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Junk Comments

Marla Singer's picture




 

Do take notice of the new link beneath comments.  You can now "Junk" a comment (if you are a registered user).  If a comment collects enough Junk flags, it goes to comment purgatory- probably never to be seen again.

We comment reviewers, however, also watch for maliciously flagged Junk.  Get happy with your junk and you might lose it.

 

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Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:26 | 10710 hohack
hohack's picture

This just keeps getting better!  Thanks ZH... and Marla and Tyler and Travis and Cornelius and,,,, everyone here.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:26 | 10713 Marla Singer
Marla Singer's picture

That's the idea!

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:40 | 10721 spekulatn
spekulatn's picture

Just kidding.

 

"MARK IT ZERO, DUDE"

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:40 | 10722 Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden's picture

Also, here are some of our thought on Captcha - going forward many math questions will be geared to your background based on your employer: if a quant - you get to prove The Riemann Zeta or do simple
addition (as both are likely equally difficult for you, we will
dispense these 50/50 ); if a bond trader - compounding of bond interest
payments for a Zero Coupon bond; if a corp fin analyst - the DCF of a
$0 annual cash flow in perpetuity; if a lawyer: - the final invoice in
the upcoming Citigroup bankruptcy billed at $1,000/hour for infinity+1
hours; if an accountant - the tax payment of your client if he i)
worked for Joseph Cassano post Frank witch hunt, ii) if his capital was
stashed in a Zurich UBS bank vault, iii) is Hank Paulson; if an M&A advisor - if you get the answer right you fail, if a government worker you fail automatically. Of course if you fail, we automatically notify your HR superiors.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:46 | 10726 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Damn, now it's going to take me 3 or 4 tries rather than 1 or 2 to
post a comment?

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:14 | 10746 ShankyS
ShankyS's picture

Don't forget to Ctrl C the comment if you miss it the first time. Nothing like having to type a brilliant post twice.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:58 | 10738 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

All of these are a piece of cake. I took the Level I CFA exam last month!

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:18 | 10751 Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh's picture

Oh come on, I secretly loved it when the Captcha answer was Zero.  Haven't had that since the new (and awesome) change.  Don't take away my Hope.

 

ok, this last Captcha answer that worked out to -300 and got rejected was NOT awesome.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:00 | 10786 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

$0 DCF's in perpetuity now equals 6.5 billion. Just ask Mark Zuckerberg

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 11:01 | 11039 Anal_yst
Anal_yst's picture

FTW!

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:00 | 10788 lizzy36
lizzy36's picture

can we contribute some of the questions?

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:08 | 10796 Veteran
Veteran's picture

Weak dude.  I come here to learn and have no backing in any financial voodoo/witch doctor bullshit.  The truth will set you free, unless you suck at math

 

Reposted.  goddamn this Captcha

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:13 | 10802 Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden's picture

actually the only prerequisite for Zero Hedge is not to suck at sarcasm.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:32 | 10818 Will Profit
Will Profit's picture

really, EINSTEIN?!?!

(I've met the prerequisite. What do I win?)

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:50 | 10831 lizzy36
lizzy36's picture

okay so what is the question for christmas elves?

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 01:41 | 10881 pinkboxtrader
pinkboxtrader's picture

with the embedded optionality of snarkiness it should be called infinity hedge

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 00:45 | 10858 molecool
molecool's picture

How about semi-retired drug dealers?

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 00:49 | 10861 Keyser Soze
Keyser Soze's picture

And see if CAPTCHA can get Goldman employees to let something out of the bag. E.g. "internally decided predicted market price next Tuesday".

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 01:06 | 10865 dnarby
dnarby's picture

...And make the captcha for anonymous posters deal with quasilinear partial differential equations...  And make a note that registered users get relatively simple arithmetic.

