‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’ • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#201

Post by nabc45 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #188

alayne wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just asserting that though. There was a study done on the removal of two of the racist/hate subreddits on reddit that indicated a positive affect. "In this paper, we studied the 2015 ban of two hate communities on Reddit, r/fatpeoplehate and r/CoonTown. Looking at the causal effects of the ban on both participating users and affected communities, we found that the ban served a number of useful purposes for Red…

I've always been skeptical of this study, mostly because of how fluid reddit accounts are. I have at least three accounts that I know of (I've probably forgotten about others). I'm sure people who participate in terrible behavior like that probably also have multiple accounts. How does the study account for those users simply abandoning the accounts they used for those hateful subreddits? I find it far more likely th…

I only use one account and I’ve been called off multiple times in the “mainstream” subs for posting to the right-wing ones, sometimes when not even talking about politics. I’m sure most people who post to right-wing subs keep two accounts or even more to keep their activity “segregated”.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#202

Post by sandov » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

psychometry wrote: post #72

abnry wrote: post #17

I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

True, but The_Donald is always leaking. I've seen plenty of sexist/racist content on subreddits for cities, sports teams, memes, etc. Reddit has allowed itself to be a platform used in part for really despicable content, and the despicable people who generate that content regularly venture outside their cesspools.

I feel that leftist movements are leaking much more than T_D.

Comments which — without being racist or sexist — go against the popular & politically correct leftist stance are downvoted to oblivion. Meanwhile, extremely statist stances are tolerated and celebrated by users.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#203

Post by fibbery » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

post_break wrote: post #182

burger_moon wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually went back and corrected some of those subs which were link aggregators essentially. r/gundeals was reinstated and they have a stickied post describing what needed to be done to be brought back to life. The main takeaway is that there is no p2p transactions allowed, only links from stores/manufacturers.

Except that's bs. Hardwareswap for example is still there. Thinkpads for sale, GoPro Market...

I don't believe a Thinkpad ever killed anyone, though.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#204

Post by wvenable » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

phil21 wrote: post #195

wvenable wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ever happened to neutrality? Moderators shouldn't be promoting an ideology left or right. I understand that Reddit admins themselves don't want to promote an ideology either -- they want to remain neutral -- but they are sacrificing their platform to people who don't hold he same ideals. The biggest change I've noticed is just how political the city/country subreddits have become. A few years ago, they used to b…

> they used to be more fun places but now nearly all the content is very hateful and polarizing. I don't think this is a reddit thing - it's a societal thing. Other platforms are also getting far more acerbic in general. City council meetings, local news, etc. It seems the country is in a period of time where politics is both forefront and rather contentious. I feel the stuff on-line is simply reflecting the greater…

I think it's a societal thing because it's a Reddit thing. That typical amplification of everything online is leaking into real life.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#205

Post by mercer » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

hasbroslasher wrote: post #129

abnry wrote: post #17

I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

I actually disagree with this. I find that customized Reddit leads to the same feedback loop/conveyer belt feeling that made me quit Facebook out of annoyance with always seeing the same ideas propagated out again and again. Browsing Reddit without an account lets you avoid the urge to comment on things and also turns you on to loads of new things that you otherwise might not've found on customized Reddit. Granted, I…

Isn't there still a way to see that particular front page when you're not logged in? Either /r/popular or /r/all?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#206

Post by kbrosnan » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #104

Bartweiss wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure hiding vote counts is sufficient, since comments are still displayed based on them. The 'Theory of Reddit' sub did some pretty compelling analyses showing that the first 3-5 votes almost completely predict eventual vote direction, and that the top comments in a thread will consistently be the first handful of upvoted comments. Which also explains complaints of the shape "Reddit hates X one day, but loves…

A subreddit solely dedicated to auditing the quality of moderation on various subs would go a long way to give reddit the tools to remove problematic moderators. Ultimately the quality of the mod makes the quality of sub.

The problem is that the reddit culture is that upvotes/downvotes solve all and that moderators should be invisible.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#207

Post by creaghpatr » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

Rotdhizon wrote: post #122

That confirms the actions of what Spez usually does. He remains silent on the rampant abusive subreddits UNTIL someone publishes a news article about it, then he steps in with the whole "We're dedicating ourselves to stepping up regulating these harmful subreddits, and other blanket PR statements". Like most, I enjoy the hobby specific subs(tech related for me) like sysadmin, networking, netsec, etc. Those communitie…

>Think of it like this: In many areas down south in the US, militant groups are living in the forests. Generally they are white extremist, pro gun nuts who have small communities being self sufficient in the deep woods. These groups hate government interference and usually have a shoot on site policy. By themselves, these groups are nothing. Even the ones who threaten the public, pretty much never do anything. Now what if these groups had a way to find and communicate with each other in as efficient a manner as Reddit provides? Now you go from harmless threats to a potential, real world problem that could lead to violence and destruction since many groups would now have banded together.

That kind of logic is what leads to events like the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#208

Post by stordoff » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #153

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is downvoted, this is well documented.

Seems incredibly biased to say that right-wing moderators are dangerous to society. Just because someone has a more conservative outlook, doesn't mean they are a menace. A little bit shocking that needs to be pointed out.

I didn't read OP as saying that right-wing moderators are per se are "dangerous to society", but that it being just one viewpoint represented (especially if, as "a right-wing contingent" implies", it's a single group of people) could be,].

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#209

Post by abnry » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

abritinthebay wrote: post #160

alehul wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in politics, however /r/politics has awful comment quality and isn't a great sub to visit. I'd also like to hear about people's favorite subreddits in terms of comment quality, as I'd happily read a passionate and informative stance on something I'm usually not interested in compared to what I read on /r/politics. Edit: I meant to use it as an example -- I'm actually interested in any type of subreddit…

This is bizarre to me - the average comment quality on /r/politics is both more informed and higher level than about 90% of subreddits. Granted it's center-left most of the time (from a US perspective anyhow - as a European it is at best centrist) but that's more a function of a reaction to the current climate than anything else. So I guess I'd ask: "what kind of comments are you looking for?" because outside of the…

/r/politics does have quality comments that also get upvoted. However, you have to dig through 90% of bad comments.

For instance, you get one article about Trump's nickname for Sessions being Mr. McGhee. The comments decide this is bad. Then you read the comments on other stories and people are gleefully calling him a racist elf.

That's just pointless and is a disincentive to visiting. But I keep returning to the subreddit because of how helpful it is in keeping up with the Russia stuff and because of the rarer insightful comments that give reasonable perspectives you will never hear a major publication speculate on.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#210

Post by remir » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

Gargoyle wrote: post #75

wvenable wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit would also be better if karma wasn't known.

Both reddit and hacker news would be much better off with no voting at all. Strong moderators are the only thing I've ever seen keep online forums at a high quality level. Voting is the weakest kind of moderation.

The problem with the upvote/downvote system is that it's too simplistic. If you have an opinion that goes against the status quo, a lot of people will downvote your comment simply because they disagree with what you said on some emotional level.

Of course, past a certain number of downvotes, you post will be buried, so you have basically an echo chamber.