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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

#581

Post by grafmax »

neilv wrote: post #84

I don't know about this particular case, but, generally... bad actor subreddit moderators have been an occasional thing for well over a decade. And it's also been widely known for that long that Reddit is an influential venue in which to take over a corner -- for marketing or propaganda. What's an equal concern to me is how insufficiently resilient Reddit collectively appears to be, in face of this. A bad actor mod o…

Social media should operate under open protocols, including moderation. Choosing moderation should be client-controlled.

These companies burn through VC money to build systems with network effects then turn around and effectively extract rent. Rent extraction is economically parasitic and anti-productive. This is exactly the sort of thing the government should address by mandating open protocols.

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

#582

Post by _vqpz »

jacquesm wrote: post #397

I've seen a lot of shady moderation on reddit and it's one reason I quit using it. There is the obvious brigading, mods on powertrips and but also massive probably paid astro turfing campaigns. Reddit has gone downhill substantially in the last five years. HN is not immune either, but at least we dont' have a 'mods on powertrips' problem, in fact the opposite.

I quit Reddit too. The posts and comments here are definitely much higher quality but the constant changing of titles by mods here drives me insane.

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

#583

Post by tyleo »

jongjong wrote: post #471

I shudder at the thought of "striving to become a Reddit moderator." So much effort to achieve such a petty political goal. What sort of person does this? I cannot comprehend people who would spend their life doing that... Out of all the things a person could do. Do Reddit moderators get a kick out of manipulating people's beliefs and banning people discussing niche topics? I don't get it.

TBH I don't think the goal is petty. I think there's a lot of money involved. That moderator runs a company in the space. Seems more about lining their pockets than revenge.

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

#584

Post by Uptrenda »

mike_hearn wrote: post #404
LaurensBER wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderation on Reddit has been questionable for a long time and its killing the site. To give some examples: - /r/energy used to ban everyone in favour of nuclear energy - If you post on /r/conservative you can expect to receive a bunch of bans from unrelated (popular) subs. Doesn't matter what you posted, being associated with that subs "taints" your account enough for some moderators. - /r/UnitedKingdom banned me fo…

You missed maybe the biggest one, /r/bitcoin, which around 2015 started banning anyone who wanted Bitcoin to actually follow the original design and continue scaling up on-chain transactions. The moderator, some anonymous student (possibly named Michael Marquardt), literally declared anyone who wanted Bitcoin to be used for regular transactions offtopic and banned them on a massive scale. When explaining his actions…

Exactly this. They had full control over both bitcointalk and /r/bitcoin. A few persuasive individuals circumvented the design and censored all discussion against it. It turns out that 51% attacks don't matter if you control social consensus. You control what engineers get to participate. What the project direction is. What views are considered "credible" -- credible enough to be "worth posting." Then with the other hand you wave away opposing ideas and accuse those who disagree with you of your own bad deeds. Eventually, over time the original is replaced and there's no longer anyone around to remember it.

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

#585

Post by baobabKoodaa »

neya wrote: post #268
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mods here are paid that's why.

But getting paid doesn't guarantee being neutral. I think it's more about the principle and vision than just the pay.

I think we just got lucky it happened to be dang.

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

#586

Post by fuzzfactor »

nkrisc wrote: post #424
extr wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

r/sandiego. The mods are political and territorial. I posted once about the suggestion to create a discord for the sub and they removed my post and DMed me this: > What experience do you have modding such channels and the reddit community? > Managing city subs are among the most difficult on the site... these are not single topic communities and discord is not organized in the same way so that bad actors can creep in…

You can just do it yourself if you want. You don’t have to listen to them.

Those should be 4 motivational bullet points right there.

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

#588

Post by oeirugjoiwejo »

baobun wrote: post #55

Since it's getting downvoted hard and might be missed, FYI Michael is in the house. I encourage y'all to read the whole article before engaging. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45522396

LOL He show his github profile, private, and it has a link to the competitor. To me this reinforces the linked article.

Nice competitor you have there, would be a shame if someone did the same to it.

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

#589

Post by jibal »

The discussion at https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/ is not going well for Mr. Novati.

Edit: oops, that was the wrong link! I meant to link to the reddit post discussing that article: https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1o1guxj/tho...

I think one of the most telling facts is that pro-Novati poster u/Ok-Donuts has posted numerous comments that are clearly a violation of all norms but seems to be immune to moderation.

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

#590

Post by eps »

firesteelrain wrote: post #409
eps wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comment and post history is still trivial to find through a basic google query. All that hiding them on Reddit does is pissing other users off because it breaks establish site's norms and expectations.

It’s not a bad thing. People on there, if you piss them off in a discussion, will go find your old posts and downvote them and in some rare cases harass you by replying or worse put two and two together to doxx you.

Not sure what you mean. They can still do all that even if the profile is set to private. It doesn't hide your posts and comments from Google. They are hoovered up just the same.
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