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Reddit has been rife with brigading and manipulation for years. At this point, it's been this way for longer than it was an idyllic place to discover cool nerdy

Reddit has been rife with brigading and manipulation for years. At this point, it's been this way for longer than it was an idyllic place to discover cool nerdy stuff. This is precisely why there are so many very active and hyper-strict moderators now. Not all, of course. It depends on how much "heat" the community contains and how much the subject matter attracts. They have to act like police in bad neighborhoods, because that's just the reality of the place. Throughout the 20th century, the Eastern Bloc had to deal with western media eroding the narratives of their society. Now, it seems that the tables have turned through social media. But instead of creating images, stories, and music of the wealth and richness of life brought by self determination, it's far more effective to simply sow chaos and jam our society's means of information exchange. EDIT: We are in years numbered such that they appear widely in science fiction. In objective terms, we are doing better than we ever have in all of history. In 2019, we need to embrace the normal. We should be suspicious of the lurid and the outrageous. We should be skeptical of the accusation and the conspiracy theory. In 2019, these are all the viral pathway to easy money and influence. We need to start looking at these things like we now look at the products of medicine shows. Not all of these things are necessarily bad. However, we always need to be mindful of the incentives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

52-6F-62 8y ago
There are still some good ones, but they tend to be smaller and rarely political. For instance, r/homelab is still pleasant. (Though it might inspire negative effects on your credit cards)
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  r/selfhosted is pretty good also.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    And r/datahoarder . I mean they're cool subreddits if you remove the addiction therapy, loss of relationships, and eventual crippling depression. Totally worth it though! :D
    - ozzyman700 8y ago
      /r/sysadmin might be the most depressing job related sub besides maybe /r/consulting
      - bloopernova 8y ago
        There's a lot of burn out and bitterness that goes along with being a Sysadmin. The stereotypical "shouted at that you are incompetent when things go wrong, shouted at that you are lazy when nothing goes wrong" comic is very true. /r/sysadmin reflects that thankless nature of the job. I'm lucky to have gotten through my ~20 years of being one without any major health issues from stress.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    Oh thanks for this. It's like a treasure trove!
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Conservative readers might be surprised at this, but I find /r/stevenuniverse to be quite tolerant and accepting. I've even called out sexual-orientation based identity politics there and had some substantive discussions. Other times, I've been downvoted to oblivion, though. There is some activist brigading there, but the general culture of the place seems to reflect the culture of the show. (Politically left, but if you are a good person who accepts others, we will accept you. You won't be judged by how you were made, rather by the quality of your relationships.)
  - yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago
    For those interested in discussing how to make the rest of the world a toletant place, join us at /r/stupidpol
  - Pharmakon 8y ago
    Isn’t Steven Universe some American cartoon? Why would the sub for it be relevant to discussions of any kind of politics? What am I missing? Note that I haven’t seen the cartoon, but from adverts it seemed pretty banal rather than political.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      Why would the sub for it be relevant to discussions of any kind of politics? What am I missing? The show has been pointed at by conservatives as an example of gender/identity politics. However, the ethos of the show is that we really should accept people no matter how they were born, and judge them on the quality of their relationships. What's more, this isn't transmitted by saying it, rather by showing it. IMO, more careful observation shows that it's actually the opposite of identitarian media, despite surface appearances. Occasionally, some identitarian rah-rah comes up there, and I feel the need to point out that we're all in this together, and isn't that what the characters show us? from adverts it seemed pretty banal rather than political. It transcends the political, like all good, honest art should.
      - Pharmakon 8y ago
- chapium 8y ago
  Smaller subs are still awesome. I avoid large subs like the plague because they start to enforce group conformity through either downvotes or over moderation as the sub grows. I think this begins at around 2000 users, but thats a subjective figure.
- superfrank 8y ago
  In my years on Reddit, I've found the magic number to be 10k. At around 10k subscribers the community is big enough to be found by people who actually care about the subject matter, but small enough that it's not worth it for people who are just looking for karma. Obviously this is just a guideline and not a rule.
pessimizer 8y ago
> This is precisely why there are so many very active and hyper-strict moderators now. Or because shills make a focused effort to become mods as soon as they start posting in a sub.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  What does the word shill mean exactly? I know what it used to mean, but it seems like the last decade of internet culture has made it similar to the word "cult": most of the usage I see just means "person at the median of intellectual honesty whom I disagree with"
raldi 8y ago
> This is precisely why there are so many very active and hyper-strict moderators now. Actually, the reason moderators moderate now is that moderated forums outperform unmoderated forums on just about any conceivable metric, and always have. The subreddits that don't keep up have all their membership migrate to ones that do. Who wants to drink at a pub that won't throw out rude patrons?
anthony_romeo 8y ago
It honestly wouldn't shock me if, taken as a whole, over half of reddit comments and posts are either paid shills, bots, or propagandists.
dontbenebby 8y ago
>This is precisely why there are so many very active and hyper-strict moderators now. It's my understanding that moderators can't see votes though. They can stamp out antisocial behavior, but it's my understanding that looking at the data to detect brigades/manipulations is the purview of the admins. (A much smaller set of people)
CharlesColeman 8y ago
> Throughout the 20th century, the Eastern Bloc had to deal with western media eroding the narratives of their society. Now, it seems that the tables have turned through social media. But instead of creating images, stories, and music of the wealth and richness of life brought by self determination, it's far more effective to simply sow chaos and jam our society's means of information exchange. That's not new. Even in the 20th century, Eastern Bloc countries were working to "simply sow chaos and jam our society's means of information exchange": https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-d... They've just updated their techniques for the web, where it turns out they are much more effective.

