Thread

Does Reddit have an astroturfing problem? What the data suggests

312 points · 408 comments · p-s-v

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?
    monkeywork · 1790660097 · focus · HN ↗
    A few things I miss:
    Smaller communities. You generally knew what kind of community you were participating in. Focused discussion. A forum was usually about a specific subject, rather than one account participating in dozens of completely unrelated communities.
    Your identity was more compartmentalized. What you said on a linux forum didn't necessarily follow you into a motorcycle community.
    Moderation had different incentives. If you ran a forum, you needed people to actually want to come back. Moderation that became too heavy-handed could kill the community you were trying to maintain.
    Reddit essentially turned the forum model into one enormous site with thousands of sections, sounds great but broke more than it fixed.
    Your Reddit account becomes a single identity spanning everything you do. Someone can look through your activity in completely unrelated subreddits, form an opinion about you based on that, and potentially use something you said somewhere else against you... no matter what the culture/norms/rules were of the other community.
    A traditional forum depended on its community surviving. On Reddit, a subreddit can become extremely valuable simply because it occupies a desirable name and has accumulated a large user base. The underlying platform is doing most of the work of bringing people there. The moderator can be "all powerful" and heavy handed because they know rarely do competing subreddits actually work out.
    demibabs · 1790670300 · focus · HN ↗
    The names thing is a pretty big issue now that i think about it.
    If you don’t like r/cars what are you gonna make to compete with it? r/cars2?

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