Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

priceonomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 68 posts

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#31

Post by JanneVee »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #20
JanneVee wrote: post #16

This is partly what is happening. Reading in out of the loop subreddit the trigger is Victoria but the problem is different. The one I see as one of the biggest problems is. The unpaid volunteers aren't given the tools necessary to handle moderation of subreddits by reddit corporate. The tools moderators use comes from third parties and volunteers. [0] As an outsider I have understand why they are angry, trying to cr…

I'm not sure the reddit community (either moderators specifically, or redditors in general) are intelligent enough to know what tools they need. I once tried to suggest a new tool, and was attacked there for 3 weeks after on subredditdrama for requesting such a tool. My crime? Suggesting that moderators be able to ban everyone who (wrongly) upvotes an offtopic post. This would allow them to steer things back on topic…

Well, nothing says that it should be a democracy. But there is discord how moderators manage their communities and what support reddit could add. e.g. there are subreddits that have removed downvoting through CSS, so it is still possible to downvote with apps or changing the CSS. It should be possible to add that as a setting to the subreddit that makes it impossible to downvote.

But like I said it isn't a democracy, reddit can decide to not implement that and explain it to the mods why not.

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#32

Post by ObviousScience »

cma wrote: post #30
Karunamon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggesting that moderators be able to ban everyone who (wrongly) upvotes an offtopic post Reddit already has a problem with moderator abuse and nontransparency, and you want to give them the ability to ban people based on their votes? The literally only control that a user has over content? I can see why you were "attacked". That is an awful idea.

Since a moderator can kill an entire post, nullifying "the only control that a user has over content" anyway, is it really going out on that big of a limb to allow moderators to ban people who, say, upvoted child porn to the top of r/politics?

Of course not.

But we both know that your fanciful hypothetical is not how that tool will be used in over 99.999% of cases, because that kind of thing almost never happens, while moderator abuse often does.

Just because there are cases where a tool can be used well doesn't mean that introducing it in to a system rampant with corruption and abuse won't make things worse.

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#33

Post by mcuk2k »

chc wrote: post #26
Karunamon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggesting that moderators be able to ban everyone who (wrongly) upvotes an offtopic post Reddit already has a problem with moderator abuse and nontransparency, and you want to give them the ability to ban people based on their votes? The literally only control that a user has over content? I can see why you were "attacked". That is an awful idea.

I don't know, in my experience, Reddit is much more rife with low-quality posting and bandwagoning than moderator abuse. It happens on rare occasions, but most accusations of moderator abuse I've seen have turned out to be nothing more than some first-world anarchists trying to stick it to the man and a bunch of other people bandwagoning on. Meanwhile, most subreddits with more than 10k posters are just awful because…

I read a few subreddits that might be considered outsiders. I get the impression that Reddit is slowly being subverted. Subverted by the sort of people that might have a strong voice on Tumblr and Twitter. Slowly censoring anything that's undesirable to their world view.

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#34

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

Karunamon wrote: post #22
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the reddit community (either moderators specifically, or redditors in general) are intelligent enough to know what tools they need. I once tried to suggest a new tool, and was attacked there for 3 weeks after on subredditdrama for requesting such a tool. My crime? Suggesting that moderators be able to ban everyone who (wrongly) upvotes an offtopic post. This would allow them to steer things back on topic…

Suggesting that moderators be able to ban everyone who (wrongly) upvotes an offtopic post Reddit already has a problem with moderator abuse and nontransparency, and you want to give them the ability to ban people based on their votes? The literally only control that a user has over content? I can see why you were "attacked". That is an awful idea.

> Reddit already has a problem with moderator abuse and nontransparency,

1. That's the discussion that should have occurred... debate on the merits of the idea. 2. Mods already ban people, which is the problem. They get rid of people they like, whether or not there is cause for it. This would be mods banning people whose names they don't even know for objectively wrong behavior.

So yes, I think it would be a good idea. At the very least, the experiment could have been run in a few test subreddits.

Argue more, overreact less.

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#35

Post by Karunamon »

cma wrote: post #30
Karunamon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggesting that moderators be able to ban everyone who (wrongly) upvotes an offtopic post Reddit already has a problem with moderator abuse and nontransparency, and you want to give them the ability to ban people based on their votes? The literally only control that a user has over content? I can see why you were "attacked". That is an awful idea.

Since a moderator can kill an entire post, nullifying "the only control that a user has over content" anyway, is it really going out on that big of a limb to allow moderators to ban people who, say, upvoted child porn to the top of r/politics?

Moderators can't disappear posts outright, they can only remove the links from their respective communities. If someone has the link, it still can be interacted with in the usual way.

The hypothetical you chose is disgusting, unnecessary, and impossible in the real world.

Arguments to child porn I think are the modern equivalent of godwin's law - the moment it gets brought up, all productive discussion stops and is replaced by emotion.

