This might be an unpopular opinion, but karma/reputation points. It only encourages hivemind and echo chambers. I’m ok with thread-specific points so that content can be ranked, but that’s it.
@arth or a race to the top with the wittiest one liner. Or a serious thread just consisting of one liners. I’ve loved kbin for how verbose people can be on here, really getting into the spirit of discussing and debating. Proper conversations, not just pun after pun
But never on a serious topic. Let’s add to the list, that “this is the way” bot that the dude then botted comments in a restricted (or was it private?) just to “win” on the bots leader board.
The comment/article up/downvote functions combined with personal filters/ban/blacklist tools is all that’s needed. Some kind of strange “karma” or global reputation over time is the detrimental to the site and discussions and encourages bandwagoning users.
The karma system was not even effective against spammers, while it did block out genuine new accounts and people with unpopular opinions. Bots would just repost popular posts and comments to farm karma and bypass the restrictions.
Anyone with half a brain could spot a karma farming account. When I first became a mod of a very large sub there I looked at the recent ban log and spotted some accounts banned a couple months back for karma farming. They were being used for things like promoting drug sites, crypto, etc.
The algorithm used karma and history to help filter/restrict accounts. The problem was that not everyone was committed to doing that. Most of the meme subs had mods who just didn’t give a shit and when you sent them a modmail with: ‘Hey these are clearly bot accounts reposting word for word popular posts including the links (which is a really good indication it’s a script’, they just wouldn’t do anything or just very aggressively respond that they wouldn’t do anything. Henceforth their subs became ground zero for botters and scammers who wanted to build history on an account.
Reddit had an automated process, as far as I could tell, for banning/restricting these kinds of account. If enough large subs banned them in a period of time, it would seem like their accounts would be suspended almost immediately. So if they happened to post in the wrong group of subs when I spotted them, I’d modmail all those subs and they’d all ban them and the account would disappear, but if they hit the right subs where the mods didn’t care, then they wouldn’t, and it would take a lot more work to get them dealt with.
Karma is a good way to track participation, but if people ignore/abuse the system it falls apart.
The fact that reddit didn’t have a process in place to track accounts posting word for word (including link) reposts and immediately ban them was really weak. Also the fact that the algorithm checked karma and history but the admin gave their blessing to subs like freekarma4u because some subs had karma requirements was a bit of a joke.
At the size of Reddit, it’s impossible as a mod to keep track of every account’s individual activities. A mod of a meme sub with millions of subscribers isn’t going to vet every user in the sub. To recognize a karma farming bot, you would have to know that their content is reposted. But if you’re viewing the bot’s post for the first time, how would you know? You would just assume that the post is original and upvote it. The karma bots also crop or filter their reposted images to make sure “repost identifier” bots don’t catch them.
You don’t need to vet every user in the sub. It is trivial to write a bot that detects whether or not things are reposts. There was literally a repostsleuth bot that did just that. All they would have had to do is pay attention to it.
I modded a sub of over 25 million subscribers and there wasn’t an unfiltered post that I didn’t go through. If you aren’t checked out as a mod, it’s pretty easy to spot the reposts after you mod the sub for awhile. It’s also fairly easy to spot a bot that needs investigating if you actually click on their profile.
The bots carried on for years doing little more than simply copying the previous post word for word and even if the image was hosted on reddit, they’d just repost the same link, they were trivially easy to catch and the mods of those subs couldn’t even put that little bit of effort in. Right up until the end of pushshift bots were reposting top posts from subs.
trying to dismiss their inability to act because bots have gotten more sophisticated doesn’t excuse them because they didn’t do anything when they were simple.
The reality is those restrictions/gates just became goalposts and frequently moved fairnebough that it was easier for the spammers to get past with a repost bot (or kharma farming sub)
Spammers are not the only thing this is meant for. One example would be the give-away subs. /r/SteamGiveaway etc. Their requirements don’t prevent every malicious post, but it did keep people from just easily creating dozens of accounts to game the system.
Maybe the average Reddit lurker. But that’s the point I- and others- are making.
People who are trying to game the system to get free loot, are…. Going to game the system…. And the karma restrictions made it harder for actual people who aren’t gaming the system
I agree. People can never fully seem to grasp that upvote and downvote do not mean agree and disagree, which discourages real conversation and ferments a hivemind.
People that want to put the effort in to have real discussions also don’t tend to care about internet points. But people that care about internet points are more inclined to only post low effort content and continual reposts.
That’s not the fault of people, it’s the fault of the UX design. Because psychologically, the most natural interpretation is Like/Dislike.
In addition, while using it as a Like/Dislike can cause valid opinions to be lost when it comes to comments, it’s far more useful at the thread level, where you do want thread positions to be based on what the users of that thread want to see versus don’t want to see.
However, someone else made an alternate suggestion, which is to have 4 arrows instead of 2.
