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

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#131

Post by soylentcola » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

botolo wrote: post #49

ryandvm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

This was my same thought. We should understand the size of the problem and whether technology can help. If tech can’t help moderating, maybe tech can help in other ways. For example, establishing an anonymous unique internet ID that allows you to be online: if you get three strikes, your ID is suspended and you can’t spend time online for the duration of the suspension. Of course the system should be built so that yo…

I can't think of a world where I would trust such a system (or trust anyone to create/run such a system). Is this just for websites? Or does it encompass all use of the Internet?

At least as far as websites or individual platforms go, this is exactly what accounts, moderation, and "banning" already attempt to do. We've seen how difficult and expensive this is to scale when your site gets as big as Facebook or Reddit. I can't fathom a sufficiently "benevolent dictator" that I would trust to act as a gatekeeper for the entire Internet at large.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#132

Post by steve_adams_86 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

ptsdthrowaway33 wrote: post #46

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…

As someone who was mentally and physically abused as a child, I'm so sick of people on the internet saying they have PTSD from mean comments that they can ignore and escape from. You cannot escape abuse from someone that is supposed to be protecting you in childhood. You cannot escape from the trauma of war when you sign up or are conscripted to be a soldier. You cannot escape the horror of death being an EMT. Seeing…

I've got two thoughts after reading this. One is that trauma isn't a binary thing, and it can accumulate over time. Some of these mods are dealing with serious events, like the user who was given advice which lead to his wife killing their children. Others got doxxed and receive death threats.

Two, if someone feels upset from getting messages like "you're a piece of shit", I wouldn't say they're an immature child or a weakling. I'd say they could be sensitive, perhaps also very considerate, and in that moment they may worry that another human being is upset and they're responsible for it. They might hurt from the pressure to moderate something that's important to them. Maybe they struggle with social interaction, even if it's online, and experiences like this can be very hurtful.

I don't care why something hurts someone, I care more that they are hurt. Chronic exposure to these things, even if they do seem benign or minor from the outside, absolutely can lead to trauma.

Trauma is a result of exposure to acute or chronic damage to your physical or mental well being. This can occur in a staggering number of ways from person to person. How each of us handles that will vary, but if it leads to a lasting impact, it's trauma.

I'm sorry you experienced what you did. It's arguably worse than what the moderators are describing, but it isn't exclusive to those experiences. It's also not a contest.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#133

Post by starpilot » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:25 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…

Why is that subreddit so similar to Jerry Springer? How did it become so trashy?

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#134

Post by eganist » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

twic wrote: post #70

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…

If Gallowboob and friends are just helpful innocent people, why were were the calling-out comments, dozens upon dozens of them, deleted, and the people posting them banned? If you're helpfully, innocently, looking after dozens of top subs, and people mention that and wonder what's going on, you don't censor them, you have flipping AMA about it!

> If Gallowboob and friends are just helpful innocent people, why were were the calling-out comments, dozens upon dozens of them, deleted, and the people posting them banned?

Because personal witchhunts are against Reddit's rules as a form of targeted harassment, and mods are de-modded by Reddit for not enforcing Reddit's rules -- or worse, subreddits that consistently see significant Anti-Evil Ops (effectively Reddit's on-payroll God-Mods) action may be quarantined.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#135

Post by erdrfgyhdbfg » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #55

Someone1234 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs. Don't get me started. Particularly "muting" posts with auto-moderator (silently hiding them for others without notification/warning/explanation). It was originally created for spam control but is regularly abused for generic moderation. It needs more controls placed on it. To give a recent example, I wrote a long reply in /r/fitness's daily discussion but it…

> /r/politics has a huge dictionary of phases and idioms that result in auto muting. None of which are defined in their rules. This is true here on HN too. One such word that I’ve seen to cause comments get auto-killed is “m∗sturbation” (censored for obvious reasons), and I am sure there are others.

So the Linus Torvalds quote about compiler masturbation is a no-go then.

