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Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

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Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#111

Post by rickhanlonii »

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…

FWIW they removed the individual upvoat/downvote counts because they were essentially made up

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#112

Post by erikpukinskis »

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…

Someone should make a site with giant agree/disagree buttons and then separate adds/detracts from discussion buttons in a separate menu.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#113

Post by treebeard901 »

thinkloop wrote: post #62
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.

Algorithms that are optimized to show more of what a user is interested in, shouldn't be equated to creating an echo chamber. A good algorithm could include variety and conflicting positions, if that's what the user shows affinity to. I don't think the concept should be discounted because of weak implementations.

> A good algorithm could include variety and conflicting positions, if that's what the user shows affinity to.

Most users will not show an affinity to conflicting positions. It is confirmation bias in action.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#114

Post by jokermatt999 »

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…

What lessons would you like to include on such a site? Off the top of my head, my favorite things about Hacker News: high level civil discourse, lack of humor (no, seriously, humor easily crowds out good discussion on other sites), excellent layout (collapsible tree comments), anonymous speech with ease to creating new accounts, light handed and responsive moderation. There's not much I don't like: narrow focus on tech rather than just general good content (but that is why it was created), no easy way to collapse a comment tree when you've scrolled partway through it, and... that's really it.

What specifically would you like to differently? I'm interested in more good discussion sites.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#115

Post by mejari »

agumonkey wrote: post #88
mejari wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can they not do exactly that with their subscriptions? Unsubscribe from AdviceAnimals and subscribe to AskHistorians.

There's a need for in-sub filtering too for non too specific subs. It's said to be possible with the Reddit Enhanced Suite thing ? but I never used it. I just echo what people say. Sure for very narrow subs, with adequate moderation manpower, the filtering can be done this way.

But you can accomplish the same thing by creating new more moderated subs. That's why we have /r/AskHistorians in addition to /r/history. If the sub isn't specific enough the solution shouldn't be to falsly and silently fragment the sub's users via user-side filtering, it's to explicitly split off a different community that behaves the way you want. In that way there is no "non too specific sub".

If you participate in a subreddit, but filter out 70% of the content, in what way are you participating?

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#116

Post by epistasis »

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.

It wasn't trump supporter comments, it was comments that said exactly "fuck spez." Misrepresenting it as "trump supporters" gives it a decidedly different, post-truth spin.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#117

Post by amitdeshwar »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #93
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…

> anonymity -- real anonymity -- tends to let you see peoples' real dark opinions No, it lets you see a narrow slice of people's real, dark opinions. There are a whole host of opinions you'll never see on Voat because the user base is antagonistic to the basic ideas which underpin them, so there's no point in trying to express them on that platform. For example, the notion that men are psychologically torturing women…

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "men are psychologically torturing women just by enacting common male body movement patterns in the workplace" ?

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#118

Post by erikpukinskis »

minimaxir wrote: post #41
notatoad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complaints like this are the reason companies are reluctant to release public datasets. They don't have any obligation to release data, but they do. It's a gift. If they have to consider "how will this change affect the consumers of our public data releases?" every time they make a change, they're going to stop releasing public datasets.

For clarity, the Reddit datasets are not released by Reddit itself, but scraped through the API. (More context/examples of what I do with the data: http://minimaxir.com/2015/10/reddit-bigquery/ )

An API is not scraping. Scraping is taking a loosely structure document with no agreed upon interface and extracting data.

A relevant comparison would be Craigslist who will use legal force to prevent you using data you scrape off the site.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#119

Post by epistasis »

jakebasile wrote: post #109
talmand wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, it was downvitre because it's inaccurate spin that is irrelevant to the conversation

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#120

Post by adamors »

criley2 wrote: post #91
rokosbasilisk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust is a fragile thing. Spez broke it repeatedly, even Ellen Pao said she would have fired him for editing user comments. Cant say I blame people for being paranoid.

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.

I mean, call them what you want but it lead to Brad Fitzpatrick who works on Golang to propose deleting their subreddit [1].

[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/golang-nuts/XoOhzUCl...

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