patrick.net

Yes, good idea. When I have the civility thing all worked out, I'll invite missing users back to the new more civil patrick.net.

rando says

Would it be better to sort the home page posts by number of comments instead? (By which I mean posts created in the last 7 days.) That would look like this:

https://patrick.net/?order=comments

After 7 days, the most commented post would fall off the home page.

Changed that to home page showing the most commented posts of the last three days. More timely. People want quality (as indicated by number of comments) but they also want freshness.

Patrick says

How to make Patrick.net home page capture new users?

Offer a one time license to pussy grab.

indigenous says

You are focusing on the stick, you should focus on the carrot.

rando says

OK, what's the carrot?

Every thread should have a background image. Threads start out with a neutral background of, say, traffic in the morning. For every insightful or inspiring post, the background becomes nicer: a scenic cobblestone street with nice shops and flowers, a grassy field, a beach at sunset, puppies rolling on the ground and playing, young women suntanning with their tops untied, underboobage, up to full frontal nudity of hot chicks.

However, every trolling causes the opposite to happen. The background image moves downward in desirability from Walmart shoppers to open sores to goatse.

rando says

Yes, as much as I love algorithms, I don't know a way to automatically classify some text as an ad hominem attack or not.

I wouldn't be surprised if this problem were solved in the next 20 years. It is definitely possible to solve it, but it's not a trivial problem and would require considerable time to solve. Such an expert system would have to have a good linguistic model and perhaps deep learning. I'm reminded of Twitter turned a chat bot into a racist in less than a day. The problem of automatically detecting and rating trolling and other so-called subjective values is basically the inverse of what that Microsoft Twitter bot was doing. This is the kind of problem that I would love to work on if I had endless free time. There are so many interesting problems to solve, but so little time and life is too short to get everything done that you want to do.

Dan8267 says

Every thread should have a background image. Threads start out with a neutral background...

Thanks, this is a pretty cool idea.

I hope everyone realizes I was joking about that. The trolls would troll threads just to make the background go to goatse. You'd have to make it so that the background image was tied to the user's reputation, not the troll, but then again, CIC might still like goatse.

Dan8267 says

Dan8267 (1/1 = 100% civil)

First time in my life I've been called 100% civil.

Lol. I hope it lasts!

I'm not sure what the civil rating is suppose to accomplish. People know who the trolls are and don't need a metric for it. And the trolls aren't going to be shamed into behaving better.

If the site grows a lot, we won't all know each other's civility right away.

OK, but your metric's not really going to accurately measure civility. Let's say user A posts 10 comments, one of which is an ad hom. He gets a 90% civility rating. OK, that seems fair.

Now user B is a mega troll who also posts a lot of inane comments. Let's say he posts propaganda b.s. and other misinformation to the tune of a 1000 posts over a week, 100 of which are ad hominem attacks. He also gets a 90% civility rating, but he's far more offensive than user A.

Furthermore, user C writes 20 ad hominem posts and gets a 0% civility rating. So user C writes a bot that posts random Google search results or images to some threads he or someone else has opened. His bot makes 180 such posts over a few days. User C's civility rating goes from 0% to 90%.

A simple division doesn't accurately model civility. Not all posts are equal. Not all attacks are equal. It's too simple and easy to game.

Of course the real question is what are people suppose to do with the knowledge gained by a civility rating, assuming it's accurate.

Patrick says

Ultimately, I'd like to leave moderation in the hands of the most civil users themselves.

OK, maybe that will work. Don't know. What will the moderators be able to do? Delete posts? How will they deal with reposting, especially from alts?

i understand your desire to grow the site, but don't mistake politically motivated advice from blue team hacks as rationale for why google analytics reads a certain way.

you'll get more users by catering to the SJW crowd, if that's what you want.

Capture? I can donate an old, moldy plywood pillory that I don't use anymore.

landtof says

politically motivated advice

When civil discourse and debate is considered partisan and politically motivated which "team" do you want to be associated with? LOL

I think one could make a strong argument for how the ad-hom button actually promotes MORE speech and discussion. Maybe it doesn't play out that way in reality though, time will tell. (This space here _________________________________________________________________ is where you can make an assertion about me being wrong, and provide no support other than opinion for your claim.)