(posting from a throwaway to test your theory)

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#136

Post by friendlybus » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

bredren wrote: post #108

twic wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really interesting insight, thanks. There are roughly two views on moderators. Moderators think that moderators are the thin green line protecting the ordinary users from a handful of bad actors, letting them live in blissful ignorance of the awful things that are happening. Ordinary users think the that moderators are power-mad bullies who ban and delete as they see fit, with no accountability. Both of the…

You're welcome. > Both of these things can be true at once! I've been on both sides of this. Last year, /r/portland began using the word 'criddler' to describe people in various states of meth-addiction and bicycle thievery. The word was beginning to be used very often to disparage many different types of people. The moderators made a decision to ban it, and the community backlash was supreme. I let the mods have it…

The 'criddler' word seems humorous. Is there any particular need to ban it outright? These kinds of neologism happen all the time in real life and we ask people to 'tone it down' or give some other social signal that the joke has gone too far. The social feedback is immediate with breathing room, nobody is ejected from social areas, but you know they might be eventually. The joke naturally deflates as the last dregs of fun come out of it, and we all move on.

Someone famous once said (100yrs ago) that when people write to you they want to test their mettle. It is often best not to reply until a week after the letter was sent and to find the fire in the original message has since left the person who sent the letter.

These instantaneous and unpredictable word bans seem to be almost the perfect design for getting the maximum amount burn out of a given burst of new flame. Is the lone moderator too far removed from the pulse of the crowd to give effective feedback?

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#137

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#138

Post by _curious_ » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

nsilvestri wrote: post #105

sasasassy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never used reddit, and just know that "karma" is a type of points system like here on HN. Could you explain why you personally are interested in accumulating karma by "karmawhoring"? I ignore the points system in HN too, but I think it's main function is to ban bad actors. So I don't understand on the other hand why someone would accumulate points unless they mean to later spend them on "bad actions".

It's just a game to try and get a higher score. Like HN points, karma doesn't actually get you any special benefits.

Prettysure there is some functionality benefits tied to karma here on HN...

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#139

Post by unclebucknasty » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

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…

>this problem is bigger than Reddit and focuses on lack of enforcement for digital actions that would qualify as genuine crimes of harassment if translated into the physical realm.

Part of the problem is that online communities rely on the fallacy that, because most people are good, such communities can thrive with some reasonable amount of guidance. But it only takes a relative few people acting in bad faith to cause great damage.

As such, I've long considered that the online world amplifies the sociopaths, bad actors, and worst among us to an untenable level, giving them outsized power and voice. I think it's driving our "real" society and culture in a negative direction to a degree that people vastly underappreciate.

Layer on top of that adversarial nations that actively use our online communities to divide and propagandize, and there's a very real question of whether we're better off without these communities.

More succinctly, many of the largest platforms that enable online communities seem consistently unable or unwilling to rein them in. And when you look at experiences like those you convey, it's little wonder. Attempts to moderate bad actors will invariably add to the problem, as they devolve the discourse further and generally seek to be heard, else burn the place down.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#140

Post by Goronmon » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:30 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #98

Goronmon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs. This is a common refrain I've heard going back well before Reddit ever existed. I helped moderate the Vault Network boards for a while back when they were a thing. Its hard to overstate how amazingly...disturbed and vitriolic some of the individuals of a community can be. And dishonest. And spiteful. No amount of transparency helps when all it takes to refute a…

While I am sure that occurs, I have been personally banned from several subreddits not for rules violations, or violence comments, but because the moderator simply disagreed with my comment or I was harsh in my commentary against the product the subreddit was about, for example a certain web browser subreddit banned me because I talked badly about a policy of that web browser I have much more experience in dealing wi…

Just to provide the other side of this.

Imagine seeing a post exactly like yours, literally word for word, with the same civil tone and all.

Except the user in question had been banned for posting a tubgirl (its gross) image by a moderator that happened be female and had responded in private messages on a clear alt account (minutes after the ban with the same IP address) calling that moderator a slut who deserved to be raped and killed.

And that style of interaction being relatively common.