phpBB Moderating features.

[gfair]

In relation to the previous poll about implementing an ignore list, rather, the better solution would be Slashdot-style moderation.

Please read that URL before you vote, and if you have any more questions, try the rest of the Slashdot moderation FAQ for your answers.

Slashdot certainly has a much higher volume than this forum, but I am of the opinion that just about every forum where people can post anything needs a good system of moderation.  I would guess that the phpBB source should have a mod file for an identical system.

[Shinigami]

I voted no, and the reasons are stated in the other two posts on this topic as well as the fact that Slashdot's readerbase is exponentially larger than ours.  Let's face it, this kind of system is right up there with player-regulated karma.  Instead of policing what you get to play, this system is going to police what you wish to read.  Big Brother look out.

We have no need for this type of system, imo.  It isn't broken, if you have the time to post three threads dealing with this topic... you have the time to scan over the posts you don't feel like reading.

Shinigami's Opinion does not reflect the opinions of the Staff as a whole.

[krelin]

This is not a "big brother" question.  The way slashdots "trust" metric works is really quite nice and very self-policing.  People who post valid, thoughtful, insightful comments -tend- to float to the top pretty quickly, and that would be even more the case in such a small community as ours.

[John]

I don't like the idea of this system for all the reasons previously stated in other threads. The Imms have worked hard at making us feel like more of a community (go to a message board for other muds and you'll see a HELL of a lot less discussion) and IMO any sort of ignore feature (which is what this is) would be detrimental to the community feeling.

Instead I recommend a system where threads can be recommended. If you really like a thread, you click on a "recommend" button and after X amount of recommends it changes colour or something. A much better system IMO.

[Fedaykin]

I voted no after reading the links, and outlined some reasons I was against moderation and ignore features in the previous topic.

Additionally, I believe the moderation system from Slashdot is inappropriate for this discussion forum given the fundamental differences between the Armgaeddon GDB and Slashdot.  After browsing Slashdot itself, it seems like the forum is based around news stories of sort which people post comments on and discuss.  

However, here we are often discussing issues fundamnetal to Armageddon, whether they be possible changes or otherwise.  No player should be barred from such discussions that can affect a game we all play and love, irregardless of how many people might negatively rate their comments (however many people might actually take the time to rate them) for whatever their reasons.

Given our relatively small number of forum users, I believe for ratings to be used responsibly a large number of the users would have to give them out.  However, a large number of users rating eachother comments so that a few people can skip the few borderline "low quality" posts we actually do have seems unworkable and unreasonable to me at least.

[gfair]

Instead I recommend a system where threads can be recommended. If you really like a thread, you click on a "recommend" button and after X amount of recommends it changes colour or something. A much better system IMO.

John... that IS the Slashdot system.  All posts are scored from -1 up to 5.  5 signals a high quality post, as deemed by all those who read it and like it and click your "I like it" button.

[Carnage]

I agree with Shinigami. There's absolutly -no- need to have a self-policing moderation system. Very little of this board needs to be moderated. I also think that some of you need to stop complaining and, well, suck it up. The system is completely utilitarian. Stop trying to mold it to your own personal preferences.

To those who are in favor, I ask why you feel this is needed. Why do you want to take Brixius away from doing something that could be more important and spend his time creating a self-policing system. What were the posts that support this? Figure that about half, if not more, of the staff reads the GDB and are able to edit/delete comments. That's at least thirteen people.

Second, what's to stop this from becoming some clique-related bullcrap? Oh, I don't like that guy. Let's not read his posts and constantly give him a low rating. No, this is way too small of a community to have the ability to control itself.

[John]

John... that IS the Slashdot system.

Sorry, you misunderstood what I meant. I mean that ALL posts will be viewable by EVERYONE. There won't be a way to avoid posts except by scrolling past them. The only difference would be threads (not individual posts) that enough people deem as important would stand out on the thread list.

Hope that makes sense.

[gfair]

I voted no after reading the links, and outlined some reasons I was against moderation and ignore features in the previous topic.

Moderation and ignore are entirely separate features, so your opposition of the separate thread dealing strictly with the Ignore list in the last thread has no bearing on this different list, because the two operate in a completely different manner.

Additionally, I believe the moderation system from Slashdot is inappropriate for this discussion forum given the fundamental differences between the Armgaeddon GDB and Slashdot.  After browsing Slashdot itself, it seems like the forum is based around news stories of sort which people post comments on and discuss.

