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Journal sllort's Journal: The birth of Anonymous Hero 34

Journal by sllort

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Moderation is a game. The only way to win is not to play.

What is the value of a dollar? The answer is that a dollar is worth as much as the government says it is worth. Money is a game we play to create scarcity in the face of abundance; it is a means of keeping track of something imaginary. So what is a Karma point worth? Well, it's worth whatever CmdrTaco says it's worth. Karma is an imaginary thing that has gained value through an electronic construct. sound familiar? The truth is that Slashdot is in many ways the first of the Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games. Before the first castle in Ultima Online, there was a user with the most Karma to blow.

Slashdot has changed quite a bit since those days. We have a strict levelling system defined now. Here are the various levels you can achieve, and the powers you are granted at each level:

Levelling up

Last I checked, here are the various levels in the vast Role Playing Game that is Slashdot:
(Your score in the game is called 'karma'):

  • Score: -24 to -10: Ghost. Ghost players attack (post comments) with a -1 threshold, making them unable to hit any target except those who choose to be hit. Ghost players are limited to two attacks per day, and the label 'Terrible' is placed next to their name.
  • Score: -9 to -1: Zombie. Zombie players attack with a threshold of Zero, making only their subject lines visible and reducing the effectiveness of their attacks. Zombie players, like ghost players, can only attack twice per day, and the label 'Bad' is placed next to their name.
  • Score: Zero: Dying player. In this transitional state, a player appears to be a normal player, but the label 'Neutral' is placed by their name to signal that they are close to death.
  • Score: 1-12: Journeyman. A journeyman player can attack ten times a day with a score of one. The label 'Positive' is placed by their name.
  • Score: 12-25: Adventurer. An Adventurer attacks with the same effectiveness as a journeyman, but has the label 'Good' placed by their name.
  • Score: 26-50: Sword Saint. A sword saint can devastate his opponents in combat, attacking with a bonus of +2 and flaming them up to twenty-five times per day. Sword Saint players have a distinct advantage, but they are not invincible.

Player killing

So how do you turn a Sword Saint into a Ghost? Well, player killing is alive and well on Slashdot. I'm not going to go into the details of player killing in this article, but suffice it to say that it is possible to defend yourself from normal players but not from Editors. The best way to defend yourself is to create as many separate accounts as you can, and continue levelling them up. This is very time consuming, and it's one way to keep you 'hooked' on the game.

Guilds

Guilds are a recent addition to the game of Slashdot, and they were retro-fitted and bolted on in much the same manner that many MMORPG's added guild support after product launch due to massive player demands. Basically, Guilds allow you communicate more easily with your allies and gain bonuses to your attacks when attacking enemies, though these bonuses are temporary and cannot be used for player killing.

How do I win the game?

Before addressing how to win the Slashdot MMORPG, it's important to look at how other similar games are won. For instance, how do you win at Ultima Online? I believe the answer to that is that if you play, you have already lost. The only people winning in the MMORPG market are Origin, Microsoft, Verant, et al, i.e. the people taking your money. The more time you spend playing, the more time you spend losing. While you are questing for karma, trying to get just one more level, you are losing. Perhaps the only way to win is not to play.

Consider for a moment that when you mark another account as a foe, you assign a numeric penalty to that person's comments which causes you to never view them again. This means you have judged everything this person will ever say in advance, and deemed those future words not worth viewing. You have prejudged them. You are engaging in automated prejudice. How do you explain that to your kids?

The only way to win is not to play

The game is a construct not just to waste your time but to manipulate what you say. If you have ever altered what you post to Slashdot because of fear of karma retribution or the possiblity of a karma reward, then you have bowed to the pressure of an artificial system, a plastic reality placed upon you in order to control you.

I challenge you to break free of the system. You can still post comments to Slashdot without playing the game. You can do it very easily. Just post everything as an anonymous coward. How will people know it's you? Use you public key to sign your comments. If everyone did this, the game would be over, and everyone would win. It's a huge prisoner's dillema, to be sure, but only if you are still worried about getting a high score.

This journal is probably being read by quite a few Sword Saints thinking to themselves 'how can I afford to stop attacking with my +2 bonus??'. Stop thinking inside the box. It's probably harming your brain.

- -s.
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This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The birth of Anonymous Hero More

The birth of Anonymous Hero

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  • We can discuss later.

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  • I applaud you - this is nearly dead-on what I only now realize I've felt for the past few months. The only flaw I see in your post-as-ac plan is that in order to read at that level (i.e., to be heard), one has to endure a load of tripe that goes along with it.

    Granted, since the n-th Editor attack (I can't remember which one; there have been so many), I now default to reading at -1 in order to trawl up the gems that have been "Ghosted" intentionally or by accident. I sure would like to be able to put the FPers, the ignorant punks, and all their ilk in a lockbox so I wouldn't have to read them again, but this may be the best solution.

    What is the exit plan, were such a nirvanna come to pass*? Would the signal-noise ratio get worse, or what? Would the editors crack down and crack out? How could you scan for your friends (the search here is pretty poor)?

    *Now we know, ever since T(HG)SB, that 99.99% of the people on here are stuck in the Matrix; they would neither appreciate nor participate in this new end-game.

  • Speaking as a sword saint, I think there are many of us who just don't give a shit about karma wrt the +2 bonus. What does bother me is the per day comment cap. There have been far more innocuous events posted to YRO as signalling the rise of the fourth Reich.

  • Sounds nice, but.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by NaveWeiss ( 567082 )
    when you post under AC you lose the lovely messaging system. How am I supposed to check if someone answered my comments? It'll be even more difficult now because ACs has no comment history.

    One possible way is to post comments through some sort of a wrapper. It'll sign the messages for you (an added bonus!), remember their CID and SID, and later it'll iterate through all the non-archived comments you posted and check if any of them gained responses. The problems are that it'll increase the load on slashdot and it's also forbidden by some scriptures [slashdot.org].
  • This guy put me on his foe list after this comment [slashdot.org].

    Opinions?

    • My OP is that many people here suck. I posted a great "Making Enemies" post to Em Emalb's journal [slashdot.org]
      and yeah- for writing some funny stuff that gets moderated up to 5 or for carrying a one-sided conversation cursing at moderators (see my last journal article if yr interested) I have made a slew of enemies.

      4 of which are a crew. (Good for them!)
      1 of which states in his sig "I foe anyone who abuses the +1" and I abuse the +1 like it was going out of style.
      and 2 of which I have no idea about. FUCK 'em.
  • This is why I never joined k5, the system there was not entertaining enough to play around with.

    Figured it out years ago, err, why else do people come here? :-D To tinker around with the Karma system, computer Nerds/Geeks love to tinker, hehe.
  • which is impressive,
    but you have too much free fucking time on your hands.
  • One problem: Not all of us are as good with computers as you, and would like a step-by-step tutorial to make this "PGP key". Thank you.
  • I'll have to search to 0's and -1's for your pgp block.

    It's much easier to go to your user page and see what you've posted and read what you have to say.

    SO be it.

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