Traditional moderation

• I forget who suggested this originally, but in addition to the above constraints, only allow users to moderate a subset of any particular article's comments.

This seems like a bad idea. A moderator should be allowed access to any comment under an article. Maybe set a limit on how many points they can burn in a particular article, but don't make some comments off-limits based on an arbitrary randomization process.

• Moderation Engine

Moderation tags (default scores)

Mod Up	Points	Mod Down	Points
Interesting	+1	Offtopic	-1
Informative	+1	Troll/Spam	-1
Insightful	+1	Groupthink (New)	-1 (or -0.5?)
Underrated	+0.5 (New)	Overrated	-0.5 (New)
Funny	+0.5 (New)	Flamebait	-0.5 (New)
Devils Advocate (New!)	+1	Jibberish (New!)	-1

Also suggested: Bullshit, I_disagree, Controversial

• Users assign own weights to tags in the range -2.0 -> 2.0 with 0.5 increments
• System rounds x.5 towards 0 in comment spill / threshold logic, display capped at -1 and 5.
• A score for the default weights is saved for the comment for use by article spill (for googlebot or "load all comments" from anonmyous user)
• An optional cryptocoin tipping system, when you like someone's post you can give him a small cryptocoin tip. That might also work as an additional moderating system. Non-moderators could mod-up comments (Insightful, Funny, etc) by eg. 0.5 points by spending some money.

• I think it would be good to display both the positive mods and negative mods on a comment in a concise form (so you could see that this comment is generally regarded both Insightful.... but also Flamebait) <== Or a total of positive and negative comments to take up less space
• I like the idea of a system that allows users to have mod points on a regular basis. That way they do not feel like they have to use up all their points on comments that don't deserve them. A much better quality of moderation should do a better job of making the best comments float to the top.
• Let users set both ends of their moderation based comment 'scope'. To see the highlights, set at +4 and above. To look for abusive moderations, set to display 0 and below. (And I'm sure that someone will want to browse "only the 3's", so the system should allow that too). It was also suggested that we have a method to filter out posts from AC.

Discussion: Ability to comment and moderate in the same article

• What about not-posting in the thread where you moderated? Good or bad rule? Maybe if you really must post, allow cryptocoin paying for post? (eg. "Warning: you have moderated in this thread (or whole story), if you really want to post you need to spend cryptocoin on that" (??)) Not posting in the thread is okay, and much better than disallowing the whole story.
• I believe the ability to add a comment to an article after you have already moderated in that tree is a benefit. But can also see a path for abuse. While not a fan of Cryptocoin, what about letting a moderator add a comment, but at a cost of a mod point ??

Moderation strategy

• Chops instead of Karma
• Chops are derived from:

Articles accepted for submission

But NOT articles self-authored on a channel you're an editor of

Comments that are replied to by others without a troll/flamebait modifier

Positive moderation (as judged by the mod action with respect to their own point value weights... so if they think funny is bad, it counts against you)

Positive metamoderation outcome (see below) Discussion required

• Registered users that have used the site > [threshold] days, posted > [threshold] times, and have positive chops get moderation duty (possibly [x] mod points per day?)
• The more chops, the more mod points per day, with a total cap for unused points

Meta-moderation Meta-moderation is a check and balance system that acts to identify bad moderators. It works best when a large number of users are available and willing to evaluate a comment's existing moderaton values

• Meta-moderation is available to users that have used the site > [big threshold] days and have > [threshold] chops
• Metamoderation is not "special", a meta-mod capable user can see a random selection of recent mods at any time and metamod.
• Metamod takes 2 mod points <==Wouldn't adding a cost for Meta-moderation decrease the pool of users willing to use it?

Metamod actions are like moderation actions, you spend modpoints on them. But they are twice as expensive as direct moderation. The theory is that users with more chops (and thus more modpoints to throw around) are more likely to spend some of them on metamoderation.

Alternatively.... Meta-mod should be open to all in good standing for RANDOM comments. Maybe allow burning 2 mod points to meta-mod a specific comment?

• Metamod can spend a mod point to "re-roll" and see a new set of random moderations
• A moderation is undone when it's "score" goes negative. It is "reapplied" when it goes positive. If the score dips to -3, the moderation is removed entirely. Default moderation value should be > 0, possibly 2 ??
• A user is not rewarded or punished for the metamod specifically
• A running total of positive and negative meta-moderations against them is calculated

Receiving a threshold for positive or negative meta-mod counts result in fixed deltas in chops (Proposed Values)

 +5 positive yields  +1 chops      5 negative meta-mods      -1 chpos score
+10 positive yields  +2 chops     10 negative meta-mods      -2 chops score
+15 positive yields  +3 chops     15 negative meta-mods      -3 chops score 

• Your current chops as of more than 4 weeks ago is rolled into a fixed amount capped at 1.5 times the "Excellent" value and 1.5 times the most negative "Worst Poster" value.
• On a weekly basis a task is run across all accounts that collects chop point actions since the last summarization date forward a week (actions that happened about 3 weeks ago), applies these to the last +4 weeks ago score, truncates it to the ranges above, and stores it in the database with the new summarization date for that user's account.
• This prevents a user from "banking" actions that give them more chops to only later be a jerk.
• However it lets you be a bit grumpy in the short term since the value can go above the thresholds when calculating the current display/privs value (query all the outstanding chop actions for this user, add the point values to the historic value, store it for easy reference later, cached for an hour)