The news mod team has asked to no longer be a part of the project until we have a composite tool that polls multiple sources for a more balanced view.

It will take a few hours, but FOR NOW there won’t be a bot giving reviews of the source.

The goal was simple: make it easier to show biased sources. This was to give you and the mods a better view of what we were looking at.

The mod team is in agreement: one source of truth isn’t enough. We are working on a tool to give a composite score, from multiple sources, all open source.

  • MindTraveller@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Don’t grade sources on leftness or rightness. It’s relative. Aggregation doesn’t fix the problem of Overton shift.

  • Five@slrpnk.netEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Rule 1 Ban Count: 5

    • @LagrangePoint@lemmy.world (Permaban)
    • @aniki@lemmings.world (15 day ban)
    • @catloaf@lemm.ee (15 day ban)
    • @DoctorButts@kbin.melroy.org (Permaban)
    • @stormesp@lemm.ee (15 day ban)

    Not a good look, mods.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    IMO no need for any bot. As long as articles are factually correct there should be no problem where they are from.

    I know someone spent a lot of time writing a cool bot, but sometimes less is more.

  • bzz@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    No one wants this bot. In the last thread asking for feedback there was an overwhelming majority that did not want it. You’re attached to it because you made it. People don’t want it. It happens. Stop it.

    • JonsJava@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      I didn’t make the bot. I’m working on the aggregate tool, which isn’t developed yet.

      The votes were overwhelmingly more positive than negative about it. We had the vocal minority against it, but the ones who wanted it let it be known.

        • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
          0·
          3 months ago

          About half of the unique comments by my count are suggestions for improvements or expressions of support. The 10 posts with the most downvotes are all requests to remove the bot.

          Let’s be realistic - this is far from consensus.

          • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
            0·
            3 months ago

            The 10 posts with the most downvotes are all requests to remove the bot.

            These are some highlights from the top 12 posts sorted by “top”…

            1. “My personal view is to remove the bot.”
            2. “One problem I’ve noticed is that the bot doesn’t differentiate between news articles and opinion pieces.”
            3. "You don’t need every post to have a comment basically saying “this source is ok”
            4. “I think it should be removed”
            5. “My personal view is that the bot provides a net negative, and should be removed.” <- me
            6. “Partisan fact-checking sites are worse than no fact-checking at all.”
            7. “Remove it.”
            8. “MBFC’s ratings for “factual reporting” are a joke.”
            9. “This thread is a mess.” <- also me, sorry
            10. “The bot is basically a spammer saying “THIS ARTICLE SUCKS EVEN THOUGH I DIDN’T READ IT” on every damn post. If that was a normal user account you’d ban it.”
            11. “The majority of feedback has been negative. I can’t recall a single person arguing in its favor, but I can think of many, myself included, arguing against it.”
            12. “In literally every thread I’ve seen it post in, it gets downvoted to hell.”

            To put it charitably, 2 and 6 are only mildly critical or express tepid support, at best. The remainder are… something less than supportive.

            I understand that this is not a democracy, and that it’s ultimately up to your good selves to guide the community as you see fit. However, I think there are valid criticisms to be made regarding your collective ability to engage with feedback.

              • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
                0·
                3 months ago

                I’m sorry if I come across as preachy in the below post, but I wanted to try and explain to you where the critique is coming from. And also that it’s not personal or any widespread resentment.

                I (and many others) get what a thankless and also necessary job moderating is. It’s not easy to do it well, it’s frustrating, it’s thankless and without it the community would be dead. But being a moderator and sticking out your neck brings you exposure and you are guaranteed to meet more asshats than you ever thought existed. But the users are not one homogenous group, it’s not because one user has flung abuse at moderators, that all users are now suddenly resentful of moderators.

                The person you are replying to, put a good bit of time in listing what comments were most up voted, which are probably the comments that found most support amongst the users in that thread. In the same way that we should not be dismissive of what you do or say, you shouldn’t be dismissive of what others do or say (or up vote). Mutual respect and all that.

                Self reflection is also important, it’s important to realize and accept that it is possible to be wrong about something. Doing a mea culpa and moving on is far easier in the long term than doubling down and digging a deeper hole, yet it’s a lot rarer because it hurts our ego in the short term.

                Their final point about a problem with handling feedback rings true to me:

                • You (not you personally, but the team that did that feedback thread) have apparently treated up- and down votes on a thread as a poll and a popular mandate for action, but up- and down votes are not a poll and most (probably most) people don’t use them as such.

