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Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

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Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#161

Post by eli »

talmand wrote: post #125
rokosbasilisk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. I am absolutely shocked at how many simply do not get the ramifications of that simple action. In some countries you can go to jail for your post history.

I'm shocked at how many people are so upset. Maybe you should be PGP signing your posts if their integrity is your top concern.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#162

Post by justinlaster »

rfrank wrote: post #151
justinlaster wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a completely disingenuous take on what was stated. The subreddit in question specifically and continually used the tool in a negative, unconstructive manner, which is obviously not what it is designed for. Other subreddits use the mod tool in various ways that don't have anything to do with the explicit purpose of stickied posts, which I pointed out, but notice I didn't label that as abuse.

> The subreddit in question specifically and continually used the tool in a negative, unconstructive manner I don't think that's true, I think you just don't like the content.

The admins and a sizable portion, if not the majority, of reddit think it's true. It's also odd that you seem to forget that the content in question was specifically and continually addressed to the rest of the community in an often aggressive manner. Hardly any active and constructive discussion, political or otherwise, took place on those threads. Indeed it's hard for that to ever happen when your mods immediately ban anyone who doesn't fit a certain mold.

Notice that after the tool was limited, the frequency at which posts show up on the front page was severely decreased. The posts were not being upvoted because of the content, they were being upvoted specifically to get the thread to the front page and often with no constructive purpose.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#163

Post by colmvp »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #107
pfarnsworth wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

I couldn't agree more. In theory, Reddit is a balanced website because of having upvotes/downvotes, yet it couldn't be more obvious on a lot of subreddits that there are slants towards certain ideologies. /r/politics for example swayed heavily between certain candidates during the primaries and election in way that was at times largely hyperbolic. On sports subreddit, heaven forbid something social or political gets submitted.

Often, I learn more from watching two people from opposing sides debate a controversial topic via a podcast than reading debates on Reddit whereby it's usually a popular opinion that is defended by a majority of subredditors vs. one dissenting voice that may have a legitimate argument (e.g. asking for proof of allegations towards a certain President-Elect).

Also strangely, questions that elicit excellent discussion can often even get downvoted. I think that even if you ask a question based on a faulty premise, you shouldn't get downvoted if you have the openness to admit your ignorance and help others understand a point of view. By downvoting those questions or opinions, it only pushes that potentially popular viewpoint down to the bottom, whereby instead of helping others who may have the same POV understand the counterargument and enable true discussion between two viewpoint, it can make one side feel ostracized and unwelcome.

I'll even give a specific example: On the topic of encryption and privacy, I'm sure some people believe that "Well, I have nothing to hide, so why should I care about a government who wants to expand their surveillance capacity if I know I'm not a terrorist?" I feel like on /r/technology or /r/politics you'd get downvoted for that question, despite the fact that I'm sure a lot of readers have that particular point of view and could benefit from having someone gently articulate counterarguments.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#164

Post by [deleted] »

vosper wrote: post #147
minimaxir wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/ )

Does this mean you (or I if I want to do some analytics on Reddit data) will need to completely rescrape the site after scores are recomputed?

[deleted]

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#165

Post by epistasis »

jakebasile wrote: post #157
epistasis wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't about Trump at all, thus the spin, and introducing unnecessary politics. >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. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13124802

The edited comments were on r/the_donald, and he changed them to point to r/the_donald moderators. You have to be doing some serious mental gymnastics to think that it wasn't against "those Trump supporters". And here's the thing: it doesn't matter. An admin of a site (the CEO even!) edited users' comments without permission, notification, or apparent consequence. This can lead to users distrusting the site.

I'm not the one performing gymnastics here. They were personal insults to spez, not related to Trump at all.

And the only reason that it matters is that the comment misrepresents reality on that front. Destroying trust is still relevant info, but it's also important to correct political spin to actual fact.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#166

Post by coreyp_1 »

minimaxir wrote: post #96
coreyp_1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's unlikely. For clarification, only the breakdown of up/downs was hidden, not the overall score, and it was hidden because when people saw posts with tons of downvotes, it invited more downvotes.

Alexis Ohanian visits Notre Dame, & specifically meets with my advisor. We show them what we are working on in regards to analyzing Reddit (probably not the wisest thing to show them a work in progress, before all the data is collected). They're not thrilled about it. A few weeks later, a crucial part of the information is gone.

You tell me.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#167

Post by criley2 »

talmand wrote: post #128
gdulli wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're fine with it today because it's a group you don't like. What about tomorrow when the same thing will be applied to a group you do like?

>You're fine with it today because it's a group you don't like. What about tomorrow when the same thing will be applied to a group you do like?

Then I'll leave. Simple as that.

I don't want an anarchist site where malicious actors and nasty people are free to race to the bottom because we're afraid of polite society.

The Founding Fathers of America differentiated between Liberty and Freedom.

Freedom is anarchy, but Liberty is freedom with common sense restriction. Liberty is freedom from onerous interference.

I don't want a Free Reddit, I want a Reddit that respects Liberty.

Not a Reddit which lets maliciousness exist because it can, but one which has common sense restrictions to create a better community.

It's no secret that far-more-strict control on Hacker News produces far-better outcomes for discussion than Reddit.

The hands-off approach to Reddit creates a race to the bottom for trolling and nastiness.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#168

Post by fabian2k »

scott_ni wrote: post #158
fabian2k wrote: post #150

One aspect I don't understand is why Reddit allows new accounts to vote from the beginning. You don't even need to verify an email address, you can just start voting (unless they're doing something sneaky and ignore those votes). I'm comparing this to Stack Overflow, where you need 10 reputation to vote. This is a pretty trivial barrier, but it does mean that you need to put more effort into each sock puppet to be ab…

On the other hand, requiring reputation could incentivize spamming and worthless posts. For example, if you already have an automated voting bot, why not make it upvote your new bot accounts to transfer "rep" and allow more upvotes?

That is one of the things I meant by "more obvious patterns". That works of course, but you also create connections in the other direction now as well for your vote fraud.

There is another effect that probably doesn't apply to Reddit, but on Stack Overflow it can be pretty noticeable if you upvote crappy posts by your socks too much, and someone will investigate.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#169

Post by gdulli »

talmand wrote: post #128
gdulli wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're fine with it today because it's a group you don't like. What about tomorrow when the same thing will be applied to a group you do like?

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html
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