Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#111

Post by doubleunplussed » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

Nexxxeh wrote: post #102

doubleunplussed wrote: post #39

It was a seriously cool experiment. Factions rose and fell, alliances were forged, battles waged, "rules of war" developed. It was amazing. But I don't think there's much to be gained from pontificating about it as a model for preventing hate speech. For one, it was moderated. The slow speed of creating things just meant it was easier on moderators. Secondly, the main thing that made it mostly pleasant was that only…

>Minority ideas, whether good or bad, could not (even the art from small communities was only allowed to exist via alliances with larger communities that could easily destroy their art) I'd disagree. /r/wales and /r/faroeislands have less than 7k subscribers between us. We had no bots, just a few people in a Discord channel. Actual: https://i.imgur.com/GtkaGlJl.png SCtester Cleanup: http://i.imgur.com/GQCTigC.png Wal…

Sure but the heart was there at the pleasure of the heart people, and the dragon beneath the UK flag at the pleasure of the UK people. If either of them wasn't cool with wales, they could have gotten rid of them (I'm not sure about the other one but I suspect there were conversations and agreements with surrounding art not to expand into each others' territories).

Other, larger groups that did not have alliances with others failed to gain traction - Trump fans failed to draw Trump even though there are more of them than welsh people. Their numbers were large, but they did not have the favour of the majority.

The OSU people, though nobody had an opinion on them beforehand, did a poor job of diplomacy, and as a result really struggled to stay on the canvas.

It was about who was in the good books of the larger factions more than anything else. If rainbowroad or the germans liked you, you were golden. If OSU liked you, well, that wasn't worth much.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#112

Post by sooheon » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

rmccoy6435 wrote: post #57

eatitraw wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think there is anything actually political on the final /r/place piece other than country flags. There are various flags of different anarchist movements, very long trans* flag, LGBT flags here and there. IMO, all these count as "actually political".

I think that's an interesting conversation to have. I didn't know there were anarchist flags on there, could you link me to some of them, I'm curious to see. As for the LGBT flags, I don't view those as political but rather as communities within reddit that together make up a large userbase who were committed to protecting each other's art and flags.

> as communities within reddit that together make up a large userbase who were committed to protecting each other's art and flags.

What is this if not politics? Politics isn't a dirty word you know...

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#113

Post by 2bitencryption » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

aryamaan wrote: post #110

rmccoy6435 wrote: post #6

I think this was a pretty neat experiment. For the first 24 hours everything was chaos, then it settled down in the middle as communities formed, then at the end it was just annoying as every subreddit was trying to take over real-estate, and far too many people were taking it way too seriously. It got annoying going to certain subreddits that I subscribe to for content started getting flooded with "Man the decks, we…

And another thing I found quite interesting is that people were able to coordinate with each other to make it something planned. I was feeling it would turn out to be some chaos because it's so easy to screw it up. ELI5, how people didn't screw it.

> ELI5, how people didn't screw it.

In the beginning there is chaos -- then, through persistence and random chance, SOMEONE's idea gets completed without it getting screwed up. Now there's a clear image that has come out of the chaos.

Whenever someone screws up the image by adding in a "bad" pixel, they need to wait 5-10 minutes to add another. In that time, everyone who can see the image knows that it got screwed up, and they realize the biggest impact they can make is fixing it. "I did it. I fixed the image!" vs "I dropped a random pixel in a sea of blue, accomplishing nothing."

So eventually, out of chaos comes creation, and then when that creation is threatened, the biggest impact an individual can make with their limited resources of pixels is to fix and defend the creations.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#114

Post by freeflight » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #48

darkstar999 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more about reddit being able to sell ads than anything else. I'd say it falls under: > Threatens, harasses, or bullies or encourages others to do so

While some users might feel that way, I'm not sure how an image (which is a collection of pixels on a screen that has many different historical interpretations) would threaten, harass or bully someone. Or incite it. Of course, these days ad networks are hyper-sensitive about this topic, so from an advertising perspective it does make sense.

Might have more to do with criminal liability due to certain countries straight up banning the symbol, like Germany [0]. In addition to that, the German law does hold operators of websites liable for any law-breaking comments/posts/whatever made by users of the site [1].

If somebody spreads something illegal on your comments/forums/whatever, and you fail to delete it, the German state will hold you, as the operator of said site, responsible and not the person who actually posted that stuff.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

[1] http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2007/06/11/meinprofde...

