ACTA Signed By 22 EU Countries 138
First time accepted submitter azrael29a writes "22 EU members signed the controversial ACTA treaty today in Tokyo. However, the signatures of the EU member states and the EU itself will count for nothing unless the European Parliament gives its approval to ACTA in June."
Sure its my signature (Score:3, Insightful)
Gotta love politics.
Re:Say no to ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll have to admit, I'm having trouble understanding why so many nations want to sign this monstrosity. Why the US wants it globally accepted is obvious, we don't really manufacturer what we used to. A significant portion of our economy has moved to a creating ideas, instead of things, then selling those ideas at massively inflated prices. But why other nations would fight so hard to get this kind of thing implemented in their own countries, which won't benefit them, but in fact will likely be a determent to them, such treaties/legislation. Is there massive amounts of money paying off foreign politicians behind the scenes that I'm not seeing.
Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:2, Insightful)
Regarding your starred points, apparently copied and pasted from somewhere else because you're missing the hyperlink about the poll:
* Hyperbolic moderation is common in all environments. This is why YouTube eliminated a 1-5 star rating system in favour of thumbs up/thumbs down. As for modding down first? People hold negative opinions more readily than positive ones. That's nothing new; that's a symptom of the sickness of human culture, just like soap operas, tabloids, and Fox News. If you want people to up-moderate first, you need a community of enlightened people.
* Thresholds have a lot to do with this. Someone with a karma bonus may show up at +2 by default; once a post is down to 0 some people may not even see it any more. It's an "out of sight, out of mind" thing.
* Thresholds again. No one hears your screams.
* That's kinda subjective and up to debate.
Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation (Score:3, Insightful)
The last few months I have been doing some research into the trolling phenomenon on slashdot.org. In order to do this as thoroughly as possible, I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results:
* More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up. Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post slashdot.org. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4.
* Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards. Presumably these Nazi Moderators think it's more important to burn a user's existing karma, to silence that individual for the future, than to use the moderation system for what it's meant for : identifying "good" and "bad" posts (Notice how nearly all oppressive governments in the past and present do the same thing : marking individuals as bad and untrustworthy because they have conflicting opinions, instead of engaging in a public discussion about these opinions)
* Once you have a karma of -4 or -5, your posts have a score of -1 by default. When this is the case, no-one bothers to mod you down anymore. This means a logged in user can keep on trolling as much as he (or she) likes, without risking a ban to post on slashdot. When trolling as an anonymous user, every post starts at score 0, and you will be modded down to -1 ON EVERY POST. When you are modded down a certain number of times in 24 hour, you cannot post anymore from your current IP for a day or so. So, for successful trolling, ALWAYS log in.
* A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever, funny, etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic. Now, on a news site like slashdot, where the number of different topics of discussion can be counted on 1 hand, I must say I quite like the distraction these posts offer. But no, when the topic is yet another minor version change of the Linux kernel, they only expect ooohs and aaahs about this great feat of engineering. Look at the moderation done in this thread to see what I mean.
Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll, which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.
Feel free to use this information to your advantage. I thank you for your time.
Anonymous cowards are... well, cowards.
I think that your results aren't shocking at all, nor are they interesting.
1) More of your posts are modded down than up because, as you say, you write troll posts. I have 10 posts modded up per post modded down, and yes, when I get modded down it's normally because I'm in a bad mood and decide to be a jerk.
2) Many moderators seem to read at +1, so they don't even see things that come from unmoderated ACs. Furthermore, when I moderate I tend not to bother modding down an AC for being off topic, for instance, because at 0 the AC probably won't be noticed enough to derail meaningful discussion. If a registered user with good karma posts something quite off topic, there's more of a reason to down moderate because at 2 it's more of a speed bump than the same post made by an AC at 0.
3) So? Why should anyone care?
4) This last point depends on your personal ability to evaluate whether things are clever, funny, etc. Based your post, I don't think you're likely to be a valuable resource in this regard.
It's almost like you're trying to insinuate that moderators act in some sort of diabolical cooperation. This obviously isn't the case. Slashdot uses crowd sourced moderation, which is what makes it Slashdot. More valued members of the community try to maintain the standards of that community. I actually think Slashdot moderation is one of the most functional things in the history of the internet.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not nations, people
>
Money.
Re:Say no to ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you hear that? (Score:4, Insightful)
That is the sound of inevitability... It is the sound of corporate rule.
Ha ha, just kidding. I'm sure the EP will fight for the rights of its people. :-D
Re:It isn't so much (Score:5, Insightful)
Borrowing Animal Farm:
"And then they looked from the government to the corporation, from the corporations back to the government, and they were unable to tell the difference."
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
As wikileaks has shown, the USA government is the one forcing them to sign. And they only need to force a handful of countries. Funny part is, they actually need this.
As said above, USA's economy is now creating ideas, no, don't confuse that with research, but ideas, which can be patented and sued over.
Problem is, while the world is forced to play by their rules, the Chinese on the other hand will have no problem ignoring them. So we'll have to buy from the Chinese everything we need, because our companies will be sued to hell and back for anything they try to create.
To the USA, keep pushing, when somebody will push back you'll probably break your neck.
Re:No vote required. It's a done deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to have missed the part where the Senate has to vote to accept any treaty. Clinton signed Kyoto, but the Senate unanimously rejected it anyway.
Re:French MEP calls it a 'charade' (Score:2, Insightful)
Not saying they are great. But they are a whole lot better than what we had until now.
They gave a *real* punishment to Microsoft. (Things like: $x million a *day* until they pay up *and* change Windows.)
They punished Germany for not removing the Deutsche Telekom (ex-government phone company) monopoly quickly enough.
And lots of similar actually good things.
The problem is, that any group can only stand against professional social engineering for so long. And I guess with them being information science n00bs, it was pretty easy to make them actually believe one could "own" information. /. believe in "IP", use the word as if it was normal, and really think that it would have anything to do with "protecting artists", rather than enslaving them. And they believe it because of the very same brainwashing that they don't have the power to fight.
Hell, even some 'tards here on
Fuck those who signed ACTA. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's your answer. (Score:4, Insightful)
What I find odd is that Germany didn't sign it. That's the biggest economic power in the EU. I'd like to see the reason for that.
I think you've answered your own question. They are solidly standing on their own feet, and thus are less willing to bend over in response to bullying.
They have every reason to (Score:5, Insightful)
The wealthy members of every nation are, naturally, united in their desire to remain wealthy. The introduction of globally-enforced artificial scarcity appears to be a great way of doing that. It isn't like the wealthy members of EU would rather see ACTA vanish, but are bowing their heads in submission to America. They are happily jumping at the chance to enter into such an agreement, because it directly benefits them. Or so they think.
Such oppression will only fan the flames of rebellion, and law enforcement will always have limits.
Re:Tokyo? (Score:4, Insightful)
You must be new here.