92 of top 500 subreddits controlled by same 5 people

Once they got good at that, they had a saleable product, as well as a worldview that treats online discussion as a resource strata to be exploited and shepherded, not nurtured.

Here's a comment thread about "Gallowboob" which documents all this to a T: https://snew.notabug.io/r/interestingasfuck/comments/gitwbo/...

> Note that “activity anywhere on reddit” IS NOT limited to publicly visible posts and comments.

Reddit's admins can presumably see things like last visit, use of the moderator tools, etc. that aren't in the public feed.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/dt527o/no_this...

(Post mentions/links to discussions of others, notably https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/20yhxc/reddit_... )

The neonazi takeover of /r/xkcd was a stark warning sign.

Of course, a similar issue afflicts any proprietary publishing venture, see the long sad saga of American Mercury:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Mercury

Isn't the monetary value of a subreddit zero to everyone but Reddit corporate?

Image posts do not exist and we usually prefer medium to long text and videos that are dense with content. It’s not entirely formal though, and there are avenues for conversation and personal expression. The announcing post: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes

Extended docs and the philosophy of Tildes: https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy

Tildes' content is open for anyone to see: https://tildes.net/

We have a subreddit: /r/tildes with a permanent thread for invites and there are invites for everyone.

Here is the complete list in good quality.

https://i.redd.it/bfhl8s6o2fn41.png

Mirror https://imgur.com/a/rjE8YuW

Classic example of why you never, ever look at vanilla served up for you Reddit. Just make it your own.

I don't think threads should be locked, though. There is nothing on Reddit more annoying than not being able to reply to someone because of an arbitrary decision (like a mod locking the entire submission). There are better solutions. But it just seems silly to shut down discussion when people want to have it on a social site.

Even sinking a thread to the bottom is better than locking it.

If it uses a deterministic MAB algorithm, it would put unvoted posts at the very top. The MAB algorithm is constructed to find the best choices (here, most liked posts), and it can't know what the true score of a comment is if nobody has voted on it yet. Thus the need for exploration would push those posts/comments very high.

https://redditblog.com/2009/10/15/reddits-new-comment-sortin...

As someone who browses both reddit and hacker news (obviously), I'm regularly frustrated by the way this site hijacks your attention to ask you to judge some recent comment, rather than showing you the ones worth reading at the top. It's still never going to get enough votes to keep that position, and it makes more sense to ask people who've scrolled to the bottom to judge comments with few votes, once they've already read the current frontrunners.

When you see big subs with old comments with a lot of votes at the top on reddit, it's probably because there's nothing else worth showing towards the bottom. I scroll further than I probably should, and the more the subreddit appears to have the early-replier problem, the less I care how those comments are ordered.

All advertising platforms consolidate over time.

Seriously, has anyone seen those mods control those subs?

Have they removed other mods and run the subs according to their evil designs?

What evil design?

People all over this thread are talking about this as if it was fact.

This is a point where people stop being effective on HN, and offload their thinking to assumptions of trust, jsut because its posted here.

This thread, and this post mean that this isn't a fair thing anymore.

Also, it probably helps that this community is not particularly demographically diverse compared to the average. There is less value to a PR company in sockpuppeting here, unless they are specifically trying to reach tech workers specifically.

The voting/modding mechanics here on HN are not immune to the poison of becoming popular.

What would improve the content quality is a requirement to maintain membership by answering a complex enough question once a month. Questions could be prepared by mods. But then all the reddit audience would be gone, and with them the reddit's power to influence the lazy internet crowd.

Two people have now commented assuming this is some sort of ad-hominem against the user. I think it bears elaborating in-thread that the notable thing here is that this otherwise-normal Redditor has been systematically persecuted by these same mods, since posting this, completely baselessly. They do not want this discussed.

so: https://www.removeddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/gitw...

good to have backup services.

That's true if ceddit scanned the thread prior to the message being deleted. In a heavily trafficked and modded thread, many comments will be deleted in-between scans and those will be lost to everyone but reddit admins.

The only surefire way of seeing every censored comments is for reddit to provide the option to the users, but they are too pro-censorship and too pro-mod to allow that to happen.

If you post an opinion that gets downvoted a lot, your account will be given a 10 minute timer before you can reply to anyone, or post a new comment.

As a result, users must weigh the implications of compromising their ability to use all the features of the website, versus having the freedom to voice their opinion. In most cases if you want to express your opinion on some topic which is against the prevailing narrative, and you don't want it to affect your ability to post about completely unrelated things like Power Tools or Automobiles, then your only options are to self-censor, or use a different account, or wait 10 minutes between comments.

