5 ms·

He out trolled the trolls then fixed it and fessed up. No big deal. Pretty funny in fact.

neximo64 10y ago
There's a bit of cognitive dissonance in this view, i don't think its funny from the point of view of the commenter. Imagine that happened if the political viewpoint of the commenter aligned with something you were not against? Or what if there are edits that Spez isn't mentioning that are more intrusive than what he's admitted to? A commenters own text isn't his own.. It's a slippery slope.
- DSMan195276 10y ago
  I understand your point, but at the same time I don't feel like anybody thought they didn't have the capability to do such a thing. If you have control of the site and control of the data, it's not a stretch to imagine they can edit anything they want. I'll be honest and say that if I was actually worried about such a thing happening, I'd go somewhere else. The bottom line is that Reddit doesn't exist to serve /r/the_donald - and that's not a shot at /r/the_donald, just that clearly it's priorities and Reddit's priorities are fairly different. If I was involved with something that I thought the admins weren't ok with, then I would take it somewhere else because I'd be well aware it's the admin's site to mess with in anyway they please. Even if they 'promise' not to do anything, there's no guarantee. Other sites that align more with their views could give them much better guarantees of that sort. I'm in agreement with you though, to a point - I think it was a horrible move on Spez's part and I don't really find it funny. But while I (along with probably everybody else) didn't personally think something like this would happen, I didn't ever hold the opinion that it couldn't happen, just that the admins were smart enough not to do something like this, and that the admins had no reason to bother with my posts (And none of my posts are really that important anyway). If I had reason to suspect that the admins didn't like my stuff being there and was concerned about it, I'd go somewhere else. It's no different then why I wouldn't store sensitive information only on Google Drive - Google has full control over it and could take it off on a whim if they really wanted.
  - samstave 10y ago
    >I don't feel like anybody thought they didn't have the capability to do such a thing. Absolute BULLSHIT. I DO have the expectation that the posts I make shall not be edited by someone who had their ego hit. WTF are you thinking???? this is HN, we all know HOW to change a field in a DB... of course the capabilty is there... NOT the impetus to actually do so, and even from the CEO indeed.
    - dang 10y ago
      Sam... you're breaking the guidelines all over the place in these threads. Come on, regardless of how strongly you feel, you know what the rules are.
brink 10y ago
You're saying that if someone you disagreed with changed your words of protest, it'd be all cool and good?
- woodruffw 10y ago
  "Words of protest" is an interesting way to put it. They were bare insults, contextualized by (barely validated) paranoia. The analogy of the rioter among peaceful protesters doesn't really apply to the circumstance, but it's poetic given the situation.
  - samstave 10y ago
    Thats NOT what is being debated. Who cares if you might be "literally hitler" for example. If you call me "literally hitler" should I be able to edit your post to say, instead, "literally awesome!!!1"?
    - woodruffw 10y ago
      I was responding to the parent. Debate is fruitless when the chief facts are mischaracterized in an attempt to soften their impact. Edit: It looks like the parent edited their comment. That's unfortunate.
chatterbeak 10y ago
It's not funny. He could delete the comment if he thought it violated their TOS, but to _edit_ it is wrong. If you were trying to make Reddit a profitable business it's not funny either.
forgottenpass 10y ago
It depends on what reddit is trying to be. If it wants to be anything goes like 4chan, then it's funny and not a thing to care about. But reddit has always been trying to be more palatable and have better signal:noise than that style. Reddit is a pretend "raw and unfiltered" for users used to facebook, but very much in a safe-for-tv "dangerous" way. They want to be the channel surfing portal for the internet, and that means curbing the actual rough-edges. And Steve, in the process of trying to get his userbase to straiten up, fly right, and be good unpaid content farm worker bees, can't maintain his own composure.
deelowe 10y ago
I don't find it funny at all.
stefantalpalaru 10y ago
> No big deal. People have been denied entry in the US based on tweets - http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16810312 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16810312 - while Facebook is widely used in investigations and prosecution - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_social_network_websites_in_investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_social_network_websites... . It doesn't matter if you don't assume that social media content was written by the indicated author, it matters that law enforcement does and the consequences are serious.
basch 10y ago
editing user comments with admin rights, is a bad precedent

There's a bit of cognitive dissonance in this view, i don't think its funny from the point of view of the commenter. Imagine that happened if the political viewpoint of the commenter aligned with something you were not against? Or what if there are edits that Spez isn't mentioning that are more intrusive than what he's admitted to? A commenters own text isn't his own.. It's a slippery slope.

