MediaBiasFactChecker almost broke the whole system - SLRPNK
slrpnk.net
Everything’s been working smoothly, with nothing to report about the moderation bot. The community has been quiet but productive, which was precisely the goal, and the bot working smoothly with no issues. However, something almost went wrong in a particular entertaining fashion which I thought I would share. The algorithm for classifying troll users doesn’t have any polarity. It only knows which users are opposed to which other users. 50% of the time, it’ll get its whole ranking system backwards, so the troll users are the normal ones, and everyone else gets negative rank, because the math works just as well under that ranking regime. Generally this isn’t a problem, because there’s a step: # Flip the sign if we arrived at a majority-negative ranking, which can happen if -min_val > max_val: rank[1:] *= -1 The most popular user is always more popular than the least popular troll is unpopular, by quite a big margin, so that works fine. However. Things have changed. MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world is so unpopular that it’s almost (1% margin) more unpopular than the highest-rank user is popular. If that had happened, the whole polarity would have flipped, every user would have been banned, all the trolls would have been unbanned. Mass hysteria. I only happened to notice it before it happened and stop the bot. It’s on track to be the least popular user on Lemmy, with about 5 times lower rank than some of the most notorious trolls. Have fun with this information. I started checking the median rank of all users, instead. Thanks MediaBiasFactChecker.
  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    In the next few weeks, we’ll see if centrists start abandoning their hostility toward the anti-genocide wing of the party. I don’t think they will. I think you’ve drawn a distinction without a difference.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 months ago

      It’s a distinction without much of a practical difference, yes, but I still think that not considering atrocities a deal breaker and being in favor of the atrocities should be distinguished between.

      Can’t argue as effectively against a wrong conclusion if you don’t know the reasons for reaching it, is my point.

      And yeah, you’re right about them already blaming everyone to the left of Reagan for the pro-Cheney campaign failing to defeat a personally repulsive fascist idiot 🤦

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        It’s a distinction without much of a practical difference, yes, but I still think that not considering atrocities a deal breaker and being in favor of the atrocities should be distinguished between.

        Agreed until they start being hostile to all criticism of the party, even when the criticism is about genocide support.