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Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

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Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#121

Post by swayvil »

eggbrain wrote: post #27

Would it be potentially viable to make moderators more like filterers (e.g. like filter lists in Ublock Origin)? You could "subscribe" to a moderator if you like the way they filter content, and if you "unsubscribed" from all moderators you'd get as much of an "unfiltered" view as possible. Bad moderators, over time, would get less and less subscriptions to their filtering of content, and would have to adapt, or be f…

If the participants in the sub did their own filtering (which they would of course) then you could subscribe to each other. And subscribe by proxy.

The emergent intelligence of the filtering could become quite large.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#122

Post by swayvil »

sebstefan wrote: post #37
eggbrain wrote: post #27

Would it be potentially viable to make moderators more like filterers (e.g. like filter lists in Ublock Origin)? You could "subscribe" to a moderator if you like the way they filter content, and if you "unsubscribed" from all moderators you'd get as much of an "unfiltered" view as possible. Bad moderators, over time, would get less and less subscriptions to their filtering of content, and would have to adapt, or be f…

I don't think it would work - Most people never touch which ublock filter they use, so moderators probably wouldn't care too much about maintaining a decent behavior - People would have no idea what mod to pick and just pick the first few top ones, resulting in even more centralization, these people would have insane monetization options - You also have the problem that if a top mod "retires", the combination of extr…

Ya but everybody up/down votes. So we'd base the filtering on that.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#123

Post by lmm »

tptacek wrote: post #119
swayvil wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when you have 1000 people having a conversation there, it literally is not a private site.

When the 1001st patron at Philips Crab House in Ocean City is seated, the Crab House does not suddenly become publicly owned or operated.

Maybe it should. There are plenty of similar laws (e.g. when you sell shares to your 2001st investor you're suddenly subject to a much stricter disclosure regime, and this is widely considered a good thing).

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#124

Post by lmm »

knolan wrote: post #100
chungy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just plainly false. Their private life was not affected by what JK Rowling has said. Rather, their political opinion differs and a choice to be offended was made. As political protest, the mod decides the best course of action was to violate subreddit rules and spoil a game for people (instead of, you know, offering a counter position to Rowling's views).

You keep claiming it’s political when it isn’t. The mod feels personally that JKR is bad and lashes out on a website to hurt other people. They aren’t protesting the legal status of trans people. They aren’t demanding changes to health care policy. They are saying some rich celebrity is bad and fuck you if you enjoy that person’s creation. It’s all about personal feelings and has nothing to do with politics. What rol…

> What role does JKRs crusade against the trans community have to do with politics? Does she hold office or set policy?

Her "crusade" is about who can make decisions in society, i.e. control what others do, which is what politics is. Formal political structures are not the only venue through which it happens.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#125

Post by ChickenNugger »

sebstefan wrote: post #53
i_like_apis wrote: post #25

I find Reddit mods are particularly power crazy. Most of them seem to be doing it for power rather than for love of the content of their sub. There is so much personal bias and posts removed for personal reasons, or just to flex. I’m not speculating on the reason, but it’s definitely like that.

But if you pause for a minute, can you think of a place on the internet where there isn't a systemic problem with mods being power crazy? Genuine question!

4chan? I'm not sure they do anything but remove child porn based on the fact that I've never seen it there, thankfully. Maybe Gab or communities.win? I don't use those two enough to know. Twitter post musk? But even there I've seen people complain. It's a shame because reddit used to literally advertise being a free speech platform.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#126

Post by fleddr »

nostromo wrote: post #118
Toutouxc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar questions about the apparent over-representation of LGBT people among high-profile software developers, but it feels like it's never okay to ask those questions.

Part of it is Alphabet Tourism. I'm gay and many of my legit LGBT friends have noticed a trend where lots of younger folks are claiming to be queer, bi, non-binary, asexual, pansexual, trans, etc., without a lot of evidence that they're anything other than a straight person looking to feel special.

Same thing on Mastodon, which I tried for a month or so. It seems every single profile you open some of the claims you mention are there, followed by disabled, and a bunch of (self-diagnosed?) mental illnesses.

It's like they're collecting pokemons. And it's not used as a list of characteristics, it's their "identity" and an accomplishment. It is center to every single thing they say, whom they associate with, etc.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#127

Post by lmm »

sebstefan wrote: post #53
i_like_apis wrote: post #25

I find Reddit mods are particularly power crazy. Most of them seem to be doing it for power rather than for love of the content of their sub. There is so much personal bias and posts removed for personal reasons, or just to flex. I’m not speculating on the reason, but it’s definitely like that.

But if you pause for a minute, can you think of a place on the internet where there isn't a systemic problem with mods being power crazy? Genuine question!

4chan, because they have the right attitude towards mods and jannies.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#128

Post by dblack12705 »

moritonal wrote: post #10

Totally agree with the math here. If you look at Discord servers you see how they have to break down into authoritarianism as mods have less and less time to deal with each issue.

If you have any quantitative data on that, even anecdotal, I’d be very interested! I’m curious to see if my 300,000 number holds up

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#129

Post by fleddr »

jimmygrapes wrote: post #82
commandlinefan wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> personally affected because they are trans That's something I find surprising about reddit - I can't remember what the exact percentage is, but I think it's something like 0.1% of the world population is trans... but it seems like 90% of the moderators on reddit are. What is it about reddit that attracts them?

Perhaps it's because they feel more comfortable expressing themselves in a pseudoanonymous forum. Perhaps they discovered that they were trans by virtue of being eternally online. I believe it is the latter to a great extent. I don't know if there are any studies of this (or if studying such things is even permitted), but in my own fairly small family/friends groups there are 6 people (out of around 30 or 40) who hav…

Just learned this week that an extended family member is trans. Not a single sign of gender dysphoria throughout her entire 21 years of life. 6 months of university and surgery is pending.

The social contagion is so plain to see but I guess talking about it is a taboo.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#130

Post by operatingthetan »

lmm wrote: post #120
tptacek wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think that's how HN works at all. Dan can in fact run amok on HN. I don't believe there are significant pressures from YC on how Dan structures moderation here. People unfamiliar with the setup here tend to think about YC first when they think about its management, but they should think about Dan first. My understanding is that things are pretty hands-off; even the perks that YC companies get here are, I…

The fact of being an HN employee means that Dan has a sword of Damocles above his head the whole time. Whether or not YC are actually calling him up day-to-day and telling him to do X or Y is irrelevant; he's smart enough to figure out what X and Y are and do them pre-emptively, and he knows his livelihood depends on it.

Exactly, I'm so confused why people are speculating that dang is the only employee in the world not subject to a performance review. If someone is paying you, they have a stake in your work.
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