What part about that is any different from the Arm forum, where people post comments and discuss? The Arm forum is identical - all forums can use it.  That's why there is Slashcode, the website that offers the Slashdot code so anyone can setup a server.  Essentially, the person who begins a new thread is making an issue public, otherwise considered news on any other forum.  The only difference - our news comes out of the game, a fictional world, and does not come from the real world.

However, here we are often discussing issues fundamnetal to Armageddon, whether they be possible changes or otherwise.  No player should be barred from such discussions that can affect a game we all play and love, irregardless of how many people might negatively rate their comments (however many people might actually take the time to rate them) for whatever their reasons.

No players are barred, Fedaykin.  All people are free to post, there are no cliques, it works for any discussion forum.  All it does is take a vote on which posts are good and worth reading, and lets people select the good ones out of the bad.  That doesn't remove posts, it isn't censorship, it isn't barring people from contributing.  After all, you cannot moderate a post at level 1

Given our relatively small number of forum users, I believe for ratings to be used responsibly a large number of the users would have to give them out.

Nope - a very small number of people, precisely five if you want to know, are needed to moderate a post up to its highest level.  However, that being said, with meta-moderation, the only people who can moderate are those that have proven themselves to be good moderators in the past.  Again, that is a privilege they are given by the entire user community.  The whole thing is a community-driven effort.

So go back to Slashdot, and investigate it a lot more.

[gfair]

John... that IS the Slashdot system.

Sorry, you misunderstood what I meant. I mean that ALL posts will be viewable by EVERYONE. There won't be a way to avoid posts except by scrolling past them. The only difference would be threads (not individual posts) that enough people deem as important would stand out on the thread list.

Hope that makes sense.

I understand what you mean after your clarification, but that doesn't make sense.  The system essentially highlights what the whole readership thinks are the good posts, and separates out the flames.  If you read at -1, you read everything.  If you find there are 45 posts on any one topic, and you don't want to read them all, you choose what level of quality the readership has given to every post, and you read at that level, getting the gist.

And since flames and useless information will get moderated down, it also discourages people from posting high volumes, because if you post without thinking, chances are most people will not read what you have to say.  So like everyone in Slashdot that values a good discussion, people begin to think out what they are going to say, make sure they maximize the information they contribute, and overall that leads to the quality of discussion improving.

Since when is that a bad thing on Arm?

[Barzalene]

With no disrespect intended toward the original poster, I think this poll is unnecessary. The suggestion is there in two other threads. If it is feasable and he has time, I have no doubt Brix will address this suggestion. He's always been wonderful about being on top of everything and responding to feedback.

As for the suggestion. Yes, it is a good suggestion But why not present it as an option instead of a poll?

[Fedaykin]

So go back to Slashdot, and investigate it a lot more.

Actually, I don't think there is a need.  You seem to like a system where the users would decide which topics are worthy or what not.  Keeping in line with that, there were two polls users have voted in, and in each I think there has been a clear majority against both moderation and/or ignore techniques proposed.

[gfair]

So go back to Slashdot, and investigate it a lot more.

Actually, I don't think there is a need.  You seem to like a system where the users would decide which topics are worthy or what not.  Keeping in line with that, there were two polls users have vote in, and in each I think there has been a clear majority against both moderation or ignore techniques proposed.

What's this?  The guy who claims to support Freedom of Speech so much trying to claim that 16 users represent the entire Armageddon community?

Sorry, try again.  The poll is up for 21 days so a large group of Arm GDB surfers can cast their vote.  You voted against it because you don't understand the full extent to which it works, Shigami voted no because he didn't pick up on what it was either - so already, we see at least two people casting a vote from the uninformed perspective.

Even you Fedaykin, seemed to completely miss what I said - moderating is actually something that would defend Freedom of Speech by eliminating the need for the admins to delete posts.  

Do you not see that?

[Shinigami]

gfair, I took the time to read slashdot's documentation... and yet posted how I felt.  We do not have a 10k+ community, nor do we need this sort of moderation.  I am personally offended that you choose to view my opinion as ill-informed, and do not appreciate that.

The simple fact is that staff will still have to moderate posts, for the same reason they do now, to remove offensive materiel that violates the posting guidelines.  That is the only moderation that is done, the only that is needed.  What you propose is nothing less than an attempt to let players regulate what they read instead of having to read everything... which is often necessary on forums with gigantic memberships and spammers.  We do not have advertisements for porn/non-sensical posts, and if they should appear, the staff would rather deal with them taking up space than have players relocate them to a lower placement on the list... that, at least, is my opinion.

