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Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

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Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#231

Post by syshum »

Goronmon wrote: post #226
valuearb wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine treating a civil poster as if they were a jerk, just because a different civil poster once turned out to be a jerk.

Its' not about treating people like a jerk, just that you learn quickly to never trust a person at face value when they say "I didn't do anything wrong" because that's usually the first and most common phrase a person who does something wrong uses. I was merely pointing out that the "public" persona a user portrays doesn't have to match the truth.

Which can be equally applied to moderation staff, mods that say "We are not biased, and always are fair only banning people that break the rules" are equally as likely to be bad actors as your narrative about regular users

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#232

Post by lalaithion »

twic wrote: post #62
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 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…

The analogy is really insightful, but also makes me slightly uneasy. When a moderator gets it wrong, you can't comment on an internet forum. When a police officer gets it wrong, you're dead.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#233

Post by charwalker »

Quekid5 wrote: post #222
txcwpalpha wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It also wouldn't surprise me if some moderators are compensated - under the radar - by influencers and marketers. In GallowBoob's case, he's admitted before that posting on reddit is his job. He used to work at Unilad, getting paid by his company to promote viral shit all over reddit. I think now he's moved on from Unilad but does the same stuff at other companies. It's pretty egregious that reddit admins allow him…

To add to that, he's been accused of deleting posts, then reposting the same links/content without attribution. If you're watching closely I imagine it's pretty easy to see if a post is starting to gain a little traction and just... do that. He's also been accused of lots of other shitty and possibly illegal behavior. I will say that evidence of this may be disturbingly easy to forge since it's all digital and everyo…

Benefit of the doubt, I could see removing quality content by a PITA user and reposting to keep that content alive without feeding the user, but at that point the system seems broken enough to step back and re-access entirely.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#234

Post by ohazi »

3pt14159 wrote: post #182
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 problem is really easy to solve. Make your forum invite-only and have a ban on a user revoke the ability of the person that invited you to invite new users. Do not make the links between who invited whom public. It's for moderation only. You can still have throwaway accounts for commenting on things and the overall community will be increasingly more civil.

> Make your forum invite-only

> You can still have throwaway accounts

How can both of these things be simultaneously true?

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#235

Post by magicalhippo »

3pt14159 wrote: post #182
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 problem is really easy to solve. Make your forum invite-only and have a ban on a user revoke the ability of the person that invited you to invite new users. Do not make the links between who invited whom public. It's for moderation only. You can still have throwaway accounts for commenting on things and the overall community will be increasingly more civil.

That would work. However it could also make the community hard to grow.

I surfed HN for years before I decided to make an account, and even now I don't really know anyone else using it in my circle. I guess I might have found someone if I asked around, but it would definitely raise the bar.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#236

Post by coldpie »

3pt14159 wrote: post #182
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 problem is really easy to solve. Make your forum invite-only and have a ban on a user revoke the ability of the person that invited you to invite new users. Do not make the links between who invited whom public. It's for moderation only. You can still have throwaway accounts for commenting on things and the overall community will be increasingly more civil.

Yup. The key is restricting access. Another good option is to charge for an account. The Something Awful forums are the best large community I'm aware of on the Internet, and I believe it's mostly because of the $10 entry fee and the excellent moderators. When you have to pony up hundreds of dollars a year to keep shitposting, you tend to get fewer shitposters.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#237

Post by notatoad »

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…

>While there are things Reddit can be doing to help

one thing reddit could be doing to help is to stop relying on community moderators for so much. volunteer community moderators shouldn't be dealing with people abusing the reddit platform, that should be the job of reddit's staff. Instead of just building tools, reddit should be actively involved in the enforcement of platform rules to handle these cases, and leave the community moderators to focus on creating and maintaining their communities - ensuring content fits the theme of the subreddit, people are communicating with each other in a tone that fits the intended tone of the subreddit, etc.

Reddit needs people like gallowboob who are willing to do the drudgery of sifting through all the platform abusers, but from an end-user perspective it's easy to see somebody moderating 80% of the big subreddits as a problem, because it's not clear whether a moderator is actually influencing the community or just sifting through obvious abuse.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#238

Post by Quekid5 »

charwalker wrote: post #233
Quekid5 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to that, he's been accused of deleting posts, then reposting the same links/content without attribution. If you're watching closely I imagine it's pretty easy to see if a post is starting to gain a little traction and just... do that. He's also been accused of lots of other shitty and possibly illegal behavior. I will say that evidence of this may be disturbingly easy to forge since it's all digital and everyo…

Benefit of the doubt, I could see removing quality content by a PITA user and reposting to keep that content alive without feeding the user, but at that point the system seems broken enough to step back and re-access entirely.

You're far too generous. We're talking dog videos and such... and as adorable as dogs can be, there's not really any reason to keep that sort of content alive.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#239

Post by [deleted] »

jlg23 wrote: post #155
staycoolboy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello, bad actor here. I only use Hacker News and Reddit. And I always manage to get banned every few months, so I guess I'm a "bad actor". Usually I start off OK. I can rank up 1000 points on HN or 20k karma on Reddit quickly because some of the discussions are interesting and non-inflammatory and I have interesting things to say. But then some topics veer into domains that make me angry (hello politics), or I find…

> But then some topics veer into domains that make me angry (hello politics), or I find a comment inappropriate or unfair, or mod behavior hypocritical. And I share that in a post that gets flagged or downvoted, and I get banned. Kurt Tucholsky gave great advice on how to write a letter to a government agency that is applicable to all potentially heated discussions: * write letter. * put letter in drawer. * wait thre…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#240

Post by ska »

lalaithion wrote: post #232
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…

The analogy is really insightful, but also makes me slightly uneasy. When a moderator gets it wrong, you can't comment on an internet forum. When a police officer gets it wrong, you're dead.

The latter is why policing often fails in the absence of serious, dedicated, time intensive protocol development and (more so) training dedicated to countering this effect.
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