One set covers Like/Dislike, while the other set covers Relevant/Not Relevant. I’m not sure that applies on the thread level, but it might be a nice enhancement for comments.
upvote and downvote do not mean agree and disagree
Oh man, that really angered me with reddit. Make a controversial opinion and you are obliterated. It made subreddits like /r/UnpopularOpinion absolutely pointless, and having a discussion unfun
It’s why I personally chose Beehaw. Removing the down vote ability is truly, in my opinion, a wise decision if you want real discussion rather than anger
I honestly prefer the way Fark handles comment voting. Smart or Funny. No upvotes or downvotes, just whether you enjoyed the comment for its humor or its intellectual content.
Many forums have additional ratings/reactions. Sufficient Velocity has the most I recall off-hand: Like, Hug, Informative, Insightful, and funny as basic reactions. All of them are used regularly by users.
Honestly, SV may be considered overdoing it, though I personally like it. They also have Meow for paid users and Facepalm specific posts in a subforum. Even further, there’s gilding and maybe a dozen more reactions which are only active during specific events. Very much unnecessary to have that much.
That’s nothing. There’s a forum I post on during the NFL season called Sports Hoopla, which has the following post reactions: Like; Love; Haha; Wow; Sad; On Fire; Winner; Angry; Facepalm; You’re Funny; Mind Blown; Boring; Bullseye; Poop; Wondering; Useful; Cake; Clown; Rainbow.
It’s my understanding that “reputation points” isn’t fully implemented yet and means nothing right now. I can’t point to a source for this. Something I read somewhere that I’ve forgotten.
God yes. Not even close to unpopular. I’ve been going back and forth about it because it was sold as a barrier for entry to bots but, as was already noted, they just all hung around that damn free karma sub or reposted a single meme and then it was off to the races.
I get the feeling behind including it, but its only inarguable value is sorting the feed. Easy enough to just hide it outside of articles and then we’d all be better off.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but karma/reputation points. It only encourages hivemind and echo chambers. I’m ok with thread-specific points so that content can be ranked, but that’s it.
Agreed. This place shouldn’t be a popularity contest.
@arth or a race to the top with the wittiest one liner. Or a serious thread just consisting of one liners. I’ve loved kbin for how verbose people can be on here, really getting into the spirit of discussing and debating. Proper conversations, not just pun after pun
Some of the pun chains were fun.
But never on a serious topic. Let’s add to the list, that “this is the way” bot that the dude then botted comments in a restricted (or was it private?) just to “win” on the bots leader board.
Yep this ^
The comment/article up/downvote functions combined with personal filters/ban/blacklist tools is all that’s needed. Some kind of strange “karma” or global reputation over time is the detrimental to the site and discussions and encourages bandwagoning users.
There are some basic use-cases, imho. Quite a few subs required a minimum level of karma, age, and perhaps activity to reduce spammers.
I see no reason to track karma above 1000 or so, though. Even the most choosy subs never asked for that much karma, so I assume that should be fine.
No karma tracking above 1000 karma. Just display karma as “1000+” and that’s it.
The karma system was not even effective against spammers, while it did block out genuine new accounts and people with unpopular opinions. Bots would just repost popular posts and comments to farm karma and bypass the restrictions.
It would have been if it was used right.
Anyone with half a brain could spot a karma farming account. When I first became a mod of a very large sub there I looked at the recent ban log and spotted some accounts banned a couple months back for karma farming. They were being used for things like promoting drug sites, crypto, etc.
The algorithm used karma and history to help filter/restrict accounts. The problem was that not everyone was committed to doing that. Most of the meme subs had mods who just didn’t give a shit and when you sent them a modmail with: ‘Hey these are clearly bot accounts reposting word for word popular posts including the links (which is a really good indication it’s a script’, they just wouldn’t do anything or just very aggressively respond that they wouldn’t do anything. Henceforth their subs became ground zero for botters and scammers who wanted to build history on an account.
Reddit had an automated process, as far as I could tell, for banning/restricting these kinds of account. If enough large subs banned them in a period of time, it would seem like their accounts would be suspended almost immediately. So if they happened to post in the wrong group of subs when I spotted them, I’d modmail all those subs and they’d all ban them and the account would disappear, but if they hit the right subs where the mods didn’t care, then they wouldn’t, and it would take a lot more work to get them dealt with.
Karma is a good way to track participation, but if people ignore/abuse the system it falls apart.
The fact that reddit didn’t have a process in place to track accounts posting word for word (including link) reposts and immediately ban them was really weak. Also the fact that the algorithm checked karma and history but the admin gave their blessing to subs like freekarma4u because some subs had karma requirements was a bit of a joke.