 

THAT will make registration increase.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 03:06 | 10911 zeropointfield (not verified)
zeropointfield's picture

The answer to all those questions, in fact to every question, is: 42

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 08:26 | 10933 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Crap, I'm an electrical engineer. Does this mean I
have to solve partial differential equations, or do
an FFT on the VIX?

KevinB

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 08:45 | 10940 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

JUNK or CAPTCHA LEVEL 1 APPLICATION: If my mother is trying to drive from Clearwater to Sarasota at 10 mph below the speed limit on I-75, and there are 24 stoplights before I-75 and 6 after, and she thinks that whichever way she turns the map is north, and she takes the wrong exit and ends up on the Howard Franklin bridge to Tampa AGAIN, then how long does it take her to find a good Spanish restaurant? Hint: (30/60) + (34+6)*3 +(10/60) +(less than 15 seconds UNLESS she sees a T.J. Maxx first) =

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:40 | 10984 Jim_Rockford
Jim_Rockford's picture

If you are a congressman named Barney Frank, can you be asked a simple yes or no question and "go off" like a flaming Elmer Fudd in a 500 word tirade?

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:41 | 10723 Steak
Steak's picture

It would be most bodacious if you could get it to go both ways and let us space monkeys give eachother ups

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:45 | 10725 Marla Singer
Marla Singer's picture

We are looking at a reputation system.  Oh boy are we.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:50 | 10730 TomG
TomG's picture

Your kidding? I've got to finish "Fight Club" and see where

this is headed.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:17 | 10749 Marla Singer
Marla Singer's picture

We are NOT kidding.

I know everyone figured we just moved "because" but we moved to make this place a more functional community.  This is KEY to our future vision for Zero Hedge.

Stay tuned.  Lots of amazing stuff in the future.

Marking comments "junk" is kids play.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 01:10 | 10840 My cognitive di...
My cognitive dissonance's picture

Hey, your right!

Le Peuple De L'Herbe - Adventure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAAWp9fyEiM

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 01:12 | 10866 dnarby
dnarby's picture

Hmm...

 

Let try junking my own comment.

 

Hey, it woiked!

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 02:42 | 10898 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Thank you.

-bd

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 02:44 | 10899 VegasBD
VegasBD's picture

Thank you. From my real account. Sorry to add to the anon avalance here....

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 08:29 | 10935 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Marla, go to "slashdot.org", and read about their
moderation system. It's a lengthy read, but theirs
is by far the best system I've seen on the net. Pay
particular attention to the concept of "karma". And,
since slashdot is a strong proponent of Open Source
software development, there's a good chance it would
be inexpensive/free to use it. KevinB

PS - how do you format stuff/use HTML tags? Everything
I enter ends up as one gigantic and (IMHO) unreadable
paragraph.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:07 | 10953 Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden's picture

If you register, you get a WYSIWYG editor.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 10:43 | 11023 KevinB
KevinB's picture

Thanks, TD,

This works great! And I'm quite serious - "slashdot" lets users mod comments up or down, depending on whether they have "mod" points or not, which you earn by participating in the system. The more "positive" comments you make, the more frequently you get mod points. If all you contribute are trolls or flamebait, you almost never get mod points. And, you're not allowed to use your mod points on conversations in which you post (this prevents people from modding themselves up). Also, as a user, you can set your browsing level, so you can read all the comments, or just the ones at, say, level "3" or higher. Best of all, it's completely user driven, as I'm sure you and Marla have other things to do.

Good luck!

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 00:33 | 10852 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

it´s been too long since I´ve seen "Fight Club" too. Vague recollection of Xanax and something called Project Mayhem. Time for a rescreening.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:47 | 10728 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Behold, the stark fist of removal!!

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:53 | 10732 pigpen
pigpen's picture

Marla, did you record your last couple of sessions and

if so where would they be located?

Cheers,

PS - did you ever get some Chicane in for me?

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:01 | 10741 hohack
hohack's picture

Marla, 

Prominent front page link to the sessions please.  RadioZero is the shi-  .... as they say in France.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 21:57 | 10736 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

What's up with the quirky rss feeds?

