FAQ /F-A-Q/ or /fak/ n.
[Usenet] 1. A Frequently Asked Question. 2. A compendium of accumulated lore, posted periodically to high-volume newsgroups in an attempt to forestall such questions. Some people prefer the term FAQ list or FAQL /fa'kl/, reserving FAQ' for sense 1.
RTFAQ /R-T-F-A-Q/ imp.
[Usenet: primarily written, by analogy with RTFM] Abbreviation for \"Read The FAQ!\", an exhortation that the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup's FAQ list before posting questions.
RTFM /R-T-F-M/ imp.
[Unix] Abbreviation for \"Read The Fucking Manual\". 1. Used by gurus to brush off questions they consider trivial or annoying. 2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't just asking out of randomness. \"No, I can't figure out how to interface Unix to my toaster, and yes, I have RTFM.\" Unlike sense 1, this use is considered polite.
User n.
1. Someone doing `real work' with the computer, using it as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. 2. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. One who asks silly questions. [GLS observes: This is slightly unfair. It is true that users ask questions (of necessity). Sometimes they are thoughtful or deep. Very often they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently because the user failed to think for two seconds or look in the documentation before bothering the maintainer.] 3. Someone who uses a program from the outside, however skillfully, without getting into the internals of the program. One who reports bugs instead of just going ahead and fixing them.
First off, we strive towards discussion rather then to deliver news on its own: discussion can really make a story considerably better as user comments frequently `upstage' the story itself.
Secondly, we aim towards a high quality of content and content posters by using and experimenting with several techniques and systems such as trust metrics, moderation and collaborative filtering.
Last but not least, this site has no real editors as all content is moderated and voted on by all registered users. This means that the community is truly the editor of this site as the community has the final decision on the content. This also implies that we, the $sitename team, are creating nothing more then a tool or an environment to make these things happen.
As each new piece of information competes for attention, people quickly tend to become overwhelmed and seek assistance in identifying the most interesting, worthwhile, valuable or enteraining items. Not to mention the fact, reader-contributed content and other levels of interactivity tend to become chaotic, bloated and disreputable.
Therefore, we decided to develop a public system powered by a community that aims to bring quality content to everyone's attention and to filter out all junk: to sort the wheat from the chaff. The output should be something clean and homogenized featuring quality content, and should slide down the gullet far more easily. Another objective is to provide a customized service according to public and individual preferences, whether expressed or inferred.
Yes, you are right. It all sounds a bit idealistic, not to mention hypothetical. However, don't get this wrong: this isn't a new concept, various such systems exist nowadays (like slashdot.org or kuro5hin.org). We just happen to want our own system.
Last but not least we, the $sitename team, don't want the responsibility to manually review each post and to select the ones worthy. Systematic editing by individual editors is nice and dandy, if you get paid for it or if you have some time to kill. Afterall, we are not writers, critics nor reviewers for that matter; we are programmers, designers and technicians.
under construction
Hence, the purpose of comment moderation is two-fold:
In contrast, those with a user account can use their own name or handle and are granted various priveleges: the most important is probably the ability to moderate new submissions and to rate comments. Also, registered users can tune the site to their personal needs. For instance: they can select one of the available themes to alter the look-and-feel of the site or they fine-tune the values of various settings to their likings.
The stories are not likely to suffer from this problem as they tend to provide links to other sites that are reputable and have dependable information that can be trusted. The problem with reliability is probably in the comments people post. Sometimes they are helpful, accurate, and even amusing, but other times they are not. Comments stand out as a good idea and can really make a story considerably better, but we have to face the facts. Not all comments add value to a discussion: some are redundant, off-topic or even completly fake.
We try to address this problem by experimenting with trust metrics, moderation and collaborative filtering. Thus, we aim towards a high quality of content and content posters by using and experimenting with several such techniques and systems.
However, the sources are not available yet at this time, but will be released as soon we have a first, well-rounded source tree that has proven to be stable. If you can't wait or in case you have big plans (like `total domination') with the engine, don't hesitate to contact us and we might grant you CVS access.