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

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#161

Post by oarsinsync » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

cecilpl2 wrote: post #144

friendlybus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you are. Social organizers, advertisers, trend setters, ect frequently get free product, kickbacks or some money for their 'work'. That's the work you have done. It's not your intent to do work and it's probably not the pub owners desire to pay for meetup organizers, but regardless of your and the pub owner's intent, work has happened.

Is it not possible that the situation is a win-win for all parties and that all parties feel like they are well-compensated in terms of the value they've received, and that therefore no money actually needs to exchange hands? You may as well ask why people volunteer their time at all.

Both points are valid I think.

It's fair that both parties feel like they're benefiting, so no direct transaction needs to occur.

Comparing this to volunteering generally isn't the same. I volunteer with local registered charities because I believe in their mission, and the volunteer work I do is directly impacting and improving the lives of the people I'm working with.

Which may be the crux of the GP's question. Why volunteer in the community in a way that results in a for-profit organisation monetising you for their gain, instead of finding a non-profit in your community to be volunteering your time towards? The non-profit / charity in your community's goals are more likely to be aligned with your own, than the for-profit social network.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#162

Post by bredren » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #136

bredren wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You'll find plenty of debate on this specific subject in the sub's post about it.

The word was humorous to me at one point as well.

However, it was being applied in general to homeless people.

Portland, like many cities, has a serious and growing problem with homelessness.

The word was being used to demonize and unfairly group drug addicted folks, people with mental health issues and those who are not those things but still homeless.

I do not know if there was a need to ban it outright, however I think there were reasons to want to.

To some extent, sub-wide decisions like this are taste-profile questions and with taste you will not get agreement.[2]

For example, Craig Newmark had to walk a fine line with adult services on Craigslist.[1] Many craigslist users wanted those forums. Many did not. Ultimately, I think decisions like this give character to the community.

So with /r/portland, banning 'criddler' wasn't just about banning a word, presenting a posture of the sub toward homeless people in general.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist#Adult_services_cont...

[2] One way to solve this is to allow the sub to elect moderators, which is what /r/portland did. In this case, I did say that I was for the ban on the word and was still elected by the community that was angered by the ban.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#163

Post by ppod » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

gwern wrote: post #106

This article doesn't actually address any of the questions (eg how does he have all this time?). Note that it's on the public record that Gallowboob has worked for social media marketing companies, eg https://www.forbes.com/sites/fernandoalfonso/2016/06/01/cash... > The Upvoted story never materialized; Reddit administrators were still digging out from under a deluge of drama including revelations about online harass…

The article is also borderline misleading, as initially I thought their real names had been posted. All that was posted was a list of which users are common moderators of large subreddits. If they are getting abuse to their accounts, the problem is the abuse, not the list.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#164

Post by friendlybus » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

infogulch wrote: post #153

friendlybus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you are. Social organizers, advertisers, trend setters, ect frequently get free product, kickbacks or some money for their 'work'. That's the work you have done. It's not your intent to do work and it's probably not the pub owners desire to pay for meetup organizers, but regardless of your and the pub owner's intent, work has happened.

Ok, so in addition to the community getting value out of it, the pub benefitted too , that's just called win-win. Why does the pub have to lose in this situation for you to be ok with the result?

I am okay with the result. The guy asked if he was doing work, and I said yes he has done work. Why would I not be okay with that? The pub & friends situation is a win-win.

A reddit moderator's free time and a toxic community is a net negative for a moderator, payment may offset the health cost.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#165

Post by lobotryas » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:45 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 should reddit offer you any support? You volunteered; no one forced you.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#166

Post by jakelazaroff » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #14

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…

>how meaninglessly violent people become when their posts are modded Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs. Most people get angry when someone removes their post and yet they see it reposted and approved hours or even minutes later (Gallowboob is infamous for that but regular users do it too)

>>how meaninglessly violent people become when their posts are modded

> Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs.

Does the latter really justify the former?

If you disagree with a moderation decision, take it up with them politely. If you consistently disagree, maybe this community just isn't for you!

Mods are just people donating their time. Even if they're inconsistent or "corrupt", there's no reason you should respond in any way that can be described as "violent".

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#167

Post by jack_h » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:47 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #52

haunter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how meaninglessly violent people become when their posts are modded Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs. Most people get angry when someone removes their post and yet they see it reposted and approved hours or even minutes later (Gallowboob is infamous for that but regular users do it too)

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…

As someone who used to moderate a pretty large gaming community back in the day I think there are two things to keep in mind.

The first is that transparency doesn't "fix" hostile community members. What it does is justify the actions of those in power to the rest of the community. Without this the community will very quickly lose faith and the situation just devolves into factions and hostility.

This is very indicative of your last line really. It's like any form of government. When the people lose faith in those in power due to perceived capricious or opaque behavior there tends to be a lot of civil disorder. This usually leads to those in power entrenching themselves and enacting even more draconian measures. It's a vicious circle. Perhaps all governance is subject to the laws of entropy and will eventually fail, but I believe transparency, consistency, and effective communication are the only methods to slow such an eventuality.

The second point is one of size. As the population of a community grows and the proportion of those who wield power shrinks you also end up with a lot of discontent. Many community members will no longer feel they can effectuate change as they're a small voice amongst many without any real connection to the small group in power.

Also note that my experiences are in relation to fairly tight knit communities. Reddit is a little different in the sense that plenty of subreddits are far less communal. Effective communication is very difficult when the community is mostly transitory right up to the point where mob mentality takes over.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#168

Post by friendlybus » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

bredren wrote: post #162

friendlybus wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You'll find plenty of debate on this specific subject in the sub's post about it. The word was humorous to me at one point as well. However, it was being applied in general to homeless people. Portland, like many cities, has a serious and growing problem with homelessness. The word was being used to demonize and unfairly group drug addicted folks, people with mental health issues and those who are not those things bu…

Is there any other tool you can use? A warning that it will be banned then lean into it a week later? Mark individual words automatically inside posts with a symbolic warning?

That's what I'm getting at, I should probably do research on my own time. Thanks for doing the good & dirty work of moderating a subreddit.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#169

Post by Goronmon » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #136

bredren wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The 'criddler' word seems humorous. Is there any particular need to ban it outright?

From my experience in the past, moderating doesn't scale at all. So you basically have to pre-empt issues that tend to lead towards requiring mod actions. An example of this would be the auto-mod stuff on Reddit (though I don't have any experience with the specifics here, just assumptions).

Another approach is to root out the "trigger" words that tend to escalate arguments quickly, and are generally a sign that a discussion has just become a battle of insults instead of a useful discussion.

Again, because its not just one situation between users, it's potentially dozens of arguments across a site between dozens of users. You can't wait until after things get out of control, because there isn't enough time in the day to clean stuff up in that manner. And people want clear rules for what they can and can't say and rules like "Don't be disrespectful" aren't usually super helpful, especially against people who are more malicious in their interactions.

So, calling out specific words that are banned allows for a simple, straightforward rule that can be pointed to without leaving lots of wiggle room for arguments (which again, you don't have time to have with every user who complains).

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#170

Post by arkades » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:48 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.

I don't think I've ever volunteered for a profit-maximizing private venture. Is that a thing people commonly do in real life?

I mean, I've done internships, but the quid-pro-quo there was quite clear.