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:01 | 10740 deadhead
deadhead's picture

Marla...outstanding amendments. Thank you very much.

 

 

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:13 | 10745 Mortimer Duke
Mortimer Duke's picture

Seems like ZH is creating its own class system with Ben, Timothy, Emanual and Larry somewhere below the Dalits.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:23 | 10757 hohack
hohack's picture

Easily accessible to any 'class' by anyone...... greatness

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:18 | 10753 EconomicDisconnect
EconomicDisconnect's picture

I am a molecular biologist, so my math questions should be in multiples of 3, 3 bases for one amino acid, 3 amino acids to from a junction, etc.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:19 | 10813 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

3 billion base pairs for 46 chromosomes, three nucleotides per codon, and at least 3 genes encoding your gayness.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 15:14 | 10761 drmass (not verified)
drmass's picture

this feature sounds great

good finance opinions

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 22:43 | 10776 ptoemmes
ptoemmes's picture

The Comment viewing option is way cool.  Thank you. 

Makes me ask this one more time..  I know I am a PITA.  You ought to have to live with me.

So, since you can tell by login which comments are new and even leap to the first new one, can each new comment be flagged so, like, maybe FireFox page search can be used to navigate?

Of course if you have something better in mind.

 

Thanks for all you - all - do.

 

Pete

 

 

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:04 | 10792 Lothar the Rott...
Lothar the Rottweiler's picture

Thank gawd the system knows I'm math illiterate and adjusts accordingly, or I'll never post another comment...

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:15 | 10805 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Hello

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:17 | 10810 Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden's picture

Have people noticed C(r)etin hasn't posted here in over a week? According to captcha his IQ level is now proven to be below 35.

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:31 | 10817 Printfaster
Printfaster's picture

I got tired of flagging the cretin on the blogger site.  Make my day.

 

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:35 | 10819 Printfaster
Printfaster's picture

Another idea.  Time the response to the captcha question.  You get 10 seconds and poof.

 

Nah.  Too severe.  Still a fun idea.   Certainly would create an interesting level of frustration on the part of posters.  Everyone would be grumpy.  Bad for humorous responses.

 

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 02:00 | 10886 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

not if you add a tolerance.....i'm with peter
drucker on statistical accounting and by
extension on
statistical mathemetics:

4 + x = 10
answer = 6 +/- 100

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 08:31 | 10936 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

You must be an S&P ratings analyst...

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:36 | 10820 Comrade de Chaos
Comrade de Chaos's picture

"$0 DCF's" - must be a trick question. I guess it depends on how good you are at masking your operating losses as the Level III assets. 

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:50 | 10830 Zeppo
Zeppo's picture

honk! honk?

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 23:58 | 10833 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

I like the new logo, however im wondering whether it would look better centered...

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 00:11 | 10845 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

I think it looks good off-center, but that's just me...

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 08:58 | 10947 Bob
Bob's picture

Left of center for the logo would be preferable to balance the weight of the navigation buttons (as currently configured), IMO. 

Thanks for the flag feature.  Glad to see you guys getting down some of the mechanical necessities. 

I like the idea of being able to vote "like" for each post, but it is so clearly open to manipulation by individuals and perspectives seeking to make themselves popular that, on balance, I think I'd leave it out.  Let the merits of a post speak for themselves.

Great progress, ZH . . . and concurrent with all the research and content you post without missing a beat.  Amazing. 

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 10:30 | 11017 Bob
Bob's picture

ADDITIONALLY, since I'm so into site decoration, moving the logo to the left would leverage the ingrained habit of searching for written meaning in a left-to-right direction. 

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 00:10 | 10842 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Best CAPTCHA idea I've seen. Hey, I understand negative numbers!!! Whee!!!

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 00:18 | 10850 My cognitive di...
My cognitive dissonance's picture

Great idea T.D

Like it...like it.