DSMan195276 10y ago
I understand your point, but at the same time I don't feel like anybody thought they didn't have the capability to do such a thing. If you have control of the site and control of the data, it's not a stretch to imagine they can edit anything they want. I'll be honest and say that if I was actually worried about such a thing happening, I'd go somewhere else. The bottom line is that Reddit doesn't exist to serve /r/the_donald - and that's not a shot at /r/the_donald, just that clearly it's priorities and Reddit's priorities are fairly different. If I was involved with something that I thought the admins weren't ok with, then I would take it somewhere else because I'd be well aware it's the admin's site to mess with in anyway they please. Even if they 'promise' not to do anything, there's no guarantee. Other sites that align more with their views could give them much better guarantees of that sort. I'm in agreement with you though, to a point - I think it was a horrible move on Spez's part and I don't really find it funny. But while I (along with probably everybody else) didn't personally think something like this would happen, I didn't ever hold the opinion that it couldn't happen, just that the admins were smart enough not to do something like this, and that the admins had no reason to bother with my posts (And none of my posts are really that important anyway). If I had reason to suspect that the admins didn't like my stuff being there and was concerned about it, I'd go somewhere else. It's no different then why I wouldn't store sensitive information only on Google Drive - Google has full control over it and could take it off on a whim if they really wanted.
- samstave 10y ago
  >I don't feel like anybody thought they didn't have the capability to do such a thing. Absolute BULLSHIT. I DO have the expectation that the posts I make shall not be edited by someone who had their ego hit. WTF are you thinking???? this is HN, we all know HOW to change a field in a DB... of course the capabilty is there... NOT the impetus to actually do so, and even from the CEO indeed.
  - dang 10y ago
    Sam... you're breaking the guidelines all over the place in these threads. Come on, regardless of how strongly you feel, you know what the rules are.

brink 10y ago

You're saying that if someone you disagreed with changed your words of protest, it'd be all cool and good?

woodruffw 10y ago
"Words of protest" is an interesting way to put it. They were bare insults, contextualized by (barely validated) paranoia. The analogy of the rioter among peaceful protesters doesn't really apply to the circumstance, but it's poetic given the situation.
- samstave 10y ago
  Thats NOT what is being debated. Who cares if you might be "literally hitler" for example. If you call me "literally hitler" should I be able to edit your post to say, instead, "literally awesome!!!1"?
  - woodruffw 10y ago
    I was responding to the parent. Debate is fruitless when the chief facts are mischaracterized in an attempt to soften their impact. Edit: It looks like the parent edited their comment. That's unfortunate.

chatterbeak 10y ago

It's not funny. He could delete the comment if he thought it violated their TOS, but to _edit_ it is wrong. If you were trying to make Reddit a profitable business it's not funny either.

forgottenpass 10y ago

It depends on what reddit is trying to be. If it wants to be anything goes like 4chan, then it's funny and not a thing to care about. But reddit has always been trying to be more palatable and have better signal:noise than that style. Reddit is a pretend "raw and unfiltered" for users used to facebook, but very much in a safe-for-tv "dangerous" way. They want to be the channel surfing portal for the internet, and that means curbing the actual rough-edges. And Steve, in the process of trying to get his userbase to straiten up, fly right, and be good unpaid content farm worker bees, can't maintain his own composure.

deelowe 10y ago

I don't find it funny at all.

stefantalpalaru 10y ago

> No big deal. People have been denied entry in the US based on tweets - http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16810312 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16810312 - while Facebook is widely used in investigations and prosecution - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_social_network_websites_in_investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_social_network_websites... . It doesn't matter if you don't assume that social media content was written by the indicated author, it matters that law enforcement does and the consequences are serious.

basch 10y ago

editing user comments with admin rights, is a bad precedent