When I logged onto /. this evening to check news, I saw the following message:
You have moderator access and 5 points. Welcome to those of you just joining: please read the moderator guidelines for instructions.
· You can’t post & moderate the same discussion.
· Concentrate on Promoting more than Demoting.
· Browse at -1 to keep an eye out for abuses.
· Mail the admin URLs showing abuse (the cid link please!).
It’s not as if I’ve been accepted into an elite cabal or something like that. Clearly, the requirements for moderating on slashdot are just a notch above those for breathing, or perhaps blinking. Stay connected to the 'net long enough and you will certainly, at some point, have this opportunity.
Still, it’s a wacky little thrill to think that you’ve got a chance to help shape the perception of discourse on the net, by rating other peoples’ words as (+1) astute, (+1) insightful, or (-1) disingenuous.
A loosely related discussion today revolved around the new book Smart Mobs. It pokes around the dynamics of next-generation people networks. Livejournal, interestingly enough, is a particularly rich memetic petri dish if you follow the book’s logic. It has a critical mass of users (‘I’ll write about you in my livejournal!’ is already net.synonymous with whining to an audience of none… not the most positive association, but an easily recognized one…) Every user can contribute to it (by nature, everyone can talk to everyone on LJ, and commenting makes cross-polination commonplace…) Finally, users can form their own subgroups, cliques, and circles of valued/trusted friends. These three factors multiply the value of a network, according to the book.
It’s interesting. I’ve only skimmed summaries, but I want to check it out.
Vegetarian food still treating me well. Today, loads of pasta with cheese and tomato sauce, yummy pretzels, and a sammich when I got home. If only cows didn’t taste so good, I would swear them off forever.