As far as a rating system aiding freedom of speech... it does not hamper it, it simply allows for greater elitism and bad feelings all around.  Which, unfortunately, is what these threads are becoming.  The simple fact is that this is not needed now, should we have a massive lapse of players and our quality fall to the depths of what Slashdot has to deal with, then such methods should be considered.

Shinigami's Opinions once more are his own.  Ignore him as you may.

[gfair]

As for the suggestion. Yes, it is a good suggestion But why not present it as an option instead of a poll?

Not sure, really... since someone else posted on the ignore feature, I thought I would separate the ignore for the nicer moderating system and see if more people supported keeping all threads at various approval levels, as opposed to outright ignoring.

How do you mean propose it as an option instead of a poll?  In the phpBB Ignore thread, I do present it as an alternative to the ignore, and then drew it out of there to turn it into this poll.

As for the discussion, yeah, it is starting to wear pretty thin.  Most people don't seem to figure it out, so far, so I hope either the broader range of people do, or more Slashdot surfers share their own opinion about the system, or at least the IMMs know something of this. I'm sure they do.

[Fedaykin]

Nope - a very small number of people, precisely five if you want to know, are needed to moderate a post up to its highest level.  

Like I said, I was keeping in line with what you said, where all it takes is five people to moderate a post up to its highest level.  If five works for you, why not sixteen?

You voted against it because you don't understand the full extent to which it works, Shigami voted no because he didn't pick up on what it was either - so already, we see at least two people casting a vote from the uninformed perspective.  

Funny though, you have all this faith in a user voted and moterated system, but those of us who voted against your position are wrong and uninformed.

Let me see if I can simplify my position for you:  I disagree with any system that would rate users, their posts or allow them to be ignored.  I don't give a damned how good you think it is, or how well you think it works on other boards.  I fully understand my position and why I hold it.

Attacking people and calling them uninformed for voting against you to try and further your own position is a logical falacy as far as arguments go.

We have freedom of speech as is.  People can say what they want and its rarely deleted by imms unless its truly necessary.  Extremely poor posts or those in bad taste have received appropriate warnings in the past.

The system you propose is not needed.

[gfair]

gfair, I took the time to read slashdot's documentation... and yet posted how I felt.  We do not have a 10k+ community, nor do we need this sort of moderation.  I am personally offended that you choose to view my opinion as ill-informed, and do not appreciate that.

With due respect Shinigami, you made some obscure association to big brother.  I don't catch it at all. And knowing Slashdot, a website that has been one of the strongest defenders of all sorts of freedoms and movements and rights, claiming their system supports "big brother" in any way is, I hope you see, so far from the fact that it could only be an opinion, and not one that the 500K Slashdot surfers would hold.

If you as an IMM wish to continue to moderate in place of players, that's your perogative.  But understand that I proposed a system that requires less effort, and has other benefits for the IMMs, and your response was to associate it with big brother.  I can't help but take exception to that, both knowing the Slashdot system, and just out of pure confusion as to how it ever came up, for it never, ever has at Slashdot itself.

If you think it was a valid point, then please elaborate.  In fact, I'd be curious to know what train of thought made you put that into words to begin with.  Perhaps we can discuss this over email or PM?

[creeper386]

Warning, I go on and on and on. If you don't want to read it, don't, I don't care, but don't bitch because the posts too long or that I misspelled something or forgot to put in someones name or didnt' put in in correctly. Either deal with it in a sensible fashion or skip it. Thank you.

Okay... Gfair... I think part of what Shini(Whatever the spelling I'm lazy right now) is saying is even with this in place. Imms well STILL have to moderate IC information and such. They well still have to delete IC sensetive posts. And I'm sure if flames got out of hand they might deal with that as well. This moderation idea, or even an ignore plan would not change that at all. They are two seperate things.

Also I'm goign to have to say some point your going to have to come to the conclusion that some people dont' agree with you. No matter how much documention you tell them to read, or how much you tell them they are wrong and you are right and your ideas are the best ever. They aren't going to agree with you.

All you can do is bring up your idea, explain it, clarify any points if need be. Which you've done fairly well at first, but you can only go so far with the "no you don't understand, read this and you'll agree with me"-arguement, which you've been basically running into the ground.

I think for the most part people's biggest problem with any type of moderating like this, is that it makes it so people ignore other people. And no matter what it does give a clique type atmosphere, a type of your with us or your against us attitude.

