Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#81

Post by talmand » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

justinlaster wrote: post #46

koolba wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to lay to rest this ridiculous notion that reddit is actively censoring anyone. They have code targeting specific subreddits to actively prevent them from being on the front page. While not totally censoring those people, they are putting their fingers on the scale which many see as a form of censorship.

>They have code targeting specific subreddits to actively prevent them from being on the front page. Source? The only thing they've done is prevent certain mod tools from being used a slingshot to the front page for specific subreddits. And this wasn't done out of hatred, it was done after consistent and continual abuse of those mod tools to antagonize the rest of the community.

I don't understand, you're requesting a source for something you state yourself in the following sentence? What am I misunderstanding?

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#82

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

clamprecht wrote: post #49

rm999 wrote: post #30

It's pretty clear to me that Reddit has always lacked a solid experienced science-driven data person. Someone who can pinpoint an issue, formulate the issue into a product-driven concrete problem, come up with hypotheses on how to fix the problem, then use their vast wealth of data and users to test and/or implement them. It's not just the ad hoc unintuitive "solution" they came up with to mask votes (which most peop…

Redditor of 11 years here. I don't want another filter bubble that only shows me what it thinks I want to read (like Facebook). I want to see what other people are seeing, and not just like-minded people either. For that I can find subreddits and subscribe to them.

>I don't want another filter bubble that only shows me what it thinks I want to read (like Facebook).

Some of the most interesting commentary on reddit are buried at -5 votes because almost all voting is an emotional reaction or treated as a "disagree/agree" button. I think its bad enough as-is. I don't want to see reddit build out a 'safe space' for me by analyzing my views and what subs I visit. If anything, I really want to see the threshold for when comments are collapsed to be much higher than -5, which seems easily gamed and way too quickly drowned out by knee-jerk disagree voters.

I wish these sites would move towards a slashdot-style moderation where your vote needs to be justified. Like "funny," "controversial," "insightful," "well sourced," or "poorly sourced," etc. Then you can adjust your algorithm as needed to promote quality comments, even if they go against the grain. Or users can tweak their own prefences like having a tick box or drag-n-drop to prefer 'insightful' over 'funny', for example. Or 'well sourced' over 'insightful.'

Sadly, social networks, forums, etc probably are highly disincentivized to do this as they assume we all just want tailored content. Or that if there isn't enough tailoring then users will just jump to the competition. I think most people can be okay with contradicting or some low effort, but still, insightful commentary. Perhaps we're overly coddling each other.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#83

Post by JeffL » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #60

SEJeff wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a data driven scientist, if you were the king of Reddit, what would you do differently and why would it be better? Not playing devil's advocate, but just curious.

If I were in this position I would empower people to filter out cheap content, fluff, memes and keep the in depth discussions and articles. Each user could choose the filtering level.

It would be interesting if instead of just up and down arrows, you could tag posts as "insightful", "funny", or "inspiring". Too often, the up votes are used for things that are funny, and throwaway one liners and memes dominate all the popular subreddits. I would love to support by insightful and get discussions similar to HN.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#84

Post by matthewmacleod » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

rm999 wrote: post #30

It's pretty clear to me that Reddit has always lacked a solid experienced science-driven data person. Someone who can pinpoint an issue, formulate the issue into a product-driven concrete problem, come up with hypotheses on how to fix the problem, then use their vast wealth of data and users to test and/or implement them. It's not just the ad hoc unintuitive "solution" they came up with to mask votes (which most peop…

I absolutely fucking love Reddit's lack of "personalised content discovery". The equivalent in any other platform is awful.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#85

Post by riazrizvi » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

rm999 wrote: post #30

It's pretty clear to me that Reddit has always lacked a solid experienced science-driven data person. Someone who can pinpoint an issue, formulate the issue into a product-driven concrete problem, come up with hypotheses on how to fix the problem, then use their vast wealth of data and users to test and/or implement them. It's not just the ad hoc unintuitive "solution" they came up with to mask votes (which most peop…

You are not alone with that frustration, in a broad sense: Team X has product with great potential, expert wants to make it better, Team X just wants to figure it out themselves...

I have come to the life conclusion that owning your own thing is the ultimate path for anyone who wants to fully realize their expert vision. That's what motivates me to do my startup.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#86

Post by mullingitover » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #72

toxican wrote: post #59

It doesn't help that the CEO admitted to editing Trump supporter comments. I mean I couldn't care less about those people, but that is censorship and suppression and I can't blame people for viewing anything reddit does from now on with a bit of skepticism. But obviously it's not that bad because they've still chosen to make reddit their home.

Why the downvotes? The CEO did admit to committing such anti-user actions.

If the users Spez trolled with his edits decided to leave reddit forever, it would only make reddit a better place.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#87

Post by CaptSpify » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

thinkloop wrote: post #62

clamprecht wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redditor of 11 years here. I don't want another filter bubble that only shows me what it thinks I want to read (like Facebook). I want to see what other people are seeing, and not just like-minded people either. For that I can find subreddits and subscribe to them.

Algorithms that are optimized to show more of what a user is interested in, shouldn't be equated to creating an echo chamber. A good algorithm could include variety and conflicting positions, if that's what the user shows affinity to. I don't think the concept should be discounted because of weak implementations.

I think it's kind of like CG in movies. Most people don't notice good CG, they only notice bad CG, so they tend to think "all CG is bad".

I've found that I only notice "echo-chamber inducing" algorithms, while I'm sure I don't even notice good algorithms.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#88

Post by agumonkey » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

mejari wrote: post #64

visarga wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were in this position I would empower people to filter out cheap content, fluff, memes and keep the in depth discussions and articles. Each user could choose the filtering level.

Can they not do exactly that with their subscriptions? Unsubscribe from AdviceAnimals and subscribe to AskHistorians.

There's a need for in-sub filtering too for non too specific subs. It's said to be possible with the Reddit Enhanced Suite thing ? but I never used it. I just echo what people say.

Sure for very narrow subs, with adequate moderation manpower, the filtering can be done this way.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#89

Post by EvilTerran » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

rm999 wrote: post #50

binthere wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on "their lack of personalized content discovery"? I'm usually on the fence of bringing personalized content on platforms where you usually want to remain anonymous.

It could be as simple as "Hey, we noticed you spend a lot of time on r/gaming and r/frugal - might we suggest r/gameDeals?". Or perhaps even just filling some of the front page with threads from subreddits that may interest the user. I think there'd be a lot of interesting discovery available to reasonably active users of reddit. (I've spent a significant % of my career on personalized recommendations, and in my opin…

So something along the lines of... a new tab on the homepage, "You Might Like: posts upvoted by people who tend to vote like you"?

That is: compute a "similarity score" between each pair of users, higher for each post they both voted on the same way, and lower for when they voted oppositely; then, when computing the ordering for the "You Might Like" page, multiply each vote on the posts by the voter's similarity to the viewer, instead of counting each voter equally.

Or something like that - I'm just a layman tossing ideas around, no doubt there's more rigorous and/or performant statistical methods out there.

Re: Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters

#90

Post by justinlaster » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 6:09 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #81

justinlaster wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They have code targeting specific subreddits to actively prevent them from being on the front page. Source? The only thing they've done is prevent certain mod tools from being used a slingshot to the front page for specific subreddits. And this wasn't done out of hatred, it was done after consistent and continual abuse of those mod tools to antagonize the rest of the community.

I don't understand, you're requesting a source for something you state yourself in the following sentence? What am I misunderstanding?

There is a difference between limiting a mod tool and code that stops a subreddit's post from getting to the front page.

The former is what I referenced, the latter is what I was asking a source for.