userid 6831.
It shouldn't be a majority (5.00 / 2) (#40)
by fluffy grue on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 06:10:50 PM EST
(magenta at trikuare dot cx) http://trikuare.cx/

I like the current balance. The idea is that there needs to be overwhelming support for an article for it to get posted; if the thresholds were the same, then it'd be way too easy for "joke" submissions to get posted.
--
"Ain't proper English" ain't proper English.
"Is not a quine" is not a quine.

[ Hug Your Trikuare ]

Simplest Solution (5.00 / 7) (#37)
by mberteig on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 06:02:55 PM EST
http://www.mishkin.ws/

Seems to be to just put all dumped stories into the diary section. Then those who want to keep discussing it can, and it is treated at the same level of quality as the diary stories. There need not be any change to the thresholds, to user preferences, to the voting procedure, to the timing, etc.
Wrong (5.00 / 5) (#33)
by lorcha on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 05:57:59 PM EST

There must be at least 95 more people that like a story than don't.
This, quite simply, is wrong. 95 votes are not required. Here are some examples. In fact, the story linked to from "some" was posted with a score of only 34!

The autoposting algorithm is a complex one in which a story that generates good discussion but does not necessarily have a high score will still be posted. Here are answers to your suggestions
  1. Lowering the threshold is not necessary. A good article will post with a low score like 34, so what good will lowering the threshold do? If the threshold is 20, how will the posting algorithm know where it's a "good" 20 or a "bad" 20? Right now, the autoposter waits 36 hours, analyzes the discussion, then makes a decision. Believe me, there are plenty of "20s" that need to be dumped.
  2. Your suggestion is great. In fact, it's so great that it represents how the system currently works with the exception that the autoposter waits 36 hours intsead of 12. Way to go!
  3. Affirmative action for articles! What a fucking stupid idea! There are always more active sections than others. MLP is the most active, and "Columns" used to be the least active, before it got replaced by fiction. Are you telling me that when there was only like one post in Columns ever, that we should now arbitrarily declare that we will accept two "Columns" stories a week? A troller's paradise!
In summary, the system currently works. And if it ain't broke...

HAND.


--
צדק--אין ערבים, אין פיגועים
Stories that commonly get voted down (4.50 / 4) (#26)
by izogi on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 05:43:14 PM EST

From what I've seen, stories that commonly get voted down include:
  • Political stories.
  • Religion stories.
  • Current events (especially war-related).
  • Popular opinion/culture stories that preach tp the converted. (eg. Linux is better than micro$loth windoze)
  • Plagarised stories, or stories that include a certain amount of plagarism. (Even if it's from a linked source.)
  • MLP (unless they're really good ones)
  • Stories that are poorly written or badly proofread with bad grammar or spelling mistakes. Also stories that are badly formatted, or include the intro as part of the body.
  • Meta articles that complain about K5 or make suggestions. (Often they should be taken to scoop, or just emailed to an admin if it's really simple.)
  • Repeated stories that have been posted before, usually within the past few months.
  • Stories that should really have been posted as comments of other stories. (Why should voters validate someone's attempt to make their opinion stand out from everyone else's?)


Probably some others, but those are the main ones that come to mind. If anyone wants to add any, please feel welcome to.

Solution for story posters: If you really don't want your story to be voted down, make sure it doesn't fit into any of the above categories.

Solution for comment posters: If you really don't want your comment to dissapper, wait ten minutes and see which way the voting's going. If it's below zero after 15 minutes, it's probably either not going to be posted or it's going to be a long and painful decision before it is... by which your comment's going to be obscurely hidden inside a large amount of debate about the story's quality, anyway.


- izogi
An indirect solution... (4.62 / 8) (#21)
by by on on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 05:24:02 PM EST
(( (( )) ))

Let people unsubscribe from a section. They will not see the stories in modsub, and neither on their front page or "everything" page.

Then, if you hate fiction, unsubscribe. The number of stories posted per day (with an appropriately lowered posting threshhold) will be increased, and K5 won't be so BORING.
The real solution .. (4.00 / 2) (#17)
by Eloquence on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 05:10:44 PM EST

.. is to auto-post dumped stories as user diaries. Add some modest comment-style moderation to the diary section primarily to weed out spam and find the best diaries of the day. Also, use a wiki for the editing process.
--
Copyright law is bad: infoAnarchy � Pleasure is good: Origins of Violence
spread the word!
Submission System not flexible enough (5.00 / 3) (#15)
by gyan on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:56:18 PM EST
http://lens.gyan.info

 I emailed rusty about this. I'm sure it was deleted after a cursory reading.

