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

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#421

Post by CogentHedgehog » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

httpsterio wrote: post #260

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…

I know what you're talking about. I was also a mod myself on /r/Suomi (Finland) and quit after a rather serious incident. Other mods and users on far-right subs started to compile a list of European subreddit moderators whom they deemed 'SJWs' and tried to gather as much personal information on everyone. Someone from that group leaked the documents to us and it was quite alarming. The scale, effort and hate that went…

This is the best argument I've seen for making it publicly anonymous which moderator took a specific action and maintaining a large pool of moderators.

Bad actors can harass a community as a whole (and they do) but it's much harder for them to target specific moderators. The flipside is that moderators have to hold each other accountable for impartial enforcement of the rules.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#422

Post by koboll » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #358

koboll wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or... maybe they just post good content? You yourself said the extension marks the cumulative amount of upvotes you've given a user. So, unless you yourself are engaged in this conspiracy to inflate GallowBoob's upvotes, then all this is evidence of is that GallowBoob seems uniquely skilled at finding and posting viral content.

Some people follow the big accounts directly, so their posts are guaranteed to get early traction then build off exponentially and make the front page all the time.

Right. No one complains when big Twitter accounts go viral more often than small accounts, because it's obvious why. So why the conspiracy-mongering about the same effect on Reddit? Is there any actual evidence that moderatorship confers an outsized likelihood of virality vs. a non-moderator with a similarly gigantic following / karma count?

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#423

Post by billme » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:24 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…

Experienced same problems with aggressive individuals or groups trying to engineer or buy there way into digital properties. Found the whole experience very odd, since while I had no interest in making a deal, the amount of effort they were putting forth made no sense to me. Luckily, after they realized I would not agree, get tricked, etc — they moved on.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#424

Post by camel_Snake » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:29 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #407

jboog wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started on Reddit about a decade ago also. Early reddit was a lot more like current HN. You're right you'd see more pro Ron Paul and libertarian stuff. Then the site went mainstream. Users on the internet are more liberal than the general pop. Add that to the fact that Reddit up/downvote system does a terrible job of allowing unpopular/controversial views to reach the top. Those same Ron Paul fans are all in r/cons…

> Those same Ron Paul fans are all in r/conservative or r/The_donald, or other conservative subs now. There are way more now than there ever were. Is this true? I hold quite a few libertarian beliefs and those conservative subs don't seem any more inviting than their left wing counterparts. It's so much about partisanship that it's off-putting to me.

The conservative subreddits have definitely experienced a tonal shift since Trump's candidacy. I would pop by occasionally for news/discussions and the change is extremely noticeable to even infrequent users like me.

Smaller political subs are probably your best bet. things like /r/moderatepolitics or /r/tuesday

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#425

Post by infogulch » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:38 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #164

infogulch wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Individuals seem to get a lot of value out of interacting with the community, so it's not obvious to me that the moderator's sacrifice (which primarily comes from a small portion number of individuals) is unjustified.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#426

Post by ohazi » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #298

ohazi wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make your forum invite-only > You can still have throwaway accounts How can both of these things be simultaneously true?

Say you or a friend has an account in good standing. Get an invite link with a unique token. Sign up with the link. Done. The inviter doesn't know the username of the invitee. It's only visible to the moderation team who invited whom.

Assertion: A throwaway account is probably more likely to be banned than an identified account -- why else would anyone bother with throwaways?

If the throwaway account is banned, the original link-giver would lose their good standing. (sorry, I should have highlighted this to the original reply)

We can argue about whether the assertion is actually true, but even the perception that it might be true will make people reluctant to give out an invitation to someone wanting to create a throwaway account.

If I had my own named account in good standing, I suppose I might be willing to use it to create a throwaway account for myself, provided that I was careful to only use that throwaway for... I don't know... "lightly" controversial content that is only likely to be downvoted rather than abusive content that is likely to be banned. (Not that I would ever actually create a throwaway in order to be abusive! Just trying to think like a troll).

Actually, I guess that's what we wanted to encourage anyway, right? Controversial content should be fine; abusive content is not. Maybe this would work after all...

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#427

Post by dgzl » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:54 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #400

dgzl wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No.