I personally feel that right now there is all the moderation thats needed. People already speak with each other about this topic or not, rather good or bad, and that gets people to read or skip threads. Already people have certain people they like or dislike and most I beleive to skip over it. If you have problems with just skipping over posts, I think thats more your problem then anything that needs to be discussed with code, and if you need to rely on code to ignore or skip over posts... obviously you must feel peoples post might have SOME helpful information or you wouldn't read it.

Now, also, it's even worse... Does this scaling or voting or whatever people do, apply to a specific person, or does it apply to posts. Is rather or not your posts get voted good or bad determine how much you opinion carries when you vote for other peoples posts or themself... I don't know. If the scale applies to a specific person, I'm completely against it, one thing liking or disliking someones opinions it's another to paste that on the person themselves. If it's from post to post... Still, people well vote for or against people they like or dislike, sometimes with no regard for post content. I just think the current system works just fine, if you think they have something you want to listen to, you read it, if not you don't read it.

Creeper who has a feeling he doesn't completely understand how slashdot moderating works, but doesn't truly care because theres already enough moderation, and it's already controlled by the players... PERSONALLY.

[gfair]

Okay... Gfair... I think part of what Shini(Whatever the spelling I'm lazy right now) is saying is even with this in place. Imms well STILL have to moderate IC information and such. They well still have to delete IC sensetive posts. And I'm sure if flames got out of hand they might deal with that as well. This moderation idea, or even an ignore plan would not change that at all. They are two seperate things.

In the context of this game, you are right, there couldn't be a change.  Moderating wouldn't deny IC information, it would only mod it down, so it would still have to be deleted.  Flames, no, they don't have to be deleted. There are tons of Flames on Slashdot - the idea is, modding them down to -1, the majority of people won't read them, so the flame is... extinguished... so to speak. Flaming, like a schoolground bully, only thrives when it has an audience, right?

Also I'm goign to have to say some point your going to have to come to the conclusion that some people dont' agree with you. No matter how much documention you tell them to read, or how much you tell them they are wrong and you are right and your ideas are the best ever. They aren't going to agree with you.

That's fine - the only thing I want is a reasonably well-thought-out response that doesn't so completely contradict the idea, as to demand a response.  As I trust you can see - in all my responses to those who clearly voted No, I've attempted to correct the things they didn't understand. Whether that's old hat or not, it needs to be done.

All you can do is bring up your idea, explain it, clarify any points if need be. Which you've done fairly well at first, but you can only go so far with the "no you don't understand, read this and you'll agree with me"-arguement, which you've been basically running into the ground.

Eh.. sorry Creep, I've not asked people to see things my way, but as you say at the bottom of your post - you don't quite understand the whole moderation concept.  As someone who has been witnessing the effect of the Slashdot system for several years now, I just don't get some of the conclusions, so I am correcting the oversights.  

I think for the most part people's biggest problem with any type of moderating like this, is that it makes it so people ignore other people. And no matter what it does give a clique type atmosphere, a type of your with us or your against us attitude.

People always ignore other people Creep - this system allows them to ignore posts.  There is no feature to ignore people on Slashdot, so it isn't possible. And trying to keep track of all the people you might want to ignore is a monumental challenge there.

As for the clique atmosphere - maybe Slashdot as a whole, or maybe from the perspective of highly polarized groups, but amongst the Slashdot readership, that simply is not true, based on the empirical evidence I have seen first hand.  Flame wars erupt, but cliques can only exist when you can consistently identify one person as being either in or out.  On Slashdot that doesn't happen - with thousands of people participating, recalling any one name is impossible, just as it's impossible for a retail store clerk to recall any one customer.  I know there are a variety of interest groups, but they are not cliques.  It's just human nature - you like Linux and you hate ... eh.. Macs or something. So you flame all the Mac users and always support Linux.  But nobody can track you.  Now.. Slashdot has added this Friends/Foes/Allies/Enemies thing, and THAT will create cliques, but it isn't taking off at all.  If that isn't a stronger affirmation against cliques, I don't know.

And I've heard more accusations leveled against Arm for being clique-y than for Slashdot.

Does this scaling or voting or whatever people do, apply to a specific person, or does it apply to posts.

The karma system applies to posts, and affects the person's karma.  If they get low karma, they can still post all they want.  And they are never denied the chance to go up or down in karma, that part is completely open ended.  They are never shut out of anything, they can always post, and they could start off for two months getting every post modded down to -1 and have a poor karma rating, and the next five months seeing their karma turn Excellent.  It all depends on the quality of their posts.  It all depends on the quality of their posts.  If they are informative, or insightful, they get props.

