So I love The Colbert Report just as much as any other "Godless Liberal", but why hasn't Mr. Colbert examined the viewer participation side of the truthiness equation sweeping our airwaves? I think he's got something there.
Googling truthiness returns 1,410,000 hits. Great job Stephen, you really scored big on that one. The highlights include:
Truthiness Voted 2005 Word of the Year American Dialect Society
The truthiness hurts - Chicago Tribune
Truthiness - Wikipedia
But Googling trustiness returns only 18,400 hits. That's mostly because some genius at the New York Times reviewing the Colbert Report got the "truthiness" quote wrong.
Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News:
On his regular feature "The Word," Mr. Colbert routinely mocks the kind of anti-intellectual populism perfected by Fox News. "Trustiness" was his word of the day, he told viewers with a poker face, sneering at the "wordanistas over at Webster's" who might refute its existence. "I don't trust books," he. "They're all fact and no heart."
...
Correction: Nov. 1, 2005, Tuesday:
The TV Watch column last Tuesday, about "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central, misstated the "word of the day" invented for the show's feature "The Word." It was "truthiness," not "trustiness."
Or did she?
If truthiness is what the right wing media sells, isn't trustiness what the Limbaugh loving listeners buy? Don't they just agree with the opinions and the version of truth stated by that particular media outlet? Don't they just trust the source because it reinforces their own existing views?
Are we at Kos becoming so incensed by the blatant lies of BushCo and the debatable inability of our national party to score big victories that we might be falling prey to the same problem? Are natural divisions within the community of Kossacks causing us to throw down with each other and overlook the troll problem facing Kos?
What about the trustiness test and troll rating here at Kos? Do you think the troll rating and smack downs that you've seen on Kos are getting out of hand? Troll rating for spam or offensive language is one thing, but troll rating for content? The Kossack who rates a post has every right to choose from the 0 to 4 ratings provided, but why not take a minute to post a reply stating the reason for the low rating? How many people take the time to go to the user's home page to determine troll status by getting more info? Hints: they usually post around a 9 to 5 window, have dubious subject matter and content in their diaries, high userids, lots of low rated comments and they travel in packs.
Anyone else have suggestions for ferreting out trolls? They're here, right now. I guarantee it. And they'll be here tomorrow and everyday after that. They just love to pick issues that divide us and cause smack downs and animosity in our ranks. How do we deal with that?
How many trolls go unnoticed and unpunished because there's no troll alert posted as a reply? We're all in this together and trolls should be called out at face value. They're coming more and more, provided to us by a "friendly right-wing think tank near you."
What's the official troll policy at Kos? Does a Kossack get banned at some point based on comment ratings? Is there a hall of shame that provides us with a list of banned Kossacks? What's the threshold for getting voted off the island?
But how many non-trolls just get into a disagreement on a thread and suffer low ratings? Dems have differing views on many issues. Religion, moderate vs. liberal views, presidential preferences and a host of others. But how many have been unfairly painted as trolls merely because their "untrustiness" factor makes them suspect? Anonymous Liberal has a site that I discovered recently. The tag line for the site is a quote by Bertrand Russell:
"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment."
That's why I'm a liberal, because the world is complicated. Answers to important questions are often difficult to ascertain. Hell, sometimes the proper question isn't even within my grasp.
That's also why I come to Kos. I don't just want to be told what to focus on or be updated on what's happening at this very second. I don't just want a soapbox to bring attention to my causes and views through this medium. I want to engage. I realize that I might be living in a self-segregated society and I'm interested in what others have to say, how they view an issue, an article or a candidate. I want to share information and viewpoints and be enriched by it.
What do you want out of your participation at Kos? What are your suggestions for troll identification? Do you troll rate for spam? Language? Content? Have you been the victim of a '1' and run? Are you a newbie and afraid of posting? Sign-up and chime in whydon'tcha.
UPDATE: I finally checked the manual and
Kos FAQ page says How do comment ratings work?
This site uses a system called "Mojo" to try to keep the comments as high-quality as possible. All users can rate all comments, except their own, between 1 and 4. When your comments are rated by others, those ratings are combined into a weighted average -- newer comments count more than older ones -- called your "Mojo". This, roughly, represents the rating we could expect your next comment to receive based on your past comments. Users who have a mojo greater than a certain minimum and who have posted a sufficient number of comments are considered "trusted" users, and have the added capability to rate comments below the normal minimum rating (in other words, their rating scale is 0-4, rather than 1-4.) If enough of a user's comments are rated below 1, that user becomes "untrusted", which means that respected members of the community have repeatedly indicated that the user's input is offensive, content-free, or merely intended to annoy others.
Many users believe that the rating system is intented to be an opportunity to express agreement or disagreement with a post, or with the poster themself. This is not accurate; ratings are intended to help elevate those posters that consistently make clear, good arguments and points, regardless of content, and to prevent trolls from invading the message board. Downrating commenters on the basis of agreement or disagreement with their arguments leads to a monolithic forum, free of new ideas and input.
So, please don't downrate comments just because you disagree with them!So only Kossacks with TU status can rate a '0' and bring a mojo down below the level of '1'.
I also like the idea of having a "lowest rated comments" diary posted the same as the "highest rated diaries" to spot serial abusers.