The ceddit website will show you censored content, but there are likely millions of similar comments that users did not post because the algorithm discourages wrongthink

Back in the late 90s early 00s I was a member of a forum for a chain of video game stores in the UK, it was an amazing community. The store went bust in ‘05 and one guy created his own forum software where most of the displaced members flocked to.

That forum is still going, although there’s probably only 10 or so regulars left - but we still talk on it every day. I’ve even met a few of them in the real world.

EDIT: I think you've hit the nail on the head, the thing that was so great about forums is, while the original point of the forum was to bring together people with a like minded interest (video game(s)/whatever) - the forum would also have separate boards to discuss cross over topics or something completely unrelated. This meant you were talking to people who you might recognise from other areas of the forum and share other common interests, so could build that sense of community.

Whereas reddit just feels more siloed, I wouldn't recongise anyone who visits subreddit X who also happens to be on Y etc

If you head over to rivals.com there's a paid site for each team with a private board. Obviously, some are more active than others and there are competitor sites out there as well...but it's the same experience that you're describing.

I've been on those boards for about 20 years now and it's exactly what you describe. Regulars who talk some sports, but also news, random conversation, recommendations for contractors (since many of the members live within 100 mile orbit of the Clemson), advice on investments and fiances, restaurants, etc.

It's worth every penny for the resource it's been.

It seems to me like Discord provides a similar experience for today's kids. But of course the medium itself is quite different (long-form vs quippy, preserved vs ephemeral) and informs the experience accordingly.

Much as I somewhat romanticize the BBS experience I think it's going to occupy less and less of this type of social space, just by the nature of the way people communicate now.

This is mostly the crux of the matter. It doesn't matter if you're talking about Reddit, phpBB, discord, imageboards, whatever. As a community grows, it becomes harder to deal with and more "faceless". I've been in great sub reddits. I've had to leave message boards on other platforms for the problems you describe (and others).

To a lesser extent, the lack of friction caused by not having to register individually to each message board to stop lurking, and the lack of friction creating new communities also matter, but none of those improvements require a centralised site to exist - niche reddit communities should be relatively easy to move from the site if such tooling existed, much easier than moving people from social networks at least.

Reddit's too anonymous and Facebook is not anonymous enough!

It was most blatant when Hillary basically collapsed in front of the van. First wave was it was hot everything is fine, second was that she was feeling a bit under the weather due to the heat, and then it just a one off thing she's perfectly fine now look at the cute girl who greeted her. You would see hundreds of posts saying this exact thing and then change within 5 minutes.

I'm going to leave this ambiguous too :)

It may be the more conscious moderation style on HN, but it’s much more likely you’re going to get interesting content and thoughtful discussions here than on most subreddits, particularly those that show up on r/all or r/popular.

HN definitely has issues with performative intellectualism and people being unnecessarily argumentative, but I don’t think equating it with reddit is accurate.

Perhaps back when Reddit used to be a niche site, it was "mainly populated with technologically proficient people", but now it's the seventh most-popular site in the US. The days of "fellow Redditors" meaning anything concrete are long gone.

You can see it's evolution over time from a site where programming topics were very popular (as a proportion) to where general-purpose memes are dominant. (https://media.wired.com/photos/593278f0a31264584499534b/mast...)

I see anti-china all the time, but rarely see pro-china. This in on /r/all, by the way, so it's not because of any filter bubble on my part.

* using engagement as a ranking metric. This ensures the content is addictive, even if it's low quality

* the reactionary fabricated content they keep because it went viral

* important news won't surface until hours after an even happens unless an admin stickies it because they removed their traditional ranking algorithm

* the shift away from subreddits being communities and towards social media style entities

I wish reddit's alternatives gained some traction. Voat had some promise but got taken over by racist bots. saidit might have some potential.

Missed opportunity to refer people to the canonical subreddit /r/rimjobsteve.

* "The Pedantic Nitpicker". He will respond to your long, 50 sentence comment and say something like: "That one sentence said 'all' and should say 'some' because here is a counterexample. Therefore, YOUR ENTIRE POST IS WRONG."

* "The Sealioning Scientist". No matter what you say, she will ask for linked academic sources, and goad you into arguing, all while acting sincere and curious. If you fail to cite them, then obviously you are writing fiction, and she wins.

* "The Silent Downvoter". Skims through posts, looking for ones that violate some established groupthink or simply go against the current subreddit's zeitgeist, downvotes and sneaks off into the dark. Nobody knows their username because they never comment or explain their downvote.