At the size of Reddit, it’s impossible as a mod to keep track of every account’s individual activities. A mod of a meme sub with millions of subscribers isn’t going to vet every user in the sub. To recognize a karma farming bot, you would have to know that their content is reposted. But if you’re viewing the bot’s post for the first time, how would you know? You would just assume that the post is original and upvote it. The karma bots also crop or filter their reposted images to make sure “repost identifier” bots don’t catch them.
You don’t need to vet every user in the sub. It is trivial to write a bot that detects whether or not things are reposts. There was literally a repostsleuth bot that did just that. All they would have had to do is pay attention to it.
I modded a sub of over 25 million subscribers and there wasn’t an unfiltered post that I didn’t go through. If you aren’t checked out as a mod, it’s pretty easy to spot the reposts after you mod the sub for awhile. It’s also fairly easy to spot a bot that needs investigating if you actually click on their profile.
The bots carried on for years doing little more than simply copying the previous post word for word and even if the image was hosted on reddit, they’d just repost the same link, they were trivially easy to catch and the mods of those subs couldn’t even put that little bit of effort in. Right up until the end of pushshift bots were reposting top posts from subs.
trying to dismiss their inability to act because bots have gotten more sophisticated doesn’t excuse them because they didn’t do anything when they were simple.
Well, there are some, like /r/SupremeClub that requires 100 000 comment karma. Of course that’s the entire point of the sub.
The reality is those restrictions/gates just became goalposts and frequently moved fairnebough that it was easier for the spammers to get past with a repost bot (or kharma farming sub)
Spammers are not the only thing this is meant for. One example would be the give-away subs. /r/SteamGiveaway etc. Their requirements don’t prevent every malicious post, but it did keep people from just easily creating dozens of accounts to game the system.
Maybe the average Reddit lurker. But that’s the point I- and others- are making.
People who are trying to game the system to get free loot, are…. Going to game the system…. And the karma restrictions made it harder for actual people who aren’t gaming the system
agree totally, the constant reposting to karma farm was one of the biggest annoyances
I agree. People can never fully seem to grasp that upvote and downvote do not mean agree and disagree, which discourages real conversation and ferments a hivemind.
People that want to put the effort in to have real discussions also don’t tend to care about internet points. But people that care about internet points are more inclined to only post low effort content and continual reposts.
That’s not the fault of people, it’s the fault of the UX design. Because psychologically, the most natural interpretation is Like/Dislike.
In addition, while using it as a Like/Dislike can cause valid opinions to be lost when it comes to comments, it’s far more useful at the thread level, where you do want thread positions to be based on what the users of that thread want to see versus don’t want to see.
However, someone else made an alternate suggestion, which is to have 4 arrows instead of 2.
One set covers Like/Dislike, while the other set covers Relevant/Not Relevant. I’m not sure that applies on the thread level, but it might be a nice enhancement for comments.
Oh man, that really angered me with reddit. Make a controversial opinion and you are obliterated. It made subreddits like /r/UnpopularOpinion absolutely pointless, and having a discussion unfun
It’s why I personally chose Beehaw. Removing the down vote ability is truly, in my opinion, a wise decision if you want real discussion rather than anger
Yes, karma farming just encouraged reposting of popular posts. I can’t stand seeing the same thing over and over again- across and in the same subs.
I honestly prefer the way Fark handles comment voting. Smart or Funny. No upvotes or downvotes, just whether you enjoyed the comment for its humor or its intellectual content.
Many forums have additional ratings/reactions. Sufficient Velocity has the most I recall off-hand: Like, Hug, Informative, Insightful, and funny as basic reactions. All of them are used regularly by users.
Honestly, SV may be considered overdoing it, though I personally like it. They also have Meow for paid users and Facepalm specific posts in a subforum. Even further, there’s gilding and maybe a dozen more reactions which are only active during specific events. Very much unnecessary to have that much.
That’s nothing. There’s a forum I post on during the NFL season called Sports Hoopla, which has the following post reactions: Like; Love; Haha; Wow; Sad; On Fire; Winner; Angry; Facepalm; You’re Funny; Mind Blown; Boring; Bullseye; Poop; Wondering; Useful; Cake; Clown; Rainbow.
Power user from Reddit here. Yeah, it helps create some of the toxicity. Definitely for not having that crap follow over to the Fediverse
deleted by creator
It’s my understanding that “reputation points” isn’t fully implemented yet and means nothing right now. I can’t point to a source for this. Something I read somewhere that I’ve forgotten.
God yes. Not even close to unpopular. I’ve been going back and forth about it because it was sold as a barrier for entry to bots but, as was already noted, they just all hung around that damn free karma sub or reposted a single meme and then it was off to the races.
I get the feeling behind including it, but its only inarguable value is sorting the feed. Easy enough to just hide it outside of articles and then we’d all be better off.
I agree. The fear of losing karma gave me “posting anxiety”
AMEN.
I like this idea