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Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

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Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#101

Post by azyback »

toxican wrote: post #59

It doesn't help that the CEO admitted to editing Trump supporter comments. I mean I couldn't care less about those people, but that is censorship and suppression and I can't blame people for viewing anything reddit does from now on with a bit of skepticism. But obviously it's not that bad because they've still chosen to make reddit their home.

"In what way did he alter comments?" really deflates the charge in my opinion.

He played a bad joke by swapping out his name for mods. Pretty tame stuff really. A stupid little regexp substituion prank of the kind programmers play all the time.

But yes, he did violate a trust. A sysadmin has a sacred duty and he violated it, but in a very mild way that is understandable and not a cause for future concern since he clearly realizes he made a big mistake.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#102

Post by 794CD01 »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #66
SEJeff wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a data driven scientist, if you were the king of Reddit, what would you do differently and why would it be better? Not playing devil's advocate, but just curious.

I (not who you asked, but...) would first start with a problem statement. I'm not sure what exactly they're trying to solve, yet.

I think their motto/slogan/whatever of "front page of the internet" is pretty straightforward.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#103

Post by pmarreck »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #80
djsumdog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's already like that. They removed the API that allowed RES to show you individual up/down votes per-post. They've banned tons of subs for varying levels of controversy. They removed their warranty canary. Their CEO was caught changing comments and they weren't asked to resign; got away with just an apology? I realize that Voat is a cesspool, but anonymity -- real anonymity -- tends to let you see peoples' real…

I'm afraid that our research group was the reason that Reddit removed access to the vote count. Not that it has stopped us from doing research on reddit... We submitted another paper a week or so ago, and will be releasing or dataset upon publication.

What does your research entail? Sounds tantalizing

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#104

Post by gdulli »

rokosbasilisk wrote: post #99
criley2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who's "trust" was broken are paranoid conspiracy-mongers who are provably nasty actors who use any opportunity to spread anti-establishment vitriol. Their paranoia is not justified, not to the extent of the conspiracy that they so routinely engage in. Just this week a man brought a rifle into a restaurant a fired a shot because of the conspiracy and vitriol of that side of reddit.

Well thats just not true, the community managers and ellen pao understood the repercussions of it. It destroys the legitimacy of all parts of the site and enflames conspiracies even more. People are not stupid, my first thought was how many times did he do this without getting caught.

Reddit is a content management system for stupidity and spam. Let's not pretend it's some pristine, important institution. Trolling the_donald could only have been a step in the right direction.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#105

Post by bpchaps »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #82
clamprecht wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redditor of 11 years here. I don't want another filter bubble that only shows me what it thinks I want to read (like Facebook). I want to see what other people are seeing, and not just like-minded people either. For that I can find subreddits and subscribe to them.

>I don't want another filter bubble that only shows me what it thinks I want to read (like Facebook). Some of the most interesting commentary on reddit are buried at -5 votes because almost all voting is an emotional reaction or treated as a "disagree/agree" button. I think its bad enough as-is. I don't want to see reddit build out a 'safe space' for me by analyzing my views and what subs I visit. If anything, I real…

I once had to raise a huge security risk to Comcast and resorted to a reddit post after very little luck raising it through official channels. It was a pretty sobering experience to how reddit users use downvotes for things they didn't understand or disagreed with. A lot of the downvotes came from folks who angrily commented that I was too vague. Giving specifics is just reckless, and if anything, I probably gave way too much information. Any less vague and it would have been out in the open.

Some official folk from Comcast eventually showed up and almost immediately got it fixed (!). Afterwords, there were posts about how "reddit saved the day again". The customer rep who helped out ended up getting more upvotes than any of my posts. I really don't get it.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#106

Post by duiker101 »

pmarreck wrote: post #94
djsumdog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's already like that. They removed the API that allowed RES to show you individual up/down votes per-post. They've banned tons of subs for varying levels of controversy. They removed their warranty canary. Their CEO was caught changing comments and they weren't asked to resign; got away with just an apology? I realize that Voat is a cesspool, but anonymity -- real anonymity -- tends to let you see peoples' real…

Serious question- Do you think there's room for a new discussion site which embraced all these lessons that other discussion sites seem to perpetually be ignoring (perhaps due to simple entrenchment)? Because I have oft floated the idea of starting just such a site. Anyway, I somehow (as an avid Reddit user) missed the news that they lost their warrant canary (probably because I unsubbed from almost all the default s…

I guess the problems come with the fame. As long as you are a small site, you can do pretty much whatever you want, but as you grow, you have to compromise in some way. You can bend to advertisers and lose some of freedom, or go down the chan way and get a name that reflects what you have to offer and probably have a revenue that is consistent with that.