This one is interesting to me. I could certainly be accused of being this guy, you could probably make an argument that I'm being this guy right now.

We're all here and participating for different purposes, and one of my purposes is to sharpen my writing skills and my rhetoric. Arguing with strangers on the internet is the most effective way of doing this that I've found, that doesn't affect my personal/professional life.

Another thing you mentioned - people with immense issues. We've all got plenty of issues, and one of the best things about commenting anonymously on the internet is that there is no punishment for revealing them.

I think that there are positive perspectives you could take on some of these bullet points

* HN Companies and sock puppets pushing agendas

* Hacker news counter culture movements and backlashes. Seems to be bipolar with pro Rust / anti Rust every day of the week.

* Hacker news nice guys who have account names like "mothsonasloth" or something really depraved. Along with all the other hypocrites

* Hacker news Admins and big personalities driving content trends on the site e.g. (/u/patio11)

* Recycling of posts / knowledge, since there are always new people joining. You get things like "TIL that microservices are awesome" trending once every month. Which is frustrating for veteran users

* Hacker news arm chair generals/economists/politicians. The points system rewards trendy content and doesn't necessarily mean quality. Unlike points in Stackoverflow, there is some degree of confidence in the users competency.

* The fact that Hacker news is mainly populated with technologically proficient people, who probably have some sort of issue, whether it be mental, psychological. Sure we all suffer from our demons but the amount of stuff I read on there makes me cringe at times.

* The "Hacker news Contrarian", waiting to snipe your post with their immense intellect

I began thinking twice before commenting on anything, and then eventually stopped. Even in the most benign subs, you can quickly escalate to Hitler if you deviate from the hive-mind.

Manipulating opinion is important these days. Mailing lists and Usenet were free, most web forums are subtly (or overtly) censored.

Indeed, peke_f1 is always the account that has posted major announcements. The moderators are often accused of deleting posts that were earlier in favor of peke_f1. Even if the link and title were exactly the same.

I'd love to get into a more niche community.

It's a bit different on smaller, more focused subreddits, but not by much.

I used to think that Reddit was a better place to be than Twitter or Facebook, but now I'm not so sure. I've definitely had a harder time cutting it out of my life than those other two, even though I think it's had a pretty bad effect on my mental health.

The problem with forums isn't that they are dead. It's that you are trying to have them do what reddit does right now, which is endless content and interaction 24/7. But that just doesn't work with a smaller number of people. Forums make sense as the thing that you visit once or twice a day and browse for a bit in a relaxed environment. I guarantee you that doing so from your phone during your commute or your 10 minute break isn't the same. It won't create comments of the same quality.

What I did was slowly unsubscribe to all subreddits over the course of 6-8 months; slowly 1-3 subs at a time. In the end when there was only one sub left, I lost the habit of going to the site.

* [1] https://redditenhancementsuite.com/

to;dr eternal september = constant influx of many new users didn't allow the 'culture' from before to survive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit...

Summary: it looks like Reddit posted on their blog about the "most reddit-addicted cities", and Eglin Airforce Base was near the top. It didn't take long for people to allege that it's due to sock puppetry and propaganda coming from the military, which was legalized in 2013.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...

At which point the blog post was changed to remove all mention of Eglin.

Propaganda to US citizens seems like a terrible use of tax dollars at best, and an incredibly dangerous tool in the wrong hands at worst.

From my anecdotal source, I've been banned a few times, and only once was it justified. The other times, the mods not only could not tell me what rule I violated, but resorted to insults just for my asking. There's entire subreddits dedicated to this type of piss-poor and outright abusive behavior from the mods. I'd wager that, from the perspective of the average user, the mods are the "bunch of children and adults acting like children". To me, they're like the DMV or TSA - small people who "volunteer" just for a small amount of power to make themselves feel like big people by abusing that power. Unfortunately, thus far, I have very little evidence to the contrary.

> I doubt many of you would actually want the responsibilities it requires to do at minimum a decent job of it.

You'd be wrong. I'm sure there's no shortage of people willing to help moderate, so pretending there's a small pool of people available or brushing them off under your own arbitrary definitions of "less qualified" definitely comes off as condescending.

> a bunch of children and adults acting like children.

Which is exactly what these mods are doing now by banning that user from all the subs, so your point doesn't hold water and further highlights a superiority complex.

In fact, 4chan officially refers to their analogous role as "janitors." "Moderators" on 4chan would be closer to Reddit admins.

How many hours people spend, as they also have jobs which actually pays them?

/r/ruby still has jamesgolick as a mod. ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8804624

One way to do that is to push paid content (or remove content).

