The news mod team has asked to no longer be a part of the project until we have a composite tool that polls multiple sources for a more balanced view.
It will take a few hours, but FOR NOW there won’t be a bot giving reviews of the source.
The goal was simple: make it easier to show biased sources. This was to give you and the mods a better view of what we were looking at.
The mod team is in agreement: one source of truth isn’t enough. We are working on a tool to give a composite score, from multiple sources, all open source.
About half of the unique comments by my count are suggestions for improvements or expressions of support. The 10 posts with the most downvotes are all requests to remove the bot.
Let’s be realistic - this is far from consensus.
The 10 posts with the most downvotes are all requests to remove the bot.
These are some highlights from the top 12 posts sorted by “top”…
- “My personal view is to remove the bot.”
- “One problem I’ve noticed is that the bot doesn’t differentiate between news articles and opinion pieces.”
- "You don’t need every post to have a comment basically saying “this source is ok”
- “I think it should be removed”
- “My personal view is that the bot provides a net negative, and should be removed.” <- me
- “Partisan fact-checking sites are worse than no fact-checking at all.”
- “Remove it.”
- “MBFC’s ratings for “factual reporting” are a joke.”
- “This thread is a mess.” <- also me, sorry
- “The bot is basically a spammer saying “THIS ARTICLE SUCKS EVEN THOUGH I DIDN’T READ IT” on every damn post. If that was a normal user account you’d ban it.”
- “The majority of feedback has been negative. I can’t recall a single person arguing in its favor, but I can think of many, myself included, arguing against it.”
- “In literally every thread I’ve seen it post in, it gets downvoted to hell.”
To put it charitably, 2 and 6 are only mildly critical or express tepid support, at best. The remainder are… something less than supportive.
I understand that this is not a democracy, and that it’s ultimately up to your good selves to guide the community as you see fit. However, I think there are valid criticisms to be made regarding your collective ability to engage with feedback.
First, admins have pointed out that dozens of accounts (now banned) were being used to artificially boost certain kinds of feedback and bury others, so if we’re not allowed to point to votes as a source of valid information, then sorting by “top” is equally invalid. Those could simply have been the comments those alts decided they wanted to push to the top, to make their point.
Second, we’re volunteers who have a few hours set aside each day to open a discussion into things that need to be updated or changed, and the vitriol that’s been hurled at us is disproportionate compared to the ostensible “damage” being done by a single automated script. One moderator threatened to resign over the hate that’s been blasted into their face. It took us less than two weeks to post a request for feedback, and then to act on that feedback. You (the disapprovers) all got exactly what you wanted. Pardon me for being blunt, but what the hell else are you expecting from us?
I’m sorry if I come across as preachy in the below post, but I wanted to try and explain to you where the critique is coming from. And also that it’s not personal or any widespread resentment.
I (and many others) get what a thankless and also necessary job moderating is. It’s not easy to do it well, it’s frustrating, it’s thankless and without it the community would be dead. But being a moderator and sticking out your neck brings you exposure and you are guaranteed to meet more asshats than you ever thought existed. But the users are not one homogenous group, it’s not because one user has flung abuse at moderators, that all users are now suddenly resentful of moderators.
The person you are replying to, put a good bit of time in listing what comments were most up voted, which are probably the comments that found most support amongst the users in that thread. In the same way that we should not be dismissive of what you do or say, you shouldn’t be dismissive of what others do or say (or up vote). Mutual respect and all that.
Self reflection is also important, it’s important to realize and accept that it is possible to be wrong about something. Doing a mea culpa and moving on is far easier in the long term than doubling down and digging a deeper hole, yet it’s a lot rarer because it hurts our ego in the short term.
Their final point about a problem with handling feedback rings true to me:
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You (not you personally, but the team that did that feedback thread) have apparently treated up- and down votes on a thread as a poll and a popular mandate for action, but up- and down votes are not a poll and most (probably most) people don’t use them as such.
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Up- and down votes on comments are useful for finding which remarks resonated with or turned away other users. They are not a poll either, and most upvoted are not automatically most correct at all, but they give you a chance to read the room.
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You (now you personally) have thrown shade on the people that up voted comments against the bot, by insinuating that those people might have been bots themselves and that therefore their opinions are irrelevant. Yes it’s possible that there are some users using alts, but all those users? Not very likely.
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The best feedback I saw in that thread was not in the up or down votes, it was in the comments themselves. There were some very compelling arguments as to why using a biased site to display bias, was a bad idea. Those comments also had quite a bit of upvotes, so the way I read the room, that was a popular sentiment.
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The person you are replying to made a few arguments and one scathing critique which they probably hoped that you would improve on in the future. Imo a polite disagreement with your previous statements. You respond by being dismissive of his arguments and acting like it’s a personal attack. They were sticking to facts, you’re making it about you as a person. I really don’t think that was their intent.
As stated elsewhere in the thread, my vote audit shows no participation from any of the 29 banned sock accounts the in the !news feedback thread, or this one for that matter. Please take the votes more seriously. If you’d like to spread FUD about the legitimacy of a vote, ask an admin to audit them first so you can state with evidence that a specific vote has been manipulated.
People trust the software to tell them what others are thinking, and if you successfully spread the false idea that votes that disagree with you are manipulated, you’re not just arguing in bad faith, you’re undermining the federated system we should all want to succeed.
However, I think there are valid criticisms to be made regarding your collective ability to engage with feedback.
I don’t think that the mod team has ever said that there is not some valid criticism. Feedback from the community (not just the !News community) is precisely why we have made multiple changes to the way this functions, the layout, and inclusion of different sources.
There is a vocal minority of the community that feels the need to swear, engage in personal attacks, manipulate votes, accuse others of being paid actors, insist that “everyone” agrees with them, and so forth, which does tend to make it difficult to engage in a forthright discussion about what is best for the community.
I don’t think that the mod team has ever said that there is not some valid criticism.
That’s not what an inability to engage with feedback means though, it means genuinely listening to the perspectives of others even in cases where it’s inconvenient, unexpected, unpleasant, and yes in some cases presented in an offensive manner.
That doesn’t mean you need to just allow people to spew hatred and vitriol at you - of course you can call out that kind of behavior where you see it. It’s probably fair to say that some Lemmy users would struggle to express themselves on topics they feel strongly about without being offensive.
That said, I suspect that a lot of the vitriol you’ve encountered on this topic has in some part been provoked by the mods collective reluctance to actually acknowledge the many shortcomings of this bot or any potential reincarnation.
I mean the following in as congenial a manner as possible, but the comment of yours I replied to earlier (regarding the most downvoted comments in the other thread) seemed quite dismissive. You may not have intended it as such, nevertheless that’s how it appears. Engaging with that feedback would mean considering the actual content of those comments with a charitable attitude? JonsJava similarly quoting vote counts for the other post as a means to disregard concerns.
Again, in as congenial and constructive a manner as possible, Blackbeard has revealed that there has been some vote manipulation which I acknowledge has frustrated things from your perspective, but again the narrative that “there is a vocal minority opposing the bot and inflating comments in opposition to the bot” is dismissive of the very real issues extant.
I’m not alone in feeling exasperated by the cycle of request feedback > dismiss feedback.