On top of that , there's the fact that the average user, simply doesn't care about all this freedoms or number of upvotes and stuff like that. They just want content and reddit right now has enough for everyone.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#107

Post by gthtjtkt »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #61
clamprecht wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redditor of 11 years here. I don't want another filter bubble that only shows me what it thinks I want to read (like Facebook). I want to see what other people are seeing, and not just like-minded people either. For that I can find subreddits and subscribe to them.

Exactly this. That's what I love about the front page, it's the front page of the Internet, not my front page. Of course, reddit has its own bubbles to deal with, but in general I like the different perspectives I'm given.

> it's the front page of the Internet, not my front page

It's your front page, but the method of filtering is a little different. It's gradually turned into an echo chamber filled with like-minded people, and everyone else has been driven off the site or forced to post in "fringe" subreddits that you'll never see unless you make a concerted effort to seek them out.

And that's one of the biggest problems with filter bubbles: You're so insulated from reality that you don't even realize you're in one.

Reddit is one of the worst filter bubbles on the internet. All of the top "informative" subreddits are (or have been) heavily censored by cliques of moderators who rule by opinion: Politics, News, WorldNews, etc. Even /r/Videos and gaming subreddits are heavily censored. Try talking about legacy WoW in /r/WoW and watch how fast all your posts are deleted. Most of them will be automatically filtered by AutoModerator keywords.

Or look at how much coverage all the WikiLeaks releases received during the election. Arguably one of the most important stories of the election cycle, yet without /r/The_Donald (which Reddit is now trying to suffocate and ban), there would've been zero sign of them on Reddit.

That's what happens when you let unpaid volunteers rule without rules.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#108

Post by Anasufovic »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #84
rm999 wrote: post #30

It's pretty clear to me that Reddit has always lacked a solid experienced science-driven data person. Someone who can pinpoint an issue, formulate the issue into a product-driven concrete problem, come up with hypotheses on how to fix the problem, then use their vast wealth of data and users to test and/or implement them. It's not just the ad hoc unintuitive "solution" they came up with to mask votes (which most peop…

I absolutely fucking love Reddit's lack of "personalised content discovery". The equivalent in any other platform is awful.

So far the only curated list I've liked is Google Now's news feed and Quora is OK but lately the big discussions have been about simpler topics such as physical looks.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#109

Post by jakebasile »

talmand wrote: post #72
toxican wrote: post #59

It doesn't help that the CEO admitted to editing Trump supporter comments. I mean I couldn't care less about those people, but that is censorship and suppression and I can't blame people for viewing anything reddit does from now on with a bit of skepticism. But obviously it's not that bad because they've still chosen to make reddit their home.

Why the downvotes? The CEO did admit to committing such anti-user actions.

It's being downvoted because the comment attempted to show empathy for people with different viewpoints. This cannot be allowed.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#110

Post by cbr »

djsumdog wrote: post #63
clamprecht wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redditor of 11 years here. I don't want another filter bubble that only shows me what it thinks I want to read (like Facebook). I want to see what other people are seeing, and not just like-minded people either. For that I can find subreddits and subscribe to them.

But it's already like that. They removed the API that allowed RES to show you individual up/down votes per-post. They've banned tons of subs for varying levels of controversy. They removed their warranty canary. Their CEO was caught changing comments and they weren't asked to resign; got away with just an apology? I realize that Voat is a cesspool, but anonymity -- real anonymity -- tends to let you see peoples' real…

> Google requires real profiles for YouTube comments now

This was rolled back a couple years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/16/youtube-t...

(Disclosure: I work for Google, on unrelated things.)

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