I post a lot of comments and get a fair bit of mojo, so I usually have TU status. But while reading through comments this morning, I noticed that my "Troll" button was greyed out... I apparently can't hand out donuts no more.
This struck me as odd. Was I nabbed in another sweep of TR abusers? I haven't handed out a troll rating in days, and I won't use them for partisan purposes (I'm not much of a partisan anyway... I like all the candidates, albiet some better than others). I went back through my ratings and found I'd given 98 recommends and zero trolls in the past three days. And I'm not a diarist... I haven't written a diary since the 35W bridge collapse.
edit: ct is currently tweaking the ratings system, so it's a software issue. False alarm on my part! I'm leaving this up so others know.
I'm a software analyst by trade, so when I see something like this, I can't help but put my nerd hat on and try to figure it out. So I see three possibilities...
- An intentional change to the software, i.e. nobody can troll-rate anything.
- An accidental change to the software
- My privileges were changed.
If it's #1, I hope The Management will post an explanation soon, because if it's widespread (not just me), then a lot of people will be surprised.
If it's #2, I hope it'll get fixed soon, preferably with an explanation.
But if it's #3 (and assuming it was part of a sweep), then the selection system needs some examination. When kos first did the TR abuse sweep, I was supportive and pleased... frankly, I was sick and tired of partisan abuse of troll ratings, and I'd been uprating comments that I thought were unfairly suppressed. But being a good liberal, I'm extremely concerned about sweeps that pick up the innocent along with the guilty.
Moreover, I don't see how I might have set off an automated trigger. After all, I rarely troll-rate... maybe a couple of times a week. So how would candidates for privilege removal be selected? By hand? And if so, how is that decision made?
Keep in mind that I'm not saying I know I had privileges removed... in fact, the evidence is entirely circumstantial. There are any number of other explanations, including some I haven't thought of yet. And I'd rather not see this diary devolve into a session bitching about kos, partisanship, or anything else. But I AM curious... and if it IS a function of a sweep that's catching users like me, then perhaps The Management should reconsider the policy entirely. Limiting TR abuse is good, but at what price?