Is rather or not your posts get voted good or bad determine how much you opinion carries when you vote for other peoples posts or themself... I don't know.

No, what happens is you can get moderated up and down on your posts, and you can also be moderated depending on what moderating decisions you make. So - if you always post flames, few people are going to want to read what you have to say.  Even if you flame once in a while, and other times post good stuff, you are still not going to see your karma go up, because you can't control your temper.  So essentially, you are rewarded for useful information, and you are punished for flames and completely off-topic stuff.  That's one section of karma, the quality of your posts.  The other area of karma is the decisions you make when you moderate.  If there is an informative post that you disagree with, and you mod it down and describe it as flamebait, people who are "meta-moderators" will see the decision you make, and moderate your decision.  If you are a really informative person, but always mod down any other opinion but your own, you will see yourself get high karma, but your mod privileges will be taken away.

If the scale applies to a specific person, I'm completely against it, one thing liking or disliking someones opinions it's another to paste that on the person themselves. If it's from post to post... Still, people well vote for or against people they like or dislike, sometimes with no regard for post content.

The scale applies to a person, but it never denies your right to post.  Your posts always get fair consideration, starting at mod 0 (unmodded).  In the system, to punish the person, would imply your posts always start at -1.  And yet even at -1, your post can still go up, if it ever actually started there.  That's because the moderators all read at -1, so they take up the task of drudging through all the filth to find the occasional gem that was modded due to a biased moderator.  

People never vote against someone they don't like - because clearly, their moderations would be deemed wrong by other moderators, and if that continued, if the person modded down post after post by the person they like, well you can see what would happen - doggedly modding down is the quickest way to lose the mod privileges you get after posting informative/interesting and funny comments for so long.


So what Slashdot's system essentially asks is - how good is your post?  The better the post, the more respect people will give it. There is no definition of good, it is decided by the consensus of the moderators, which anyone can be, or anyone can be and lose if they decide to flame, rant, offend - there are a huge range of issues discussed, as there are in Arm, and no two people have the same opinion over such a wide range.  Sooner or later, they disagree.  But to mod down means their ability to "pass judgement" will decrease, and soon they will be left out as a moderator, meanwhile the dozens of other moderators will just continue on, the better for having weeded out someone who is making bad moderations for whatever reason, be that bias, or bad decisions, or whatever.

There are certain issues about Slashdot that I see - it does tend to encourage people to make "mod-friendly" posts.  They jump at any chance to make a funny comment.  Others simply go to websites, find all the info they can, and post it, and get modded for informative.

But you have to ask... if people are trying to be informative, insightful, funny... which of those things is not respected? Regardless of who posts the info, or the joke, if many people enjoy it, then having more of that is only going to make the entire list of forums more enjoyable.


So that's why I thought it would be welcomed in Arm - the more informative, insightful and funny comments there are in the forum, the more the whole range of people will respect that, I believe.

[creeper386]

WARNing: More misinformed, grammatically incorrect, misspellings are in here. I know NOTHING of what I'm talking about. It's just alot of rambling that doesn't mean anything. Ignore it, and have a nice day.

On Slashdot that doesn't happen - with thousands of people participating, recalling any one name is impossible, just as it's impossible for a retail store clerk to recall any one customer.

First I'm going to comment on this quote. We dont' have thousands of people. Nor is it a stop and go, quick little thing like a convienant store. This is a fairly small community. Although it's over the internet most of the people know each other. You remember names... It's a SMALL group. Not thousands upon thousands.

Now, like I said I DON'T understand Slashdot's system, which as you pointed out, I said so myself. After reading everything you got, I still don't understand every little thing. What I DO understand, is it's still moderation. It still relies on peoples opinions. We don't have a large enough group of people to have hundreds of people moderating. I hardly see people taking the time to do it. I know I wouldn't and considering most people complain about not having enough time as it is to SCROLL past a post... How are they going to get along with moderating it?

Yes. It's a good system for a LARGE discussion. We aren't large. It could work if everyone always moderating. Not only would that limit discussion times(I'm sure some people would be in favor of this though) it would limit playing time. We aren't discussing the weather here, or even national news. This discussion board is for an ACTIVE game. The board doesn't mean as much as the game does. The game could acctually get along without a board. In Slashdot, the boards important, because that's all that there is, a discussion board.

Creeper

[Anonymous]

I think the system as a whole looks good, but is really only fitting for a much larger and busier board.

