Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#81

Post by wl » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 12:53 PM UTC

pluc wrote: post #60

I was a mod, this tool is the worst from a mod's perspective. In a sub with 100k-200k people, I would spend all my time telling users why I took action. Instead I take action when content breaks rules, and it's your responsibility to abide by the rules to not have your content deleted. This tool complicates the life of people who give their time for free, and asks them to provide even more time solely to satisfy user…

None of my removed comments on reddit have ever broken any site or sidebar rules. When I've used this tool to ask mods for clarification about removed comments, mods have just made stuff up (example: saying I was engaging in namecalling when I didn't even refer to another person at all... the real reason is the mod disagreed with the position I was advocating for) and sometimes issued bans. As a user, revealing this moderator abuse is more important than helping moderators abuse their powers without anybody noticing.

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#82

Post by Mordisquitos » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #64

Mordisquitos wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same can be said for any community discussing politics, technology, or entertainment. An overwhelming majority of online commenters are ignorant of those fields and the myriad of factors that have to be taken into account by the experts who are making the decisions that are being discussed. So, should comments in those subreddits "assume competence" of legislators, software businesses and TV producers, lest they…

If you are as competent as the researchers you’re perfectly capable of pointing out the mistakes made in the research without insults like competency or stupidity. As it says in the rules for hacker news: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." That these rules are not enforced by deleting content but the co…

I absolutely agree with you that comments should not explicitly cast doubt on the authors competency, nor insult them or their reasonings. However, that is not the rule we are criticising. The rule is:

> Criticism of published work should assume basic competence

That rule for example would bar a commenter from critiquing the work for not taking into account a confounding factor, or for using a non-representative WEIRD [0] population sample to reach overly broad conclusions. Taking these issues into account can be argued to be "basic competence", but they are too often ignored in many the most headline-worthy social science papers that attract the most upvotes.

[0] western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_psychology#WEI...

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#83

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:05 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #37

dmix wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just happen to be lucky enough to be within the very narrow overton window. Or at least a) believe what's being curated for you and b) never cared to look at what's not being said. You should hope that your views (or more accurately, their views) never stray from it and the information that a tiny group of people are controlling is good for the entire population. You could say just use another subreddit. But this…

Is the window really that narrow, or do you just happen to fall outside it/identify as having fallen outside of it for personal identity reasons?

It's narrower than you might think. For example, I've recently been paying attention to the trans issue because some are saying that pro-trans groups are equating words with violence [1] [2]. Apparently the pro-trans groups have been saying that only 1% detransition, but there are youth speaking out saying that number is likely far greater [3] [4] [5].

It's hard for me to believe these are made up stories. And, it appears that such stories are currently only being told via conservative media. Please correct me if I am wrong.

This is of interest to me because the US holds that words are not equal to violence, with the only exception being the emergency principle. According to Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU from 1991-2008, the emergency test says speech may be punishable "if, in context, it directly causes specific imminent serious harm." [6] If groups are successfully convincing people otherwise, then it may mean we are forgetting what free speech is. Free speech, the US version anyway, draws the line at violence, not words.

[1] https://archive.ph/1NeiV#selection-1513.7-1513.57

[2] https://corinnacohn.substack.com/p/the-world-should-not-need...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tQr6WZXHSQ

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdSKBVHrizo

[5] https://youtu.be/STE1pmCjULQ?t=2047

[6] https://books.google.com/books?&hl=en&id=whBQDwAAQBAJ&q=in+c...

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#84

Post by pclmulqdq » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

mariusor wrote: post #30

dmix wrote: post #3

I love reveddit.com, it's hilarious to look at the typical r/science post and see 60%+ of comments removed on average (the 'controversial' ones go 75%+). If the moderators agree with the study there is zero dissent tolerated. This subreddit has something like 1000+ moderators and they remove any comments that doesn't fit into Reddit's very narrowly defined overton window. Not just people being off-topic or taboo... b…

> This subreddit has something like 1000+ moderators and they remove any comments that doesn't fit into Reddit's very narrowly defined overton window Or the subreddit has a very strict set of rules for posting top level comments which include: > 3. Non-professional personal anecdotes will be removed > 4. Criticism of published work should assume basic competence of the researchers and reviewers > 5. Comments dismissi…

There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of papers that get removed, including comments that suggest sub-optimal experiment design, overreach in conclusions, or statistical issues (which are usually present in the hard-hitting, catchy studies that make it to r/science). Normally, these are part of healthy scientific discourse.

When the moderators of r/science particularly agree with a post or it is politically charged, almost any discussion of the actual science involved is purged (unless it is praise or an "explanation" that includes a lot of praise). When the mods don't agree, you can see some discussion of gaps in papers, but you must take the conclusion of the paper as 100% true, which is not how science works.

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#85

Post by ravenstine » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

rhaksw wrote: post #61

otikik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take: science has been politicized. As a result people feel like they are entitled to share their (often naive and inexperienced) opinion. Problem is this: science is not democratic. Consensus plays a role, but not everyone getting to the point were you are equipped to peer review others often takes years of effort and study. That’s unavoidable, given that the easy questions have already been answered. A single ……

> science is not democratic I strongly disagree, it's inherently democratic. The scientific method is all about making mistakes and trying again. Discourse is all about sharing knowledge. Open societies do this effectively. Jonathan Rauch, in Kindly Inquisitors (1993) wrote, > Authoritarian systems have their intellectual giants. What they lack is the capacity to organize and exploit their masses of middling thinkers…

> I strongly disagree, it's inherently democratic.