Ultimately, these channels of revenue become more profitable and those folks buy more and more subs.

These days I lurk in a very small number of still-useful subs, and definitely don't have an account. For many topics, the interesting stuff has moved elsewhere.

Also Reddit and other forums are just forums. There's plenty of other places to have discussions.

In fact Reddit allows anyone to create sub reddits.

Why can't a group of like-minded people who want to have "non-status quo" discussions create their own communities for it?

That's how Reddit overtook Digg.

But I think what's really the complaint here is that people don't like that they don't have a mainstream audience.

They want to have their posts have the widest reach possible for ego and they don't like moderators deleting their posts or being downvoted.

At the end of the day none of it really matters. Why are people waging pointless online wars about internet communities?

Do they think they're shaping society?

Most of the smaller, niche communities I follow are full of nice and helpful people. One example being /r/MTB.

Do you honestly think HN is in a different category? Why do you think this site exists? And how many billions of collective hours of procrastination have been spent here?

Granted, this site is relatively well-moderated and high signal to noise, especially for its size, but so are many subreddits. The top subreddits are a dumpster fire but there are thousands of smaller niche subs that are delightful.

Apparently it's a touchy issue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/publicmodlogs/

Consider if you are a big/rich autocratic nation state (read China, Saudi) that wants to censor and shape discourse outside their borders. You just buy these 5 people and boom, you get instant powers to shape and censor the discourse on the most viewed forums on Reddit and the wider internet.

The front page needs to be removed, and karma needs to be isolated between subs.

Manged is the word I use when I'm referring to management that's been done badly. I'm sure yours is a typo, but if not, it's a word that should catch on.

Use in a sentence:

My Manger just asked me to do two tasks, which they don't even realise are mutually exclusive.

The Mangement is taking this company down the tubes.

That project was manged into the dismal failure you read about in yesterday's paper.

Anyone pushing the "political views" story knows that, of course.

I usually used it for fun, and had subscribed to some innocent technical subreddits, and memes that had nothing to do with politics or relationships; but eventually got dragged into these spiteful, petty, sort of ugly side of Reddit full of bad takes, top posts awarded for repeating same things over and over, namecalling, bullying kids, censoring people, etc.

The downvote button is used as a "The hivemind disagress with you, here is your -50 karma" and is never used for it's actual purpose which goes against the purpose of that feature.

Worst subreddit you should never visit are amitheasshole, relationshipadvice, programmerhumour, cats (they only post their dead cats for karma), pewdiepiesubmissions, dankmemes, worldpolitics, to name a few.

There are lots of popular karmawhores at the top of Reddit (like a shithead called u/gallowboob) that repost/steal posts from other subreddits to get karma shamelessly and he mods popular subs so he gets a pass, and he censors people that expose him.

Really, the Reddit drama is never ending and I'm glad I decided to come out of the pettiness of it all.

Reddit was one of the few places where I occasionally found people with similar background to discuss more than just superficially.

That completely changed in 2016. Everybody with actual knowledge on the subject was banned from all related subs. Knowledge became a threat, only the "correct" ideology was allowed to remain.

Tbh, I was pretty shocked how easily people are radicalized.

What data do you have to support this claim?

So ... just like HN?

100% of Hacker News is moderated by the same people

Power laws are a thing, we shouldn't be surprised if 80% of the moderation is done by 20% of the people (& remember, power laws are recursive)

A lot of the subreddits in the image seem related. Almost as if the people who create the most popular subreddits tend to create more than 1 subreddit & know how to effectively run them. We can argue about how effective reddit is, but "being one of the most popular subreddit" should work for this point

I say this as someone who doesn't frequent the most popular subreddits or recognize who the mods are. But I do notice moderators tend to receive quite a bit of flak which isn't always warranted

Which is to say, I'd be interested if there were some citations of other moderators claiming these mods were injected or whatnot. But this "just stating facts" 5 people fact doesn't seem relevant

Then one mod decided to actively undermine me, even banned one of my posts, because I didn't use PixInsight (like the rest of "the pros" do). I got my post back up, but that ruined the subreddit for me.

Funny thing, I grew up, graduated CS/software engineering, specialized in image processing and lo-and-behold, my techniques, though rudimentary, were pretty solid.

[0] old binoculars steampunk-ly tied to an old digital camera -- being a teenager with no income meant $0 budget -- but worked better than you'd imagine!

It could certainly be the case (and it is probably the case) that most subreddit communities strive to be inclusive -- while there are still hundreds of subreddits with tens of thousands of redditors which promote and endorse assholery and/or bigotry.