Admittedly, when Trump finally falls, I'm going to go on a "Thunderdome" binge of epic proportions. Will need to purge it from my system. (wink)

Dan8267 says

A simple division doesn't accurately model civility. Not all posts are equal. Not all attacks are equal. It's too simple and easy to game.

It is overly simplistic, but the problem to solve here is getting people to stop directly insulting each other and to talk about points instead of people. If it's motivating in that way, it's a success. (Unless everyone decides that what they really liked was insulting other people and then they all go away because they can't do that anymore.)

landtof says

i understand your desire to grow the site, but don't mistake politically motivated advice from blue team hacks as rationale for why google analytics reads a certain way.

It seems to me that it doesn't treat one side differently from the other, so attacking to points and not people is not partisan.

There is also the "dislike" link as another way to blow off a little steam.

Personally, I think the best way to change human behavior is to directly modify the human genome. Genes determine how the brain is constructed, which in turn determines how people think, feel, and act. PatNet should really consider implementing this solution.

Dan8267 says

Genes determine how the brain is constructed, which in turn determines how people think, feel, and act.

Funny stuff.

Dan8267 says

Personally, I think the best way to change human behavior is to directly modify the human genome. Genes determine how the brain is constructed, which in turn determines how people think, feel, and act. PatNet should really consider implementing this solution.

Requires a budget that patrick.net does not have.

Perhaps this is the ultimate solution for our overlords: modify the workers so that they work hard and are happy with their lot in life and don't cause any trouble.

rando says

Perhaps this is the ultimate solution for our overlords: modify the workers so that they work hard and are happy with their lot in life and don't cause any trouble.

There was another feller that tried that a while back, called it eugenics.

And I see we've added a link to softcore porn in the header...

Yes, fun experiment to see if affects the site's bounce rate.

Will new users stick around for more than 10 seconds if there is the promise of, uh, titillation?

Check how civil I am

Increasing my civility weight

Keep increasing...

FP says

Keep increasing...

Lol. Easy to do, because it's about what you don't do.

FP says

Keep increasing...

FP is a funny phucker.

indigenous says

FP is a funny phucker.

Meant in good spirit I think, not an actual personal attack.

Now showing in header which users are online (are logged in and viewed a page) within the last 5 minutes.

I think this is a necessary offset to changing the home page to sort posts by most comments in the last 3 days, because that makes it look like no one is around. Which is not true.

rando says

Perhaps this is the ultimate solution for our overlords: modify the workers so that they work hard and are happy with their lot in life and don't cause any trouble.

No, it's keep the workers in line until they can be replaced by robots and then exterminated.

And they are employing engineers like us to make that happen.

Must put a back door into the robot's control code.

Anyone can fight anywhere they want on the internet, it's hardly limited to patrick.net. Moderated comments are the way to sort out the insults, libels, and all other protected stupid speech. But that's a lot of work for Mr. Killilea. (spelling?) So what's the answer? Greater intelligence and common sense, both in short supply.

Yes, it's going to be a lot of work, but hopefully worth it in increased quality of discussion.

I suppose it was naive to expect good will to keep things under control. Kind of like leaving a bike unlocked in a big city.

Hi @"Tim Aurora" are you looking at the "Active" tab? This one:

https://patrick.net/?order=active

The default home page ordering is now by number of comments in the last day. This is to provide a bit higher quality on the default home page.

The Active tab is what used to be the default home page, but the quality was not necessarily very good.

Any update after three weeks?

Have you thought of simplifying the process of signing up and making your first post? In my recollection it takes 3 steps, and it doesnt link directly via FB like the Huffposts/Breitbarts of the world.

Also advertise the free speech aspect.

Then post daily cover pics of UFC ring girls, just cause.

errc says

Any update after three weeks?

Wait, update on what? I've been doing a dozen things.

CBOEtrader says

Have you thought of simplifying the process of signing up and making your first post?

Yes, that's what I did today. It should take only two steps now: enter your comment (and chosen username and email) and submit, then then click on the link in the email.