Thread

1. nomel · 1790637663 · focus · HN ↗

   > Thin accounts: few comments, low scores, no real standing in the subreddit.

   > Young accounts, or accounts with histories that are hidden or wiped.

   Nope, this is no longer an indicator of a bot account. Many that I've looked into will have active posts to local town/region subreddits (often times multiple!) and different sports subreddits, sometimes getting unusually high amounts of karma in them (which suggests a network).

   Turing test is looong dead, so no reason to assume the small fractions of a cent to make comments, to get a reasonable history, isn't being taken advantage of.

   1. sippingabonedry · 1790640279 · focus · HN ↗

      Too many subreddits still have minimum karma or account age requirements. Most of those are ruled by tyrant moderators so you're not missing much, but it's made the site largely useless. I estimate 60% of discussions on Reddit are fake or fabricated on some level.

      Can't post honest questions anymore without posting obviously phony pandering banter first to increase your karma. What's worse, it promotes the bad behaviors the bots are actually good it.

      Bring back forums.

      1. Nifty3929 · 1790643041 · focus · HN ↗

         "Bring back forums" - I'm with you. I prefer forums as well, but when I think about it a little bit I can't say exactly why. Threaded conversations on specific topics, with moderation? That's basically Reddit (and forums). So what do you think it is that makes Reddit feel icky, versus the forums we've had in days of yore? Is it something fundamental about the system/experience, or is it just a "nobody goes there anymore... it's too crowded" problem?

         Maybe the difference is the post/comments framing? Rather than an opening post with sequential follow-up replies? Maybe something about voting? Maybe it's all the bolt-on features?

         1. giantrobot · 1790662216 · focus · HN ↗

            > So what do you think it is that makes Reddit feel icky, versus the forums we've had in days of yore?

            Votes and karma. The concept of karma isn't bad but Reddit's implementation is bad. HN has a similar problem. There's only up and down votes with no context.

            Why was a post upvoted or downvoted? Did people find it funny or informative? Did it correct the original link or a parent post? No fucking clue. Just scalar value that goes up and down. Then you get bad proxies for context with vote ratios (controversial etc).

            Slashdot's voting system isn't perfect but much better. Instead of some scalar value a post is moderated with some sort of context (Interesting, Informative, etc). Voting is also distributed among users and limited. If you get moderator points you're limited in how many you get and you can't post to a thread you've moderated. Meta moderation also helps to correct for overzealous/reactionary moderation.

            The context is useful because you get an idea of why something was moderated as it was. The limited number and random distribution of moderation points helps inspire actual moderation. You either downvote obviously trolling/bad faith posts or upvote actually constructive posts. No one wastes their mod points on memes and "me too" posts. Drive by memes and short knee jerk replies just wallow in the Score: 1 area most users quickly learn to filter out. They're not punished but also not rewarded.

            Giving everyone unlimited mod points devolves a site into gaming karma. Trolls enjoy seeing how low their karma can get while karma whores will post whatever gets upvotes rather than something constructive. Karma is a bad proxy for constructive contributions to the community.

            1. alex1138 · 1790662818 · focus · HN ↗

               HN has [flag]. And anything and everything is subject to it...

               1. Teever · 1790667092 · focus · HN ↗

                  I'd like to hear more about how you feel the HN flag feature relates to the comparisons the user you replied to raised to the Slashdot voting system and context in voting.

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