 The problem with the Hide threshold is that it's an absolute number. It doesn't take into account how many have voted. It would be fairer to remove a story with "+400/-421" than one with "+15/-36".

 Like mentioned elsewhere, a story posted at odd times for its intended core voting audience won't make it simply because among the first 45 voters, you might have 33 naysayers at that time of day. Obviously, the more that vote, the more you come closer to the entire site's consensus. But since the whole userbase will never vote, we shouldn't ever 'Hide' a story. Instead...

 Allow voters to filter stories by current score and/or section.
And the only way to remove the story is the 36-hour limit.


********************************
I'm a real illusionist. Is my reality illusory?
No (4.25 / 16) (#14)
by ucblockhead on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:48:35 PM EST
(Kuro5hin@MyHomePageDoman) http://www.ucblockhead.org/journal

Standards are not too high. They are too low.
-----------------------
Freedom isn't a kind of toast.
Don't agree (5.00 / 13) (#13)
by Simon Kinahan on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:45:47 PM EST
(simon@flatnet.demon.co.gb)

As someone who doesn't submit stories, I feel embarassed commenting on this, especially given what I'm going to say, but if it is of any comfort, I do spend at least as much time on some of my comments as some people appear to spend on their stories.

Which leads me to what I'm going to say: As things stand, it is not particularly hard to get a story posted. Aside from fiction, which is still settling down, as long as you write in a moderately decent journalistic style, which you can find documented clearly in Strunk and Whyte's "Elements of Style", or "The Economist Style Guide", link anything that needs support, and aren't trying to advertise something, your story will be voted up. Yes, there's a slight liberal/centre-left bias. Yes, sometimes people are excessively bolshy about, for instance, Op-Ed Politics pieces, but as long as you've got something to say and say it clearly, I don't see writing for K5 as particularly difficult thing to do.

If you look at sites that are easier to post to, with no moderation system at all, or with a lazy cabal of editors who don't bother to edit (not thinking of anyone in particular here :), you see the writing quality is much lower than K5. If anything, the site we have most in common with is everything2, which also has a complex user-driven moderation system. Although K5 articles do not have the permanance of E2 entries, and hopefully we're not quite as anal, there is still a general sense of community standards that means something has to be better than a few random thoughts from someone with aspirations to reengineer the Internet, or someone's latest and entirely conventional thoughts about Iraq, to get posted. In some ways, these standards are slightly higher than those applied to conventional print media. Go figure.

As to fiction: I abstaned in the poll, because I believe that fiction writing, like humorous writing, is hard and that most people are less good at it than they think they are. Journalism is, comparitively, quite easy. I've abstained on most of the stories too, generally because I didn't have time to make a proper assessment of how good they were, and wasn't very interested. Unfortunately, it has generally only taken a few sentences to get to the first jarring cliche, but that in itself doesn't necessarily damn an article.

Simon

If you disagree, post, don't moderate
Think "high signal" (4.85 / 7) (#11)
by kphrak on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:33:20 PM EST
(kphrakSPAM@worldofschmittSUCKS.com) http://www.worldofschmitt.com

I don't know about you, but I like being shielded from mediocrity by a high threshold. If the article is good, it's almost certain that at least 95 people will vote for it. Even if it's a minority voice, I've noticed K5ers will usually vote an article up if it's written well, so your premise that this discriminates against the minority is mostly invalid.

As another poster noted below, we are not a public school, forced to pass low-grade students to keep statistics from looking bad or ruining anyone's self-esteem. I'd much rather have one good article a week than twenty pieces of utter shit, or even five mediocre articles. I get enough of mediocrity in college; there's no need to for me to get it on K5. Also, we are in no danger of becoming a static site from turning down too much material; I see articles getting accepted every day.

My suggestion to you is that instead of trying to lower the bar so your articles can get through, you should try raising the quality and writing of your articles. If you're unsure of what we want to see, keep it in the Edit queue for a while.


Describe yourself in your sig!
American computer programmer, living in Portland, OR.
I'm happy with the response (5.00 / 1) (#8)
by pediddle on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:30:02 PM EST
(reverse(ten.elddidep@elddidep)) http://www.pediddle.net/

There've been some good comments posted so far, most disagreeing with me.  Good!  Most of the time, people are happy with the system as it is.

I suppose I could have found a better place to gather input on this subject, so I hope I have not abused the queue.

Perhaps last night was just a particularly bad night for posts.  But I'm still curious, what is the average ratio of posts/rejects?
Discouraging authors (4.92 / 14) (#7)
by cyclopatra on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:17:12 PM EST
(princess_dian@mypants.hotmail.com)

When a story gets voted down, it can discouraging to an author who committed an hour or two of his time to waste...