52-6F-62 8y ago

There are still some good ones, but they tend to be smaller and rarely political. For instance, r/homelab is still pleasant. (Though it might inspire negative effects on your credit cards)

JustSomeNobody 8y ago
r/selfhosted is pretty good also.
- penagwin 8y ago
  And r/datahoarder . I mean they're cool subreddits if you remove the addiction therapy, loss of relationships, and eventual crippling depression. Totally worth it though! :D
  - ozzyman700 8y ago
    /r/sysadmin might be the most depressing job related sub besides maybe /r/consulting
    - bloopernova 8y ago
      There's a lot of burn out and bitterness that goes along with being a Sysadmin. The stereotypical "shouted at that you are incompetent when things go wrong, shouted at that you are lazy when nothing goes wrong" comic is very true. /r/sysadmin reflects that thankless nature of the job. I'm lucky to have gotten through my ~20 years of being one without any major health issues from stress.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  Oh thanks for this. It's like a treasure trove!
stcredzero 8y ago
Conservative readers might be surprised at this, but I find /r/stevenuniverse to be quite tolerant and accepting. I've even called out sexual-orientation based identity politics there and had some substantive discussions. Other times, I've been downvoted to oblivion, though. There is some activist brigading there, but the general culture of the place seems to reflect the culture of the show. (Politically left, but if you are a good person who accepts others, we will accept you. You won't be judged by how you were made, rather by the quality of your relationships.)
- yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago
  For those interested in discussing how to make the rest of the world a toletant place, join us at /r/stupidpol
- Pharmakon 8y ago
  Isn’t Steven Universe some American cartoon? Why would the sub for it be relevant to discussions of any kind of politics? What am I missing? Note that I haven’t seen the cartoon, but from adverts it seemed pretty banal rather than political.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Why would the sub for it be relevant to discussions of any kind of politics? What am I missing? The show has been pointed at by conservatives as an example of gender/identity politics. However, the ethos of the show is that we really should accept people no matter how they were born, and judge them on the quality of their relationships. What's more, this isn't transmitted by saying it, rather by showing it. IMO, more careful observation shows that it's actually the opposite of identitarian media, despite surface appearances. Occasionally, some identitarian rah-rah comes up there, and I feel the need to point out that we're all in this together, and isn't that what the characters show us? from adverts it seemed pretty banal rather than political. It transcends the political, like all good, honest art should.
    - Pharmakon 8y ago
chapium 8y ago
Smaller subs are still awesome. I avoid large subs like the plague because they start to enforce group conformity through either downvotes or over moderation as the sub grows. I think this begins at around 2000 users, but thats a subjective figure.
superfrank 8y ago
In my years on Reddit, I've found the magic number to be 10k. At around 10k subscribers the community is big enough to be found by people who actually care about the subject matter, but small enough that it's not worth it for people who are just looking for karma. Obviously this is just a guideline and not a rule.

pessimizer 8y ago

> This is precisely why there are so many very active and hyper-strict moderators now. Or because shills make a focused effort to become mods as soon as they start posting in a sub.

wutbrodo 8y ago
What does the word shill mean exactly? I know what it used to mean, but it seems like the last decade of internet culture has made it similar to the word "cult": most of the usage I see just means "person at the median of intellectual honesty whom I disagree with"

raldi 8y ago

> This is precisely why there are so many very active and hyper-strict moderators now. Actually, the reason moderators moderate now is that moderated forums outperform unmoderated forums on just about any conceivable metric, and always have. The subreddits that don't keep up have all their membership migrate to ones that do. Who wants to drink at a pub that won't throw out rude patrons?

anthony_romeo 8y ago

It honestly wouldn't shock me if, taken as a whole, over half of reddit comments and posts are either paid shills, bots, or propagandists.

dontbenebby 8y ago

>This is precisely why there are so many very active and hyper-strict moderators now. It's my understanding that moderators can't see votes though. They can stamp out antisocial behavior, but it's my understanding that looking at the data to detect brigades/manipulations is the purview of the admins. (A much smaller set of people)

CharlesColeman 8y ago

> Throughout the 20th century, the Eastern Bloc had to deal with western media eroding the narratives of their society. Now, it seems that the tables have turned through social media. But instead of creating images, stories, and music of the wealth and richness of life brought by self determination, it's far more effective to simply sow chaos and jam our society's means of information exchange. That's not new. Even in the 20th century, Eastern Bloc countries were working to "simply sow chaos and jam our society's means of information exchange": https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-d... They've just updated their techniques for the web, where it turns out they are much more effective.