This board almost never sees bumps or wildly off-topic threads.  And even the most off-topic posts in a thread do not normally result in a jacked thread.

I appreciate where you are coming from, but I think the number of pointless posts has gone down recently, the OOC forum excluded for obvious reasons.

Overall I'm really happy with this board and think that with the exception of some posts which border on too much code explanation that this board has been a really positive thing for the community.  I don't see it as having brought about anywhere near the volume of flames, bumps and mindless drivel to warrant post grading mechanics, an ignore button or any such modification.

[Callisto]

We don't need it - all a system like that does is promote back-patting circles and hard feelings.

Its not like we have posters titled '[l33t]MAsterDeathBallsXXX' calling people 'faggotz' and making sweeping generalizations about the mothers of X-box fans, so why would we need a system designed with problems like that in mind?

[Brixius]

I'm going to post the same message in both these threads mostly because the same arguements work for both discussions.

First off, I am against both of these ideas. While I agree that being able to filter out posts based on author is tempting, and being able to rate posts Slashdot style is inviting, I don't think we have the userbase that requires either of those features. Plus we have a set-up that tends to focus fluff, nonsense posts into one area where it can be ignored by me, heh.

I'll adress a few items point by point:

This may have some value if whoever owns www.zalanthas.org pays for their bandwidth.

This isn't really much of an issue. The hosting plan we're on allows 25 gigs of bandwidth a month and we use around 3. I wouldn't mind trying to find ways to make more use of Zalanthas and get more bandwidth off of Ginka allowing what Ginka has to be used for sweet-sweet text flow.

Slashdot's system is much more complex than the ignore list I would like to see here, but the result is the same: you read only those messages deemed to be of the high, or low quality you are looking for.

I disagree. With the Slashdot style moderation, you get the content people think is worth reading. With the ignore list, you get to read brilliant ideas and mindless drivel from people you personally deem worthy of hearing it from and miss all the brilliant ideas and midless drivel from people you don't deem worthy of hearing from. The ignore list has nothing to do with weeding out poor quality posts but more of ignoring individuals regardless of whether their post contained quality information or not.

but with it in place, and with active participation, they have the option of never needing to delete anything, unlike in the current system where they delete IC information and flame wars.

IC posts would still need deleting, I believe. As would most flame wars. If I remember Slashdot right (And it has been a while since I visited) anyone could still view any posts if they set their threashhold low enough, meaning even if a post were declared "too IC" people with a threshhold set to -1 could still read it. Flamewars would need deleting for the same reason. Those involved would just set their threshhold to -1 and keep flaming away. While this is nice because those with a higher threshhold would avoid it, I personally think most people would keep the threshhold set to -1 to keep from missing anything. Really, we get like 1/10,000 of the traffic Slashdot does and I doubt if we get as many posts in a year as they get in a day so while moderation is necessary to filter out the static there, we have a relatively captive audience. People here are part of a community that is still small enough to be under most spammers radar so we have a much lesser need for filtering posts. Plus, Sanvean has made great strides to expand and bring this community together and I think splintering it apart by creating ignore lists or ways for newer voices to be filtered out through moderation is doing a disservice to that community.

In short, I don't believe this board is large enough to provide the reader resources to properly moderate nor provide the amount of static needed to be moderated. The forum based system seems to also work as a way to 'hide' pointless conversations that have no real bearing on anything.

Brix.

[Rindan]

I personally do not like the idea.  Slashdot is a place where you need to filter out thousands of posts a day.  You need a moderation system.  Here on Armageddon it is fairly easy to self moderate.  If you see a poster you don't like, skim the first few lines and move on.  I do it all the time.  I barely read the OOC forum.  You don't need anything terribly fancy.

The absolute most I would like to see in terms of 'moderation' would be maybe clicking a thumbs up on a post you like, so perhaps the icon on the thread blinks (like when a post has many people post to it in a day) or some such.  If you wanted to get real fancy and stroke some egos, you could perhaps let people show approval of a post and that adds to some sort of point system that does nothing other then give you a warm fuzzy feeling.  

That said, I don't think any of the above is necessary or good.  I think that in such a small community people are completely capable of self moderation, and that if you want to give someone a warm fuzzy feeling then you can just private message them.  I tend to skip over things that don't look worth my time, and I occasionally get a private message or two that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling from one person or another who likes one of my posts.

[Anonymous]

Its not like we have posters titled '[l33t]MAsterDeathBallsXXX' calling people 'faggotz'

That made me laugh.

Callisto:

Do you like me?

[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] Maybe