How does moderation work on Plastic?
On Plastic, moderation isn’t something determined by a select few and delivered from on high to the rest of us, take-it-or-leave-it. Instead, all Plastic members have the potential to be moderators – to decide what’s great and what’s less-than-great – and everyone is empowered to share the fruits of these collective decisions. A simple two-part process makes this possible: Rating: Based on their relevance, intelligence, and originality, comments at Plastic can be moderated, or “modded,” up or down, using a numerical scale from -1 (and below, in the case of anonymous “contributions”) to +5. Comments by unregistered visitors (our very own “Anonymous Idiot”) are posted to discussions with an initial rating of 0; comments posted by members start with a score of +1. Moderators then moderate comments up or down (by the half-point). If two fistfuls of moderators think a comment is brilliant, it may end up with a +5; useless comments are generally moderated down to -1. Truly obnoxious anonymou