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#36

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

chc wrote: post #26
Karunamon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggesting that moderators be able to ban everyone who (wrongly) upvotes an offtopic post Reddit already has a problem with moderator abuse and nontransparency, and you want to give them the ability to ban people based on their votes? The literally only control that a user has over content? I can see why you were "attacked". That is an awful idea.

I don't know, in my experience, Reddit is much more rife with low-quality posting and bandwagoning than moderator abuse. It happens on rare occasions, but most accusations of moderator abuse I've seen have turned out to be nothing more than some first-world anarchists trying to stick it to the man and a bunch of other people bandwagoning on. Meanwhile, most subreddits with more than 10k posters are just awful because…

I was banned from r/history a few months ago. The moderator was attempting to humiliate me and added flair to my comments. I turned flair off. Then the moderator abused the stylesheets to hardcode flair that I couldn't turn off...

That's against reddit's own rules, and the admins claim they will ban moderators from reddit sitewide for that.

I went to the admins, they made him turn it off... and 1 minute later I was banned.

The admins never banned him.

Mod abuse occurs all the time. There's just nothing to be done about it, and there's no point in whining so you never much hear of it.

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#37

Post by Karunamon »

chc wrote: post #28
nitrogen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I think I read once that HN weights votes or comment positions by how often someone is drawn in by political "honey pot" stories. I don't know if it's true, but it at least suggests less drastic alternatives to banning for voting.

That sounds like the same basic idea -- moderators putting a mark on posts that basically says, "An upvote for this is a negative contribution to the community." Is the problem with the general idea, or with one specific detail which could be modified in implementation (banning versus ignoring votes)?

The entire idea is problematic, massively, in that it allows for covert manipulation of a community.

Why are a small handful of unaccountable people determining what is a "negative contribution", on the sly no less, when the whole reason for the existence of karma systems is to do that organically and by consensus?

More importantly, what does such a system accomplish via deception that flattening such posts in a visible and accountable way does not?

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#39

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

Karunamon wrote: post #37
chc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like the same basic idea -- moderators putting a mark on posts that basically says, "An upvote for this is a negative contribution to the community." Is the problem with the general idea, or with one specific detail which could be modified in implementation (banning versus ignoring votes)?

The entire idea is problematic, massively , in that it allows for covert manipulation of a community. Why are a small handful of unaccountable people determining what is a "negative contribution", on the sly no less, when the whole reason for the existence of karma systems is to do that organically and by consensus? More importantly, what does such a system accomplish via deception that flattening such posts in a vis…

> Why are a small handful of unaccountable people determining what is a "negative contribution", on the sly no less

On some of the smaller (but not tiny) subreddits, a submission can be both against the rules and plainly a bad idea as it pollutes the subreddit's goals.

But because voting is anonymous, no matter how much everyone complains about them being upvoted, no matter who weighs in and admonishes people to stop upvoting the garbage, it still occurs.

Over time, people submitting good content stop doing so, and people who submit bad content start doing it more. Vicious circle.

Mods can't just delete those posts either, because this reddit gets pissy that they're playing favorites.

It would be better if the mods were able to say "if you think this is upvoteworthy for this subreddit, you are no longer welcome here".

Instead of each subreddit being some big generic free-for-all, they could stay on topic. Could get rid of alot of fluff. And you could do it without those being banned being able to claim it was for personal animosity.

Re: The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)

#40

Post by Karunamon »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #39
Karunamon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire idea is problematic, massively , in that it allows for covert manipulation of a community. Why are a small handful of unaccountable people determining what is a "negative contribution", on the sly no less, when the whole reason for the existence of karma systems is to do that organically and by consensus? More importantly, what does such a system accomplish via deception that flattening such posts in a vis…

> Why are a small handful of unaccountable people determining what is a "negative contribution", on the sly no less On some of the smaller (but not tiny) subreddits, a submission can be both against the rules and plainly a bad idea as it pollutes the subreddit's goals. But because voting is anonymous, no matter how much everyone complains about them being upvoted, no matter who weighs in and admonishes people to stop…

a submission can be both against the rules

Lock the thread (with AutoModerator) and explain why. No need to disappear it.

Over time, people submitting good content stop doing so, and people who submit bad content start doing it more. Vicious circle.

Is this really the case? It's a common complaint, but it's usually presented without any backing. Why is the content necessarily "bad" if the community has chosen to feature it?

Mods can't just delete those posts either, because this reddit gets pissy that they're playing favorites.

Why do you suppose that is?

It would be better if the mods were able to say "if you think this is upvoteworthy for this subreddit, you are no longer welcome here".

Leaving aside the fact that you literally just advocated for thought crime, the problem is that an upvote can mean multiple things.

(Don't say "reddiqutte" either, I'm talking about use in reality)

An upvote can mean "like", or "on topic", or "contributes to the discussion", or about 20 other positive things. A downvote can have just as many other meanings in the other direction. The other thing is that with multireddits and /r/all, "on-topic-ness" isn't even going to be evaluated by the users unless you're looking at the front page of the community itself.

I really don't see how more covert moderation is a valid answer to abuse of non-covert moderation.

Post reply on HN