                • Up- and down votes on comments are useful for finding which remarks resonated with or turned away other users. They are not a poll either, and most upvoted are not automatically most correct at all, but they give you a chance to read the room.

                • You (now you personally) have thrown shade on the people that up voted comments against the bot, by insinuating that those people might have been bots themselves and that therefore their opinions are irrelevant. Yes it’s possible that there are some users using alts, but all those users? Not very likely.

                • The best feedback I saw in that thread was not in the up or down votes, it was in the comments themselves. There were some very compelling arguments as to why using a biased site to display bias, was a bad idea. Those comments also had quite a bit of upvotes, so the way I read the room, that was a popular sentiment.

                • The person you are replying to made a few arguments and one scathing critique which they probably hoped that you would improve on in the future. Imo a polite disagreement with your previous statements. You respond by being dismissive of his arguments and acting like it’s a personal attack. They were sticking to facts, you’re making it about you as a person. I really don’t think that was their intent.

              • Five@slrpnk.netEnglish
                0·
                3 months ago

                As stated elsewhere in the thread, my vote audit shows no participation from any of the 29 banned sock accounts the in the !news feedback thread, or this one for that matter. Please take the votes more seriously. If you’d like to spread FUD about the legitimacy of a vote, ask an admin to audit them first so you can state with evidence that a specific vote has been manipulated.

                People trust the software to tell them what others are thinking, and if you successfully spread the false idea that votes that disagree with you are manipulated, you’re not just arguing in bad faith, you’re undermining the federated system we should all want to succeed.

            • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
              0·
              3 months ago

              However, I think there are valid criticisms to be made regarding your collective ability to engage with feedback.

              I don’t think that the mod team has ever said that there is not some valid criticism. Feedback from the community (not just the !News community) is precisely why we have made multiple changes to the way this functions, the layout, and inclusion of different sources.

              There is a vocal minority of the community that feels the need to swear, engage in personal attacks, manipulate votes, accuse others of being paid actors, insist that “everyone” agrees with them, and so forth, which does tend to make it difficult to engage in a forthright discussion about what is best for the community.

              • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
                0·
                3 months ago

                I don’t think that the mod team has ever said that there is not some valid criticism.

                That’s not what an inability to engage with feedback means though, it means genuinely listening to the perspectives of others even in cases where it’s inconvenient, unexpected, unpleasant, and yes in some cases presented in an offensive manner.

                That doesn’t mean you need to just allow people to spew hatred and vitriol at you - of course you can call out that kind of behavior where you see it. It’s probably fair to say that some Lemmy users would struggle to express themselves on topics they feel strongly about without being offensive.

                That said, I suspect that a lot of the vitriol you’ve encountered on this topic has in some part been provoked by the mods collective reluctance to actually acknowledge the many shortcomings of this bot or any potential reincarnation.

                I mean the following in as congenial a manner as possible, but the comment of yours I replied to earlier (regarding the most downvoted comments in the other thread) seemed quite dismissive. You may not have intended it as such, nevertheless that’s how it appears. Engaging with that feedback would mean considering the actual content of those comments with a charitable attitude? JonsJava similarly quoting vote counts for the other post as a means to disregard concerns.

                Again, in as congenial and constructive a manner as possible, Blackbeard has revealed that there has been some vote manipulation which I acknowledge has frustrated things from your perspective, but again the narrative that “there is a vocal minority opposing the bot and inflating comments in opposition to the bot” is dismissive of the very real issues extant.

                I’m not alone in feeling exasperated by the cycle of request feedback > dismiss feedback.

                • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
                  0·
                  3 months ago

                  None of the feedback has been dismissed. I don’t know how to say that any more clearly.

                  We read every comment. We have worked with other moderators of multiple communities to implement changes based on the feedback we received from the very beginning. This thread is just one of those examples. The mods and users are on the same side in this effort.

                  Please understand: the only people who are dismissing user feedback are other users when they say things like “no one wants this.” That’s literally dismissing the many users who express that they find it beneficial. We are working on developing community resources that will meet the needs of most of the people here. That process takes time because we are an asyncronous team of volunteers.

                  Edit: I should note that the “no one wants this” comment was not meant as a personal attack. I only intended it as a typical example of a reductive, unhelpful, and dismissive comment. I didn’t realize until after that you posted another comment on this thread that was substantially similar. My apologies for the inadvertent example.

          • stormesp@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            Are you joking or something? Have you read any of the comments on that thread or this one? I really cant get how denial the mod team on some .world lemmy communities can be.

