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Reddit is taking over Google

businessinsider.com

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Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#91

Post by xboxnolifes »

adamomada wrote: post #78
owlninja wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always say this but no one ever proves it.

At this point especially considering the article we’re commenting on, it would be amazing if there weren’t spam shills and bots - they go where eyeballs go There is an enormous vested interest to not let this become public and should make you question the concept that conspiracy can’t exist somehow

Nobody is saying bot/shill accounts don't exist. Just that they aren't literally everywhere and in insane numbers. Also, it's about the distribution of the bots between the subs: are they mostly on the huge main subs, or do they also expand to the 10,000 person niche subs?

If 1 formula company has 1 reddit bot that posts 1 post every month in every parenting subreddit, is that considered a bot infestation? How many bot posts is necessary to be considered endemic?

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#92

Post by tayo42 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #83
tayo42 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say mods are a little to heavy handed. But I think they handle spam? And also some community stuff like mega threads and weekly stuff? Idk I feel like there's a better middle ground then what we experience now with reddit mods and having it be a total free for all

> I would say mods are a little to heavy handed. Some mods are, but the only reason people really think this is because the heavy-handed aspects are the visible ones. Nobody really sees mods removing random spam threads and comments, that's the whole point. Good modding is mostly invisible.

Maybe, I think it seems like that. I felt similar until I had some posts moderated away or banned, which made me realize there is probably a lot more of those going on then I realized. There isn't a big notification when things get removed. There is also trying to post and dealing with automoderator. There's subreddits I don't read or participate in anymore becasue of how annoying it is to get a post through.

I get their necessary, at least for now, because of spam. But like I'm said I think there's a better middle ground and we can rely on the community users more.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#93

Post by nox101 »

haunter wrote: post #16

I still prefer reddit most of the time. Front page (default) subs are highly manipulated (especially anything news, politics, current things etc.) but for hobbies, video games, and sports it's still the best site. Video game discusssions especially because unlike Discord every tip, guide, and walkthrough is archived and searchable. And for sports mostly because it's _insane_ how quickly you get highlights and videos.…

I hate reddit because the way close threads for topics that need an update or a follow up. The auto closing seems pointless

Further, People keep telling me the communities are great but I've yet to find one of these mythical great communities. Or maybe my definition of great community is different than others. For me a great community was a forum I was on in 2004-5 where people stuck around and actually responded. on reddit I rare find useful responses

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#94

Post by jedberg »

rasz wrote: post #72
gary_0 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That was done specifically for SEO purposes. As a human I also like it when I can see what topic a URL points to (eg. when it's being shared on HN, or pasted into source code, etc). URLs that just have an opaque ID or terse filename are not very user-friendly.

Nowadays reddit hides it, I use this to revert back to full url for (let value of document.querySelectorAll('.first a.bylink.comments')) { let href = value.closest('.top-matter').querySelector('.title a.title.may-blank').href; if (href != value.href && ( href.startsWith('https://www.reddit.com/') || href.startsWith('https://v.redd.it')) ) { console.log (href, value.href); value.closest('.top-matter').querySelector('.…

What do you mean the hide it now? I still see it in the URL?

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#95

Post by asciii »

LorenDB wrote: post #27

I'm not sure why you would promote Quora in search results. They lock non-members out after viewing just one or two answers, and the content on Quora is generally viewed as worse than Reddit (not that Reddit is particularly great...).

Quora's top answer is always an AI chatbot IIRC. It is very annoying compared to what it used to be...I still miss Yahoo Answers

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#96

Post by astura »

owlninja wrote: post #61
Solvency wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every single sub no matter how niche is infested with bots or spam/schill accounts. every single parenting/mom sub is inundated by formula companies. every fan niche like comicbooks is full of bot accounts in training (building up karma with low effort posts and repeat copy posts from previous days from other posters). everything, everywhere.

People always say this but no one ever proves it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2017/02/20/reddit-i...

Unless you actually have a reason to have good idea of who you're interacting with you should probably assume they are trolls, shills, or children. Those are BY FAR the most common Internet activity.

For example - I'm a normal human. I'll post a few comments on HN once in a while. Maybe a few up votes from time-to-time. Sometimes I don't think about HN for days. I don't post on other social media/forums. My father-in-law is a troll, he spends 10+ hours a day every day commenting and voting on various articles with his hundreds of sock puppet accounts. Which one are you more likely to see? Myself or my FIL?

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#97

Post by dudus »

antisthenes wrote: post #12
dudus wrote: post #4

But how will Reddit fend off the increase of fake content from bots?

What do you mean "fend off" ? Reddit is the one generating fake content to prop up their engagement numbers and make it look like they didn't take a giant hit from last year.

True. But it's guaranteed to get worse.

With genAI on the rise it'll get harder and harder to spot real from fake.

It's unclear to me if the resulting product will be better or worse. But it will definitely be composed of more synthetic data than it is now.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#98

Post by pixl97 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #85
Solvency wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every single sub no matter how niche is infested with bots or spam/schill accounts. every single parenting/mom sub is inundated by formula companies. every fan niche like comicbooks is full of bot accounts in training (building up karma with low effort posts and repeat copy posts from previous days from other posters). everything, everywhere.

People say things like this, but the subs I frequent largely seem fine. I'm sure there are bad actors somewhere in there, but they don't seem prominent to me. > every single parenting/mom sub is inundated by formula companies. Okay, if it's every single one, show me all the formula company inundation in r/daddit. Should be easy if they're absolutely everywhere, like you say, right?

Look for reposts of the same topics and comments.

Quite often the bots just look like contributors until you realize they've never had an original comment in their posting history. More often it seems they are involved in creating consensus and nudging votes up and down and in general making it more painful karma wise for those that don't toe the line.

Not a daddit visitor, but it appears that formula is an uncommon discussion on that sub. Either it's not a popular topic, or it's being banned when it's too obvious.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#99

Post by NegativeK »

commandlinefan wrote: post #51
JohnBooty wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's got to be Reddit's biggest challenge. The default subreddits are ultra-useless, ultra-high noise. Quality of discussion is on par with YouTube comments (ie abyssmal) A lot of the individual, smaller, focused subreddits are extremely valuable. But, nobody would know it at first glance.

> The default subreddits are ultra-useless, ultra-high noise I have a really, really, really hard time believing that the ultra-uselessness of the default subreddits is anything other than a _deliberate_ attempt on the part of the reddit admins to make them that way. Or, to be more direct - I do not believe at _all_ that the political slant of reddit's main subs is organic.

I've seen too many forums degrade into political shitfighting to think that reddit's political bent in the popular forums has to be manipulated.

Like, it might be, but it honestly takes effort to not have something like that form into a big political pile.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#100

Post by etc-hosts »

asciii wrote: post #95
LorenDB wrote: post #27

I'm not sure why you would promote Quora in search results. They lock non-members out after viewing just one or two answers, and the content on Quora is generally viewed as worse than Reddit (not that Reddit is particularly great...).

Quora's top answer is always an AI chatbot IIRC. It is very annoying compared to what it used to be...I still miss Yahoo Answers

I can't figure out why Quora does that. sticking in obvious AI summaries, to me, seems to devalue their brand.
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