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A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

larslofgren.com

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Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#91

Post by lambda »

neuroelectron wrote: post #36
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

Reddit should not be considered an authoritative source. Period. At this point it's the most astroturfed place on the internet. Accounts are bought and sold like cheap commodities. It's inherently unreliable. That said, in this instance Codesmith actually has an unusually strong defamation case. That Reddit mod is not anonymous, and has made solid claims (about nepotism with fabricated details, accusations of resume…

It doesn't matter, people will still use it as source and now it's boosted by OpenAI and Google. Even Ghislaine Maxwell being a powermod didn't kill it. It's a key information warfare weapon and it's heavily promoted up and defended. https://archive.ph/qpfED

TIL that there's a conspiracy theory that Ghislaine Maxwell is the same person as power mod MaxwellHill.

Seems like a pretty incoherent conspiracy theory. What a weird thing to believe.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#92

Post by skort »

This whole thing feels like a neat encapsulated example of how horrible the "Internet" has become. A bad actor with vested interest taking over a part of a website (Reddit) that is then used as a source of record (Google, LLMs), and bam, completely fabricated overviews of a brand/company are now all you see when you use the predominant search engine, because there are no alternatives.

All of this for what? Shareholder value? So Silicon Valley elites can get rich and force their shit ideas on everyone?

If you don't see this for what it is, and that is just pure rot of the major services that people use and rely on for their information needs, then you might be beyond helping. Everyone should be pissed that this is what the internet has become.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#93

Post by hyperhello »

lambda wrote: post #91
neuroelectron wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter, people will still use it as source and now it's boosted by OpenAI and Google. Even Ghislaine Maxwell being a powermod didn't kill it. It's a key information warfare weapon and it's heavily promoted up and defended. https://archive.ph/qpfED

TIL that there's a conspiracy theory that Ghislaine Maxwell is the same person as power mod MaxwellHill. Seems like a pretty incoherent conspiracy theory. What a weird thing to believe.

Did the mod stop when she went to prison?

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#94

Post by phil-martin »

The article was fascinating, but the part I didn't see was... what was the motive? Assuming the article paints an accurate picture of what was going on... why was it going on? Is it solely because he runs a company in the same competitive space?

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#95

Post by michaelnovati »

malfist wrote: post #68
michaelnovati wrote: post #28

I'm Michael and this was about me. This person never reached out for comment and is missing half the story. I'm happy to fill people in on the rest if this person or someone else wants to hear. I agree with one or two of the characterizations but the majority I don't and there is a lot more to this story than it seems... RE: INDUSTRY. Rithm School (their main competitor) shut down. Hack Reactor is down to single digi…

> RE: CODESMITH. For starters as an example, Codesmith's website, email, and entire AWS account was down for 3 weeks because they got locked out from not updating their credit card and then losing the root password and their 2-factor was a phone number. This is unacceptable. Everything I can find online, including your post on reddit about the outage, says the outage was for 4 days. Not 3 weeks. I'll also note that y…

It was 3 weeks.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#96

Post by lenkite »

torben-friis wrote: post #42
blindriver wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. It leans extremely heavily left-wing so you won't get an accurate crowd-source opinion that disagrees with left-wing politics. There are pockets of conservative views but it's generally heavily left wing and you will get banned from many subreddits if you espouse any views to the opposite. EDIT: I don't know why I'm getting so many downvotes, nothing I said is controversial at all.

>EDIT: I don't know why I'm getting so many downvotes, nothing I said is controversial at all. I personally found it off topic, the conversation was about using Reddit as a source of truth for product opinions/reviews and it’s unlikely that the absence of a right wing majority is relevant when purchasing a dishwasher.

It wasn't off-topic. His response was to this statement: "the most reliable place to get a general crowd-sourced opinion on the internet" - on which his statement was perfectly correct if he just sticks to Western forums.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#97

Post by michaelnovati »

SilverElfin wrote: post #88
michaelnovati wrote: post #28

I'm Michael and this was about me. This person never reached out for comment and is missing half the story. I'm happy to fill people in on the rest if this person or someone else wants to hear. I agree with one or two of the characterizations but the majority I don't and there is a lot more to this story than it seems... RE: INDUSTRY. Rithm School (their main competitor) shut down. Hack Reactor is down to single digi…

Are you planning to write something up about it? It would be interesting to hear the other side that you’re hinting at. It’s also not clear to me if the person who wrote this article was paid for it or if they’re somehow affiliated with someone involved. It says they’re a “Fractional VP of Content”. I’m curious if you know more.

I might. I have hordes of documents. It's a really sad situation and very sad that he characterized this this way without even talking to me whatsoever.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#98

Post by analog8374 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #81
analog8374 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you could. And you wouldn't even need a reason. In fact, you could ban AND make the whole conversation disappear. And nobody would ever know. That's a problem.

It’s not a problem, you are owned nothing by participating in an online forum. Your participation is a privilege, not a right. You are free to participate elsewhere. HN moderates mostly transparently, which they do not have to do at all. That demonstrates respect for their participants, or ideals, your pick.

"if you don't like it then you can leave" (to paraphrase) evades my point.

My point (the problem) is that, when you do it this way, trust is right out the window. It looks like a forum but it really isn't. The conversation suffers from a taint.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#99

Post by michaelnovati »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #58
michaelnovati wrote: post #28

I'm Michael and this was about me. This person never reached out for comment and is missing half the story. I'm happy to fill people in on the rest if this person or someone else wants to hear. I agree with one or two of the characterizations but the majority I don't and there is a lot more to this story than it seems... RE: INDUSTRY. Rithm School (their main competitor) shut down. Hack Reactor is down to single digi…

Hello. It's nice to be able to interact directly with the subject of the article, so thanks for coming on. It's a shame you're being downvoted, because it would definitely be interesting to hear your perspective. This can't be a pleasant experience for you. I have a couple of questions for you. Firstly the article really didn't hold back about you in a way that you don't usually see. But he makes very specific and ve…

Yeah I'll I'm going to say for now is that if all your competitors (that I spoke positively about) are shutting down and shrinking and laying people off... there's more to the story. A sad story about an industry dying that should be told.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#100

Post by jaggederest »

analog8374 wrote: post #61
UltraSane wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit moderation is also completely broken. Mods can ban anyone for any reason and do ban people for very stupid reasons with absolutely no recourse. It is so bad I have completely stopped posting on Reddit.

Is it any different here? Is this not the standard setup for all forums and considered perfectly right and normal?

Dang and the other moderators here are incredibly scrupulous. If you browse with show dead on, and find an account that is posting regularly but banned, and go back through their history, you'll almost always find multiple warnings and a public statement about their banning.

HN has problems but moderation being arbitrary isn't really one of them.

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