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#115

Post by eropple » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #96

eropple wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christianity is a completely political phenomenon (as a cursory historical examination will demonstrate) and public advocacy of it is a political act. Similarly, most things, including fandoms, are political in nature whether they want to be or not. By liking Star Trek, you're buying into a box of propositions, some related to the art and some related to the real-world universe around that art. By (as in the Reddit e…

This defines the word "political" to be so broad as to render it essentially meaningless. I can't like Star Trek without "buying into a box of propositions"? Really ? First, you're going to have to tell me why I like Star Trek.

What I am saying is that politics is an externalization rather than an internalization--which is very far from meaningless. Your why doesn't matter (and it's one reason why the right wing's "but I didn't support the Republicans because of racism" is so hollow). Your what matters. And it matters to other people. It's inescapably political because you live in a polity and your decisions impact other people. See, for example, the useful idiots of GamerGate who provided air cover to people who sent death and rape threats to women who had the temerity to make video games. If they're the one in a figurative million, literally-few-thousand who actually cares about "ethics in games journalism", that doesn't matter in the slightest because of what they enable through their action and their inaction.

Drawing those imaginary lines to segment off Some Topics (because otherwise one might have to defend them) is nonsense. People draw these lines anywhere from religion to fandoms to allegiance to political parties--but none of them are meaningful. You are your impact on other people and every impact on everyone else is inescapably, inextricably, definitionally "political".

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#116

Post by najati83 » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

kjdndisneinj wrote: post #108

najati83 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, me too. Admins were fine with a hammer and a sickle and an LGBT flag, though. We all have biases, after all. ;P

I'm sorry, but are you actually comparing Nazi symbolism to the LGBT flag? This has to be sarcastic, no?

A swastika, an LGBT flag and a hammer and a sickle are all political symbols. I found it funny admins only banned one of them.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#117

Post by castis » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

bbctol wrote: post #89

CarVac wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was another fascinating aspect of politics that sprang up due to Place: inter-community politics. My community (Madoka Magica) was continuously communicating with our neighbors on all sides, ranging from the gigantic PrequelMemes to our right, Canada to our south, Homestuck, the Greek and Turkish flags mentioned in the article (which really were warring for quite a time before the heart appeared), and even tiny…

The way that compromises emerged was actually kind of inspiring. Everyone knew that a harmonious picture would be more pleasing than a chaotic blob, and it would be easy for a failed negotiation to descend into chaos, so neighboring groups had a good incentive to work together and find ways of solving their problems. My favorite was when the cute dog subreddit /r/goodboye was starting to overlap with the Dutch flag;…

I was helping maintain the /r/cubers place. We were neighbored with /r/bulgaria and ended up using the Bulgarian colors in the cube as well as helping maintaining their flag with them.

Was a really nice experience overall, I'm really impressed with how it all worked out.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#118

Post by sooheon » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:55 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #88

cyphar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some users might feel that way, I'm not sure how an image (which is a collection of pixels on a screen that has many different historical interpretations) would threaten, harass or bully someone. Or incite it. Of course, these days ad networks are hyper-sensitive about this topic, so from an advertising perspective it does make sense.

I don't want to assume you lack a connection to swastikas used as they were during the Holocaust. For me personally, my grandfather and his family were persecuted along with other family members and friends. My grandfather was even beaten by Hitler Youth, among experiencing other horrible events (Kristallnacht in particular). I wish it weren't the case but the symbol is strongly associated with the feelings from this…

That is not bullying, it is you taking offense to pixels. Which you are perfectly free to do, but nobody is bullying you by putting their art online.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#119

Post by xanderstrike » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #104

Someone's gotta mention http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com : Early in the history of the Internet, some high school kid set up a web page with a 1000x1000 image and a limited color palette. He sold individual pixels, plus a link from that pixel to anywhere, for $1. Yup, he sold them all in fairly short order.

The sad thing is none of those logos and links have any meaning any more, almost all of them go to 404s, domain parked pages, or completely unrelated sites, and even when they were new they went to scummy ecommerce or porn sites. In 12 years, the imagery on /r/place will still hold meaning and the timelapses will still tell a pretty cool story.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#120

Post by klenwell » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:57 PM UTC

SippinLean wrote: post #70

Cool experiment, very disappointing outcome. To me it was an experiment in dynamic, ever-changing art; giving way to creation and destruction. In the end, it was just scripted bots working to preserve art, mostly corporate logos and national flags. Why was there no captcha?!

If that's not a metaphor for the history of the internet, I don't know what is.