Thread

1. nomilk · 1790655652 · focus · HN ↗

   The biggest problem I have with reddit is mods can slowly but systematically ban users who express unfavourable opinions, and over time, anyone casually browsing could mistakenly believe those views are unpopular, whereas in reality everyone with that view (everyone who spoke it, anyway) was banned.

   To give a simple example, one video game franchise subreddit bans any negative discussion on the most recent title. Over 5-10 years, this shielded them from negative feedback. But the franchise has tanked because core users weren't listened to, and they ended up making something nobody wanted.

   1. aurareturn · 1790656841 · focus · HN ↗

      My biggest problem with Reddit is that trolls, memes, unintelligent posts have taken over the platform. Go to any semi-popular subreddit and most upvoted posts are just low effort memes. Posts that are long and well thought out don't win over memes and trolls. One of the reasons is that posting a few short words wins in upvotes because they get posted first while it takes much longer to write something thoughtful.

      Reddit's system rewards these low effort posts for some reason. Over time, the platform becomes less and less trustworthy until it becomes something like Quora.

      1. cbg0 · 1790657464 · focus · HN ↗

         This has always been Reddit, aside from the niche subreddits.

         1. aurareturn · 1790658784 · focus · HN ↗

            I don't think so. I've been a Reddit user for 12+ years or so. Obviously when you make the platform easy to use for anyone, you also invite more casual users who just want to meme.

            Reddit doesn't even make any attempt to control quality since user engagement numbers matter more than quality.

            Reminds me of Quora which over optimized the site for engagement growth but eventually became completely useless for this reason.

            1. lordnacho · 1790675632 · focus · HN ↗

               This got me wondering whether you could train an automod to act like Dang.

               Dang is more or less what keeps HN from becoming Reddit.

               1. someonebaggy · 1790682644 · focus · HN ↗

                  People would find exploits in the automod. For example if a trivial keyword filter flags comments mentioning Palestine but not ones that mention Paluhstein, or "the country of Isn'treal"

                  This is called Algospeak and has infected a lot of people's everyday language. People say "unalive" instead of "kill" or "murder", because the internet has drilled into them that you have to use that word.

                  1. lordnacho · 1790713668 · focus · HN ↗

                     An LLM would easily understand that, no?

                     1. someonebaggy · 1790714819 · focus · HN ↗

                        If trained enough, but the commenters will just start calling it watermelon instead. So you train your LLM to block comments about watermelons, so they say thing. So you train your LLM to block comments about things. Congrats you blocked all comments.

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