"to separate the wheat from the chaff" from Matthew 3, if I'm not mistaken.

My cognitive dissonance

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 00:34 | 10853 Bolweevil
Bolweevil's picture

I look at how difficult 'the captcha' is before posting

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 02:57 | 10907 No More Bubbles
No More Bubbles's picture

This is great.  My math question had me adding negative numbers and I began to wonder why Bernanke hasn't run with a few of my ideas. 

 

Here are a few.  How about introducing a negative Fed Funds rate.  Why stop at ZERO?

Also, isn't it about time to start PAYING people to charge up their credit cards?  They need to give out big credit lines to people (regardless or employment situation) and pay them interest on the # of dollars they charge. 

Another part of the plan would be to start charging fees to those people who just park their money in the bank.  People complain now about getting such a pittance in interest, but how about they start charging people for hording their money and expecting to get paid for it.  Hit them with 29.9% interest fee and they'll quickly pull that money out of the bank and start spending it, thus stimulating the eCONomy.

Is that sarcastic enough Tyler?  LOL!

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 03:26 | 10912 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Trying the Captcha... What about silly idiots from the Emerging Markets(EMs) who are too blinded by Great American Dream and forget that EMs are called EM for a reason???

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 06:56 | 10919 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

If you are posting as anonymous here, good for you. After all, why register with a site on which its collaborators/contributors zealously guard their own anonymity? Junking posts? Ahhhh, censorship. The last bastion of truly liberated knowledge and a free society. Mr. Durden, I hope that passed muster for "not sucking at sarcasm. Pasted in all caps in quotes is an abridged excerpt from one of the hits when zerohedge is searched on google. “WHO IS TYLER DURDEN OF ZEROHEDGE? APRIL 16, 2009, BY JOSHUA M BROWN, TYLER’S CONTRIBUTED A TON OF GUEST POSTS TO NAKED CAPITALISM BUT ZEROHEDGE’S ARCHIVES ONLY SEEM TO GO BACK TO EARLY JANUARY OF 2009.” I went to nakedcapitalism.com and could not find any guest posts from Mr. Durden predating 2009. I probably missed something somehow. Or did I? Early January 2009, huh? Is ZH the blog equivalent of a “show trial”? Don’t know. But it behooves each of us to question everything, including ZeroHedge. I'm sure this post will now be promptly marked junk.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 08:19 | 10931 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Good comments. There's really no reason to register at this site. They should ban unregistered users and be done with it...

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 08:51 | 10945 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

You bring up a few good points, albeit rudely.

The junk label is a dumb idea. No matter how hard you try, utopia does not exist. As you try to whittle your group down to the 'perfect mix', eventually you'll start finding faults with everyone, and in the end you'll be all alone wondering what the hell happened.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:15 | 10957 Bob
Bob's picture

Slippery slopes exist, and every act potentially opens the door for one, but they don't necessarily make compelling arguments when taken to their extremes. They do, however, flag issues of concern, which is a good thing.  Flagging junk per se doesn't place ZH on the road to ruin, IMO.  There's stupid junk and there is toxic junk . . . and the latter must be controlled to preserve the community.  There's a balance of interests that must be weighed . . . just as in the physical world, where I cannot run around naked in public, regardless of how good it feels to me.  Somehow I don't see Tyler, Marla, et al becoming KGB censors.  Let's do be vigilant for it, (tongue in cheek), however! 

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:21 | 10965 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

The point is that the "community" will become smaller and smaller. Only those who profess the true religion will be allowed here, and that's a fringe and minuscule crowd.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:41 | 10985 Bob
Bob's picture

That would be suicidal for ZH. Revolutionaries like us are not the types who can be quietly retired.  Banning people or even posts for "political" reasons is what would be ZH's great undoing.  Risk a little trust here . . . and stay ever vigilant. 

