Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#71

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

ramphastidae wrote: post #51

eganist wrote: post #4

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts. We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting that goal, we quickly realized it was pretty…

Why do you free work for a for-profit social network, especially if you say yourself that the work negatively impacts your mental health and that the community you are moderating is toxic? What are you getting out of this?

[deleted]

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#72

Post by Goronmon » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

ramphastidae wrote: post #51

eganist wrote: post #4

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts. We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting that goal, we quickly realized it was pretty…

Why do you free work for a for-profit social network, especially if you say yourself that the work negatively impacts your mental health and that the community you are moderating is toxic? What are you getting out of this?

What are you getting out of this?

Not the OP, but most people just want to help a community that they are a part of and take a hand in making it better and helping members of the community.

You have to remember, this issue is played on pretty much every online community that has likely ever existed, in some form or another. Long before the term "social network" became used.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#73

Post by snazz » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #30

bredren wrote: post #15

I am a freshman moderator of /r/portland. I had thought working as a moderator would be a great way to help grow the subreddit's base. Offer more useful real world interaction points and basically have a big impact on Portland. Instead what I've found is that 99% of the time the moderators are dealing with bad actors and that has to be the primary focus to keep the sub from falling apart. It isn't just dealing with t…

Hacker News suffers from the same problem. We have folks like dang (God bless him) manually dealing with assholes. Seems like we could solve these problems with technology, but here we are two decades into the 21st century and we still have humans cleaning the pools. I'd be interested to know if actual forum moderators think that we could solve the bad actor problem with algorithms...

Thankfully the HN moderators are paid employees--I can't imagine doing that kind of work for free.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#74

Post by jseliger » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #4

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts. We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting that goal, we quickly realized it was pretty…

I more or less quit Reddit when I realized what kinds of traits moderation tends to select for: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/16/the-moderator-problem-how.... Perhaps you're an exception, or the exception, and, based on Reddit's growth, it seems that my preferences are minority ones.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#75

Post by cfu0 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

throwphoton wrote: post #36

BitwiseFool wrote: post #6

I downloaded Reddit Enhancement Suite and it has a feature that marks the cumulative amount of upvotes you've given a user when you see a post of theirs. It is absolutely eye-opening just how much content is posted by the same few dozens of usernames. GallowBoob is the most infamous but to focus on him would be a mistake. It's pretty clear to me that the vast majority of content on Reddit is heavily manipulated and a…

Someone should start a competing service then. My recommendation would be to have a "maximum karma" limit, at which point the account (mod or not) and all of its activity are deleted, and the owner has to sign up again and work their way back up from zero.

The idea being that you'd punish those users who generate most of the content for your platform? How does that make sense?

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#76

Post by collyw » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #72

ramphastidae wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you free work for a for-profit social network, especially if you say yourself that the work negatively impacts your mental health and that the community you are moderating is toxic? What are you getting out of this?

What are you getting out of this? Not the OP, but most people just want to help a community that they are a part of and take a hand in making it better and helping members of the community. You have to remember, this issue is played on pretty much every online community that has likely ever existed, in some form or another. Long before the term "social network" became used.

Judging from most moderators that are active it would appear to be a power thing for them.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#77

Post by throwphoton » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

cfu0 wrote: post #75

throwphoton wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should start a competing service then. My recommendation would be to have a "maximum karma" limit, at which point the account (mod or not) and all of its activity are deleted, and the owner has to sign up again and work their way back up from zero.

The idea being that you'd punish those users who generate most of the content for your platform? How does that make sense?

Same way term limits make sense. Hit the ceiling, then you're done. Make room for someone else. Avoid stagnation.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#78

Post by dvtrn » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #66

ramphastidae wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you free work for a for-profit social network, especially if you say yourself that the work negatively impacts your mental health and that the community you are moderating is toxic? What are you getting out of this?

Because the continued existence and quality of the subreddit brings value to them. It’s no different than volunteering. The fact that Reddit is for-profit doesn’t really enter into the equation. I don’t get it for relationship subreddits because it’s so mentally exhausting but for fandoms and niche communities the experience is super cool.

It’s no different than volunteering.

It's certainly volunteering in the synonymous sense of 'doing something for nothing because you can' but I feel this statement-left in the vacuous state of its own brevity-comes loaded with an unsaid implication that "volunteering" on Reddit is no different than "volunteering" in one's local community and I'm not sure it's that simple.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#79

Post by s9w » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

thebouv wrote: post #5

So, I don't get it. Why does it matter if a few volunteer mods manage a ton of subs? Isn't it hard to do? So they have a hard job? And it's volunteer? And .. what? I don't understand the outrage directed at mods I guess. Note: I'm a light Reddit user. I follow a handful of subs. And I can't name a single mod of any of them. Maybe this is more meaningful for people who spend more time on the site and are more involved…

These people are powerful and get paid to further the agenda of their employers.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#80

Post by snazz » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

nsilvestri wrote: post #35

BitwiseFool wrote: post #6

I downloaded Reddit Enhancement Suite and it has a feature that marks the cumulative amount of upvotes you've given a user when you see a post of theirs. It is absolutely eye-opening just how much content is posted by the same few dozens of usernames. GallowBoob is the most infamous but to focus on him would be a mistake. It's pretty clear to me that the vast majority of content on Reddit is heavily manipulated and a…

I have a little over half a million karma, about 200k from posting links. I think it's incorrect to suggest that the "vast majority" of content is manipulated. You see the same names because they understand the game of karmawhoring. If you have one link which can fit in multiple subreddits and your goal is to get as many points as possible, you post it to all the relevant subreddits, repeat for every other link you h…

Is the value of Reddit karma purely psychological? I know that you can sell accounts with high point values for significant sums of money, but I'm confused what the actual value is aside from the little dopamine rush you get when something is upvoted.