            • JonsJava@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              I read every comment. As I’m a mod here, I will only be civil, so I am keeping all my thoughts to myself. Have a good day.

              • stormesp@lemm.eeEnglish
                0·
                3 months ago

                And you have the balls to cite the upvotes on that thread as an argument when you know for a fact most feedback is against the concept of the bot itself? People upvoted that thread because the title made it seem the mod team was willing to do something.

  • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Keep it gone. MBFC and others are not a source of truth.

    Adding multiple sources of bias does not produce an unbiased result.

    • JonsJava@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Ok. Think your response through.

      That means all news outlets are biased as well. This is why we want something that gives a composite score. If all sources say “this news outlet is shit”, maybe we take it with a grain of salt, or maybe we black list it. At a minimum, it helps mods and readers get a context of the content.

      • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        3 months ago

        I think the problem arises from the fact that I don’t know what you mean by “this news outlet is shit”. Maybe we can define exactly what we mean here and block such news sites from being posted.

        I don’t think bias can be correlated with article quality, and we should be engaging with articles and ideas based on the merits within, not some aggregate made up thing like “bias”. I’m not saying it’s not a real thing, just that it’s made up and subjective enough to be in my view a useless measure and a fruitless endeavour to get a meaningful measure in the first place.

        If you want a bunch of opinions on the usefulness of an article then we have votes already.

        Obviously I don’t have the context of a mod, so if there are specific cases where you need a bias rating, however flawed, to do that job effectively then sure but I think that’s best developed as say a browser extension (or maybe one exists already) so it’s at least opt in.

        EDIT: Also want to say I appreciate both the call for feedback and also the decision to opt out of the bot for now.

        • JonsJava@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          Sorry for any confusion. We’re moving away from bias - that’s the goal, at least.

          News source being “shit” examples:

          • A Voice for Men
          • The Activist Mommy
          • Adams County Times
          • Akron Reporter
          • Albany Standard
          • American College of Pediatricians
          • Ames Today
          • Antelope Valley Today
          • Baltimore City Wire
          • Benton Times
          • Bloomington Leader

          I could go on, but I’m at work right now.

          • stormesp@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            3 months ago

            Can you tell me how many articles from those sources were shared the last month? Because i havent seen many or any at all, but meanwhile i have seen Al jhazeera and other news outlets being called not credible without much basis. If the information shared on an article is not factually correct, you can write a message or edit the title so people can know it or even remove the thread if it can be harmful, but what the mod team here is doing is just absurd. The goal should be to get rid of the bot already.

    • batmaniam@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      2nd. It’s just not necessary. Frankly what’s more off putting is the outright bizarre insistence on the mods part and outright denial of feedback. If the bot comes back I’m blocking the community, there are other streams for news.

      Edit: didn’t realize the “new and improved” bot is back. Good luck yall.

        • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          3 months ago

          If everyone who doesn’t like the bot blocks it, people entering the community will see the bot upvoted. That will mean they assume the general consensus is that the bot is trustworthy and accurate.

  • qevlarr@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    Why do you insist on fixing the bot instead of directing your energy elsewhere? Fixing the media bias bot to not have any bias is a fool’s errand.

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
      0·
      3 months ago

      The last sticky thread actually had some really good feedback, like using a fact checker that is part of the International Fact Checking Network (of which MBFC is not a member) and many other similarly great suggestions.

      One of the issues might be in the name. We don’t want to create a bias bot. That seems like a fool’s errand, which is one thing we learned in the process of implementing the MBFC bot. We want to create something that makes people aware of posts that are from medium to low quality sources. Obviously, if the source is super sketchy, we’d delete it, but there’s a lot of grey area where we leave things up.

      • qevlarr@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        Mods should take note that this is how you listen to community feedback. Some actual learning is happening here, instead of doubling down we saw in the other thread

        • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
          0·
          3 months ago

          The other thread was an attempt to gauge feedback on specific ideas (as this post mentions, they are so in the works) and it precipitated this post

          • qevlarr@lemmy.world
            0·
            3 months ago

            The other thread started from the assumption that the bot is useful and here to stay, even though the overwhelming feedback has been that it sucks and should be removed. It was a transparent attempt to increase support for it instead of an honest attempt at feedback. People still gave their feedback, of course, that the stupid bot should be put out to pasture.

            At least now we’re seeing the bot is gone until improvements are made, the bias stuff is gone, the bot shouldn’t even appear except in select cases. That’s totally different than what they’re saying in the other thread.