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:35 | 10979 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

If I came across as rude, I sincerely apologize as that was not my intent. I was merely offering my two cents with regard to what I believe is the appropriate level of caution to be exercised when posting to this, or any other, site where anonymity is so fiercely guarded. Ultimately, when posting at such sites, you do not know with whom (or what) you are dealing.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:09 | 10956 Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden's picture

Promptly? I guess you underestimate your peers' tolerance.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:16 | 10959 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Whatever dude. Have you analyzed what comments have been junked already, their content, and how long it took for the "peers" to ban them? Have you unbanned any "junk" comments yet?

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:19 | 10964 Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden's picture

Why yes, the answer is zero to both.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:28 | 10970 Ben_the_Bald
Ben_the_Bald's picture

One of the very first comments in this post was mine and was junked. Check it out, because I can't find it as it was junked. But you should have the tools to dig it out from the bit bucket.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:34 | 10976 Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden's picture

Oddly I see nothing. I am sure it will eventually resurface from the bit bucket if indeed it was junked as you say. As for junking, it is a democratic process.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:49 | 10991 Bob
Bob's picture

I would argue that democracy does have its downside (consider history) and that sometimes apparently unpopular decisions must be made at the executive level . . . especially in cyber-anonymous communities.  I've seen them devolve into crap more than once.   

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 10:45 | 11026 Ben_the_Bald
Ben_the_Bald's picture

Well, I can guarantee you that it was junked. Within a few minutes of posting it it had 2 flags and after that I lost interest. When I looked for it this morning it was gone. The fact that you can't find mine might be the explanation of why you haven't found any junked comments. Take it to your developer.

 

The junked comment was a simple one-liner about how implementing such mechanism would give people an incentive not to register to this site. That was it.

 

I find your ideas of democracy quite disturbing, as what this is going to set up is an ideological purge by means of censorship. I don't take that lightly, even from libertarians that want to act as vigilantes.

 

 

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 10:58 | 11036 Bob
Bob's picture

Ah, the squeeking wheel is often the most important one.  The situation you describe is one that seems to be a major risk in allowing unregistered posts, much as I love the idealistic sentiment of same. 

Sounds like you got ganged-up on alright.  Ideological vigilantes . . . people find ways to game every system, so I will hope the developers will continue tweeking to stay ahead. 

 

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:30 | 10971 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

With all due respect sir, so you say/write. "What's the matter? I said, 'with all due respect.'"

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:31 | 10975 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Amen, Ben. My reply above was to Senor "Durden".

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:35 | 10977 crzyhun
crzyhun's picture

I think that the one prerequisite for this site should be watching "Brazil," Terry Gilliam, at least three times and, of course, "Fight Club" once.

Why?

We are closer to "Brazil" than "Fight Club" as we speak. I kid you not.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:49 | 10992 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

I'm going to add "Conspiracy Theory." Specifically, the scene where Mel Gibson's character explains to Julia Roberts' character who "they" are. Paraphrasing, "they are two groups but really sometimes they are just one group arguing with itself while we sit back and watch the whole damn dumb show." In other words, the citizenry remains in an entertainment-induced, dull fog about what may really be going on, rather than attempting to do something productive about it or something productive with their lives. On that note, I'm going to go out and do something productive with my life today.

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 10:04 | 11001 Bob
Bob's picture

Hell, the artists and "creatives" have been on these things for generations.  Entertaining "fiction" has been the only way they could get their ideas out--fierce critics are rarely appreciated by either the powers that be or their sheeple subjects. 

They have laid a helluva lot of the groundwork, however.  A comprehensive list of movies, books and music would be hundreds of thousands of entries long.

Not that I don't love my Fight Club!

Tue, 07/21/2009 - 09:42 | 10986 Danz Gambit
Danz Gambit's picture

The like/dislike system used by Digg or Youtube would be better, as you can quickly scan through the comments looking for the most liked ones, while avoiding the worthless trash posts.

 

But, no complaints here regardless. Love the work guys, keep on keeping on.

 

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