No, it really is not.

You might as well state that truth is decided by committee and that individuals cannot or should not decide what is true for themselves.

Democracy is a tool, not an inherent virtue. If science was inherently democratic, The Science would be "settled"; such is a state of things that has been demonstrated time and again to discredit consent. Just because a bunch of people, no matter the number or expertise, decide that something is a fact doesn't make it so. Conclusions on science are opinions, and always will be.

By the way, nothing about the scientific method involves review by committee. Science is just having a hypothesis, doing tests, and reporting observations. Everything else is overloading the term "science."

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#86

Post by Scharkenberg » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #77

Scharkenberg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subs cannot "shadowban" users themselves. Either one banned and gets a notice, or one isn't banned at all. Comment removal initiated by moderators themselves is not "shadowbanning" - that's something Reddit's automated mechanisms (and maybe admins too) do. I think you meant "content removal without explanation" instead. I will say, however, that for about half a year now or even more, reddit's own anti-spam detection…

Is there option for preapproving/hiding comments from new users in a subreddit? I'm thinking of a certain regional politics sub where on the main page, you'll see XX number of replies, open the thread and it be completely empty for a couple hours.

Automoderator can be manually configured to perform actions on posts and comments that fit certain criteria, though as far as I know, it's not as extensive as, say, a bot that one would program themselves and tailor the needs of their own subreddit.

There is also the "approved users" feature [1], but it requires manual intervention for every particular user, and I am not sure whether it practically serves any purpose in public subreddits. Reddit claims it does, but when we tested it a few years ago, it did not work correctly. In any case, I do not recommend it for public subreddits with more than 1k daily users.

[1] https://mods.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009164452

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#87

Post by pclmulqdq » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:19 PM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #35

fuckstick wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Criticism of published work should assume basic competence What this is saying is that even if egregious blunders are made it is against the rules to call that out - how can I point out incompetence if I have to assume competence? I host a medical journal club - statistical incompetence in the life sciences is bountiful. > Comments dismissing established findings I’m sure defining established isn’t difficult to do/…

It’s better to say I think the authors should have thought about X rather the author is a moron and incompetent for not doing X. You can still say it by critiquing the actions not the character of the person. Similar rules exist in the Houses of parliament around accusations of lying simply because everyone would decend into that as a method of argument. It’s harder to call people out but still possible in my opinion…

It doesn't matter to the mods of r/science how politely you put it if you are suggesting that not considering X would have significantly changed the conclusions of "the science."

As an aside, most of the mods are toward the "soft" side of science (biology, medicine, social science), and likely do not understand statistics very well. Papers with glaring issues regularly make it to the top because their conclusions are cool, not because they are truly good/impactful works.

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#88

Post by pclmulqdq » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #39

fuckstick wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but that’s not what the rule is saying (be civil, no ad hominem, etc). If that were the case I would have no issue. Maybe that would be a reasonable rule - and it is on many forums. It’s saying that criticism must “assume competence” - that’s very different - and as a moderator I can twist any kind of criticism into a violation of this rule. And why do I have to assume competence anyway - shouldn’t the work stand…

The community is 95% less competent than the researchers so I think this rule is fine.

The fact that the average community member is a moron doesn't mean that you should delete the posts from the people who are not. I'm sure they get tons of "biology doesn't replicate" posts that should get removed. They also remove posts that are polite, technically correct, and specific, and point out glaring issues in the paper.

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#89

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

Scharkenberg wrote: post #70

Semaphor wrote: post #34

Insights I got from my own account: a) Reddit randomly decides some posts were spam and shadow-banned them O.o Content was all over the place, from links to link-free text posts. Weird. b) Low quality subs (/r/europe, /r/Germany, cryptocurrency subs) liberally shadowban all kinds of comments. All other places this shows, have comments/flairs about the removal.

Subs cannot "shadowban" users themselves. Either one banned and gets a notice, or one isn't banned at all. Comment removal initiated by moderators themselves is not "shadowbanning" - that's something Reddit's automated mechanisms (and maybe admins too) do. I think you meant "content removal without explanation" instead. I will say, however, that for about half a year now or even more, reddit's own anti-spam detection…

Subs definitely can make your content in that sub (including everything you post in that sub) disappear in a way that isn't just "without explanation", but explicitly in a way that makes it appear as still online to you to make it harder for you to notice. As the demo OP provided demonstrates.

As far as I know this is not a feature Reddit officially provides, but creative (ab)use of the spam filter, moderation queue, or similar features, which reddit doesn't effectively prevent.

Re: Show HN: Reveddit.com: Improving online discourse with transparent moderation

#90

Post by lazyasciiart » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

On my phone, the link to the CantSayAnything/About/Sticky page goes to a 404.

I thought Kelly Cotters paper was very interesting - it seems like “gaslighting” is becoming a more common way to call out people or companies who are not technically lying but are definitely communicating something that isn’t true. Unfortunately that’s a common enough thing now that it’s useful to have a simple reference.