FAQ -- What is a Trusted User?

Talk to Action, like other major blogs uses a system called "Mojo." This system allows site members to indicate what comments are "excellent" "troll" and points in between. All users can rate all comments, except their own, between 1 and 5. Comment ratings are combined into a weighted average, with new comments counting more than older ones. This standing is known as "Mojo".

Users who have achieved a certain mojo, and who have posted enough comments, are considered "trusted" users. This means you have the added capability to rate comments a zero and to see comments that have been hidden, because they fell below the minimum rating.

This is a great responsibility for you. It means you've earned the right to peer-review content from untrusted users. We rely on you to rate as much as you can, and to help keep the comments as high quality, civil and on topic as possible.

Please use your "zero" rating with care! If you think the poster is clueless, or an idiot, or you just don't agree with them, that is *not* grounds for a zero rating. Zero is for comments that are offensive, script-generated, or persistently off topic, or otherwise intended solely to annoy and/or abuse other readers.

Please do not rate duplicate comments 0 for the sole reason that they are duplicates Almost all duplicate comments are accidental. An e-mail to [TTA admin] notifying us of the duplicate (please include direct link to the comment) is the appropriate response, if the duplicate comment is somehow disruptive of the thread.

Please also read the hidden comments, and rate them up if they truly deserve to be viewable. We want to see justice done, and you can make it happen. But also please do not abuse your own trusted user status by rating trollish comment back up because you disagree with the system of disappearing abusive comments. Efforts to undermine the self-policing mojo system is grounds for banning.

Trusted User status and the responsibility that goes with it, does not really change your status on this site. Your ratings and recommendations do not carry any extra weight or power, beyond perhaps thier influence on others. You do get to see for yourself the comments of those whose comments have been troll rated off of the site. You get to see the dreck because of the excellence of your own comments in the view of your fellow comments. It is an honor with an admittedly with an unusual reward. But the power to banish trollish comments is vital to the health and vitality of the site and we are all grateful when you exercise this responsibility in the spirit of helping to keep the conversation civil and on topic.