Do you mind sharing the screenshots of the conversation with the /r/portland mod team as well as the article you tried to post? And if you haven't been cancelled from different social groups in portland, how do you know about how rife the cancel culture is? Can you explain a little bit about how it has affected people you know?

I'm not sure what benefit sharing the screenshots would have, I'm not trying to out the mod or get vengeance.

The video I posted was about a Lake Oswego woman going nuts and verbally abusing some local PD who were handling the situation with elegance. My title was something like "this is why I don't trust when people senselessly dog on the police." It was removed because there wasn't anything specific to Portland or surrending area (not true but ok). I told the mod I would just repost with the title "this is why I don't trust when Portlanders senselessly dog on local police" and was told not to post. No rules broken, just intimidation and censorship.

I don't subscribe to the progressive/liberal/left/socialist ideology and I'm genuinely afraid to publicly share that fact in Portland. There are many people in PDX who will violently attack you if they catch wind of that fact. This isn't a secret. It's also not a secret that Oregon outside of PDX and Eugene are generally Red communities.

For instance, look at the protests in Portland last year. The counter-protesters were far more disruptive and violent than the visiting protesters, but the typical Portlander wouldn't see it that way. In my own discussions with them, they see Trump supporters et. al. As being fascist and as causing violence simply by existing, thus justifying their pre-emptive violence.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#428

Post by naasking » Thu, May 21, 2020, 8:55 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #416

naasking wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't police enough, then users have an expectation that anything goes. When you do decide to moderate behavior, you experience a backlash because you've changed stances. You experience a backlash from some users , sure. If most users consider it a positive change, then no big deal. > When you're a moderator, there's often very little that you can do that won't generate backlash unless the user in question i…

I mean what you're arguing is to essentially turn forum administration into miniature governments. And I would hope that as reality has proven, government is very easily gamed by people seeking power. You seem to make a lot of assumptions which, as someone that has acted as a moderator in the past does not bear out. Have you acted as a moderator before? What are some communities which you believe have the idealized f…

> I mean what you're arguing is to essentially turn forum administration into miniature governments.

Forum administration already is a limited government, typically authoritarian in current incarnations. Mods are the police, judges and juries. Works fine if you have the resources and mods are fair, and maybe that's typical for minor infractions, but the conflict of interest is clear.

Authoritarian moderation doesn't scale though, and you disenfranchise a lot of people with every a mistake, particularly since a) there's rarely a transparent appeals process, and b) people don't typically like owning their mistakes. Doubly so when "it's my platform, so I can do what I want with it". Maybe that's not something you care about, but given the increasing importance of social media to democratic government, it's a problem that will likely worsen.

> And I would hope that as reality has proven, government is very easily gamed by people seeking power.

Government is a system of rules for governing people's interactions. A moderation system is a system of rules for governing people's interactions on a specific site. You can't speak of these things as if they're that different. Either a system of rules is vulnerable to exploits, or it's not.

> Because even Stack Overflow as you've referenced has issues with high toxicity among users chasing off moderators all the same.

I mentioned stack overflow specifically for the unintrusive and random review process and nothing else. SO doesn't feature any of the other ideas I listed.

Finally, I have no "idealized form of moderation" in mind, I have knowledge of where existing systems fail, and how other systems have already addressed very similar problems. Designing a secure and scalable moderation system is a big task, so if you want to hire me to research and build such a system, then I will be happy to address all of your questions in as much detail as you like.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#429

Post by DataWorker » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:11 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…

Also politicians. They too are trying to fight the good fight and help their community. Pretty much any position of authority attracts a certain mindset yes, but also changes the person who assumes that authority.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#430

Post by arkades » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #415

arkades wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

(Serious question) what's the difference between an unpaid internship and volunteering?

An unpaid internship is done at a place where you expect to either get a job, or because the place and the work you do there is important to your subsequently getting a job or school entrance.

E.g., I did a quality improvement internship at a hospital to get a job in quality improvement there, once upon a time. It was "unpaid," but it was an audition for a job that I wanted.

As opposed to my time as a volunteer in a local free clinic, where no benefit accrued to me at all.