To me, this is identical to the argument for peer-group promotion. "We have to pass children to the next grade, even if they don't meet the standards for passing, because it will damage their psyches to be held back."

One of the reasons I like k5 so much is that in order to get to the FP, a story has to prove itself to a large number of people. I can usually be confident that anything that's made it out of the queue will be decent, and anything that's made it to FP will be good. I don't see why we should increase the signal-to-noise ratio on the site and begin posting mediocre stories just because the authors of those stories might be upset when they get voted down. I've had stories voted down. It sucks. But I've also had stories posted, and I have to admit that the stories that were posted were better written and showed more thought than the ones that weren't. I don't see any reason why we should lower our collective standards for posting a story just because someone might be disappointed that we didn't like it.

Cyclopatra
All your .sigs are belong to us.
remove mypants to email
I agree, partially. (4.20 / 5) (#5)
by Menard on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:12:15 PM EST

Of your first two points, I definately agree with the first point. Although there is a theoretical limit of 36 hours, this is rarely reached. For stories that quickly fall to -20, there is no chance for the majority of users to see and vote on them. Something that might have succeeded with lots of daytime users dies with th 3 a.m. crowd. This isn't certain, of course - maybe 3 a.m. users are entirely representative of the user base as a whole. However, I think it might be good for those other users to at least get a chance to see the story.

I'm not sure that I buy the second point, though. While one certainly does not want to hurt people's feelings, I don't think things should just be voted up as an exercise in self esteem. If something is bad, it should die. I'd just like more people to be able to make that decision.

Of your three practical points, I don't like the first suggestion - It would keep the early-death problem, but also add it's opposite. This way, the majority of the community wouldn't decide what goes OR what stays, in most cases.

I like the second suggestion more. This would allow stories to survive long enough to be seen by all, in fact giving each story an equal length of exposure.

The third suggestion appealed to me at first, but a flaw occurred to me : what about the sections that ARE very active - Culture and Technology are both examples of such high-volume sections. If the limit were set at two, wouldn't the voting threshhold for these sections rise greatly, creating a kind of hyper-exclusivity in the major sections?

Finally, taking comments into account seems like a good idea, but I think it's unworkable. Someone could easily trick the system by creating a series of dummy accounts, and spamming the story with posts. Even if you only count high-rated posts, it wouldn't be that hard to create further fakes, and rate your spam post higher. I suppose it could be worked around somehow, but doesn't seem worth the effort to me.
The purpose (4.75 / 24) (#4)
by rusty on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:10:22 PM EST
(rusty@kuro5hin.org) http://www.kuro5hin.org/

This misbalance ruins the real purpose of k5: to let people speak their minds to the masses about technology and culture.

That's what you think the real purpose is. I think the real purpose is to select the best articles possible and produce an interesting and thought-provoking online news and opinion magazine. Well, among other purposes, but the point is that what you think (or want) the purpose to be ain't necessarily what it is.

My other response is that we've been going for more than three years now, posting new stories every day, and they keep getting better. I've been hearing the "we'll push away all the writers and starve for lack of stories!" argument since the first story was voted down. I've also heard the "as the userbase grows, we'll be crushed to death under the mountain of articles!" argument for about as long.

Both are speculation, and neither has turned out to be the case. Instead we've kept about the same average number of stories per day, and while the number of submissions slowly increases, we're posting fewer of them, so overall the quality tends to improve. This, IMO, is the best of all possible outcomes, and it would be nuts to mess with it.

_______
"Now I go damn fast in reverse." --The Phenomenauts
See, here's the thing: (5.00 / 4) (#2)
by Canthros on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 04:03:53 PM EST
http://www.punchdrunkmonkeyman.com

The bar is set where it is for a reason. When I first showed up, I think it was something closer to -35/55 or something. It's been quite a while. It got changed to decrease the number of crap submissions. Why is it that you want to increase the amount of crap that gets posted?

--
He's sort of like the knights templar. A shadowy religous figure that secretly runs the entire world from his compound in KY.
— jw32767
The system is fine (5.00 / 5) (#1)
by Dest on Fri Jan 31st, 2003 at 03:58:09 PM EST
(dest@spamless.ns.sympatico.ca)

IMO, the system is fine as it is. If people want their message out they're free to post it in their diaries. As for the community's standards, they ensure a high calibre of story is posted to the section and front pages.

----
Dest

"Bah. You have no taste, you won't be getting better than tofurkey bukkake." -- Ni
Standards Too High? | 240 comments (217 topical, 23 editorial, 0 hidden)
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