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

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

#91

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:32 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 cannot "shadowban" users themselves.

They can. It's now called a "bot ban" and used to be called a shadow ban. It's done by adding a user's name to the sub's Automoderator configuration.

> With a bot ban, some users won't realize they've been banned. [1]

There is more explanation on Reveddit's FAQ under What is a shadowban?

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/wiki/library#wiki_use...

[2] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#shadowban

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

#92

Post by hhmc » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

rhaksw wrote: post #83

Teever wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ap…

That's a _VERY_ selective set of sources ([3][4][5]), which you are in bad faith using a representation of the "youth"

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

#93

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #89

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…

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,…

> As far as I know this is not a feature Reddit officially provides

No, it's provided by Reddit and is in the docs,

> With a bot ban, some users won't realize they've been banned. [1]

There are several more dystopian features built atop shadow removals [2], each of which multiplies the number of impacted users by 10x or more. Social media sites are constantly building more and more powerful tooling for moderators to more easily remove more content as userbases get more and more riled up. The ability to disagree with words online is being shrouded in darkness, and it won't stop until we start applying transparency that can provide openings to see what's been hidden from us.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/wiki/library#wiki_use...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/reveddit/comments/sxpk15/fyi_my_tho...

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

#94

Post by Firmwarrior » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:43 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?

To be fair, tolerating transgender people's existence at all used to fall outside the Overton window. Having a small cabal of unimpeachable shadow lords ruling all discourse with an iron fist doesn't seem healthy for society to me.

Particularly when there's some circumstantial evidence that Ghislaine Maxwell used to be one of those mods: https://old.reddit.com/r/TopMindsOfReddit/comments/rrldd9/to... (skeptical link, but even here you can see that it's plausible)

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

#95

Post by BuyMyBitcoins » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

matthewmacleod wrote: post #66

rhaksw wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It might. What would happen then? I'd argue there'd be a lot of good discussion. Why bother though? There are thousands of places you can have that discussion, including on Reddit. You can set up, say, /r/scienceforall right now and establish the rules you want. The /r/science sub has decided that it’s a space which should have heavy moderation - a totally legitimate viewpoint with obvious benefits and costs. You mig…

>”You can set up, say, /r/scienceforall right now and establish the rules you want.”

In theory this is a viable solution. In all likelihood, this won’t succeed and there are probably a dozen offshoots already that no one knows about. I suspect two things would happen. The most likely thing is the subreddit languishes and never gets any traction. But if it somehow does, it is likely to get targeted as a disinformation subreddit or the admins will install their own powermods - as they typically do once subreddits become big enough.

Given what we know about how Reddit chooses to display content and run its moderation team, I don’t think any alternative science subreddit would be allowed to successfully exist and be of any real competition to r/science.

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

#96

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

pluc wrote: post #72

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…

We experienced that too, at a much higher rate. Mods would get blamed for deletions AutoMod would do. Turned into quite a shitshow.

> We experienced that too, at a much higher rate. Mods would get blamed for deletions AutoMod would do. Turned into quite a shitshow.

Sorry, how are mods not responsible for the bot they coded?

Or, are you saying users were attributing the removals to humans rather than understanding that it was done by a script?

If the latter, then I'm not sure the distinction is so important for users. What they care about is understanding why their content was removed, not how. And I think that is a fair question.

In the real world, we do not throw criminals in jail without explaining what they did wrong and putting that in the public record. Obviously it's different online, but I think at the very least users should be able to discover when their content has been removed. The system shouldn't pretend that their removed content is publicly visible. And, there is some research that indicates that when mods provide removal explanations on posts, it reduces the likelihood of that user having a post removed in the future [1]. That's a reduction in mod workload that should be of interest to moderators, and it was researched and published before Reddit started showing post removal notices on posts [2]. Prior to that, all posts were shadow removed. Now only some are shadow removed, and all comments are shadow removed. To my knowledge, this research has not yet been done for comments.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/duwdco/should_mode...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/e66fql/post_remo...

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

#97

Post by Firmwarrior » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 1:56 PM UTC

pluc wrote: post #78

Pigalowda wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever have a feeling of being Tom Sawyered into doing free work for Reddit? Moderation may provide some feeling of authority and control which i suppose could be pay-off enough but in the end its just free work. I suppose if I created my own little subreddit and curated its contents that would be different but moderating tens of thousands of users must be just a crappy chore. For you was it a slow transition f…

Never, because the subject matter in the sub I moderated was very local (a city sub). It never felt we were enforcing reddit's rules but our own, and so we never felt like we worked for Reddit but for our community. And that's really where they get ya, cause aside from /r/reddit.com, everything has this "this is your space" feeling. That's becoming less and less true with all the shit they're pushing to monetize user…

Yeah, it's "yours" until you try to siphon people of the site, advertise something the admins don't like, or you fail to push the politics of the day from a random part of the USA where Reddit is headquartered

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

#98

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 2:01 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.

> Is there option for preapproving/hiding comments from new users in a subreddit?

Yes, I mention this in the talk at 14:50 [1]. A year ago Reddit upgraded its "Crowd Control", which once only collapsed comments from new users. The feature was bad enough in its initial form. Now it can also remove comments. When they announced it, I said it was like automod on steroids [1]. Now I call it Crowd Control with Prejudice [2], and it's only one of many dystopian tools.

Subs can choose to turn it on, and more and more are doing it in order to make their jobs easier. Between mods acting largely based on user reports, and tools like Crowd Control removing all commentary from new users, there is an absolutely massive amount of content authored by real people being secretly removed from Reddit every second, and that's a single platform.

The irony is, the more they secretly remove, the more people stay put and the bigger the groups get. So, there is then more content for moderators to review which means more work for unpaid volunteers. Or maybe it isn't irony because a bigger userbase is better business. I have no problem with platforms making money, but I do take issue with their systems which lie to millions, perhaps even billions users about the visibility of their own authored content.

[1] https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=890

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/reveddit/comments/qi1r55/fyi_crowd_...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/reveddit/comments/sxpk15/fyi_my_tho...

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

#99

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 2:06 PM UTC

Scharkenberg wrote: post #86

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's nothing. There are far more powerful removal tools than automoderator these days, and that was already very dystopian itself. See:

https://www.reddit.com/r/reveddit/comments/sxpk15/fyi_my_tho...

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

#100

Post by mistermann » Sat, Nov 05, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

otikik wrote: post #47

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…

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 ……

> I have been on the receiving end of a campaign organized by a somewhat popular forum in order to fill up a direct democracy platform with as many memes and random shit as possible.

I'm curious what platform you are referring to here?