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I downloaded Reddit Enhancement Suite and it has a feature that marks the cumulative amount of upvotes you've given a user when you see a post of theirs. It is

I downloaded Reddit Enhancement Suite and it has a feature that marks the cumulative amount of upvotes you've given a user when you see a post of theirs. It is absolutely eye-opening just how much content is posted by the same few dozens of usernames. GallowBoob is the most infamous but to focus on him would be a mistake. It's pretty clear to me that the vast majority of content on Reddit is heavily manipulated and artificial.

koboll 6y ago
Or... maybe they just post good content? You yourself said the extension marks the cumulative amount of upvotes you've given a user. So, unless you yourself are engaged in this conspiracy to inflate GallowBoob's upvotes, then all this is evidence of is that GallowBoob seems uniquely skilled at finding and posting viral content.
- nsilvestri 6y ago
  Shortly after GB's rise to fame he was offered a job at one those horrible viral licensing companies, which definitely suggests he's skilled at finding viral content.
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  I should have been more clear. RES keeps track of both upvotes and downvotes. Even having a single upvote or downvote will change the color of the submitter's username and make it clear you've voted on their submissions before. I tend to upvote news articles and downvote reposts. I have definitely noticed that these power users recycle a lot of content.
- andrewzah 6y ago
  He also is paid to post on reddit. He also submits posts dozens of times, deleting them if they don't gain traction quickly. People don't dislike gallowboob and others because the content is necessarily bad... it's just inorganic and lame. I want to see content from other regular users, not power posters working for firms.
  - this_user 6y ago
    He has also been repeatedly caught abusing his moderator status to gain more karma. This works by suppressing, or outright deleting, posts made by other users before they can gain traction, and then immediately reposting their content with his own account. And he is by far not the only power mod who is using this tactic.
- asdff 6y ago
  Some people follow the big accounts directly, so their posts are guaranteed to get early traction then build off exponentially and make the front page all the time.
  - koboll 6y ago
    Right. No one complains when big Twitter accounts go viral more often than small accounts, because it's obvious why. So why the conspiracy-mongering about the same effect on Reddit? Is there any actual evidence that moderatorship confers an outsized likelihood of virality vs. a non-moderator with a similarly gigantic following / karma count?
nsilvestri 6y ago
I have a little over half a million karma, about 200k from posting links. I think it's incorrect to suggest that the "vast majority" of content is manipulated. You see the same names because they understand the game of karmawhoring. If you have one link which can fit in multiple subreddits and your goal is to get as many points as possible, you post it to all the relevant subreddits, repeat for every other link you have. It's a numbers game. More posts means it's more likely for one to stick, and you get better at it with time. You eventually pick up on what times of day are most effective or which subreddits get more consistent results, things consumers of the content wouldn't ever know, so they try to do the same and their post flops and they say that clearly it's manipulation. There is some manipulation, especially if you consider mods who remove posts at their discretion, but it's far from a "vast majority." I do have concerns related to some political subreddits, where there is evidence of bad actors attempting to influence the 2020 election. A subreddit (whose name escapes me) just had all of its moderators removed because it ended up being one person running three or four dozen alternate accounts.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  > I think it's incorrect to suggest that the "vast majority" of content is manipulated. You see the same names because they understand the game of karmawhoring. What is the distinction between content manipulation and the game of karmawhoring? They seem more or less the same to me. I think I would consider SEO a form of content manipulation, for example.
  - nsilvestri 6y ago
    I'm distinguishing it between the "intended" way of using the site by making posts and then the community organically votes on it, and some unintended "manipulated" way where content is artificially voted upon or otherwise given an advantage over other posts.
    - elliekelly 6y ago
      And when someone posts OC, a photo, for example, to a small subreddit or at a low-trafficked time of day and a "karmawhore" screenshots the photo and posts it to several highly trafficked subreddits would you consider those upvotes organic or manipulated? It's my understanding that this is a common tactic used by people who are "karma farming" on an account. I can certainly understand how the karmawhore feels the upvotes are organic but I can also see how the owner of the original content would very much consider those upvotes manipulated. And when a karmawhore lifts content and uses a title that insinuates it's their content ("My Dog Spike Doing Funny Thing"), I think the fuzzy line between organic and manipulated feels a little less fuzzy and lot more manipulated. Not just for the content owner, but for the content consumers as well. I think there's some expectation, at least some of the time, that an "organic" OP will interact with commenters and provide more detail in response to questions and it can be disappointing when you come across an interesting post only to realize that isn't the case because OP is just looking to maximize eyeballs & upvotes.
throwphoton 6y ago
Someone should start a competing service then. My recommendation would be to have a "maximum karma" limit, at which point the account (mod or not) and all of its activity are deleted, and the owner has to sign up again and work their way back up from zero.
- cfu0 6y ago
  The idea being that you'd punish those users who generate most of the content for your platform? How does that make sense?
  - throwphoton 6y ago
    Same way term limits make sense. Hit the ceiling, then you're done. Make room for someone else. Avoid stagnation.
    - friendlybus 6y ago
      You get paid in power, money, fame, access ect for being president. Providing content for free to make someone else money doesn't have the same appeal that could tolerate term limits.
    - the_af 6y ago
      If you can simply register another account and start over, how would this help avoid stagnation?
      - throwphoton 6y ago
        You'd lose any privileges associated with a high number of karma points, also all of your previous content would be removed, so people could cover the same territory in possibly new ways with less fear of being called redundant. It basically compensates for first-mover advantage in forums.
        joshuaissac 6y ago
friendlybus 6y ago
Yes a lot of social media relies on cycling news and has the potential to slide in rumours that come out the 'other side' as fact. It's a flawed system, but it's worth watching the washing machine spin because a lot of great clean clothes come out from between all the suds and dirt.
ertian 6y ago
I'm not sure if that's what it shows. That's the same pattern you see on all kinds of sites: most Wikipedia edits are done by a handful of users. There's a small core of ridiculously-active people answering questions on Stack Overflow. Of the millions of people who try streaming games, a few are wildly successful and account for a significant share of all watched streams. Reddit, with it's super-submitters, seems to fit right into that pattern.
rellui 6y ago
Top subreddits are pretty much all like that. The smaller subs are really what makes reddit a great place. Often as the smaller subs grow bigger, I tend to find myself unsubbing from them.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  It used to be like that. Now almost every sub is toxic.
logicslave 6y ago
Most of the discussion about any products such as coffee makers, bikes, etc are manipulated and placed there by the companies selling those products. The front page is also heavily manipulated, political posts often end up there artificially.

koboll 6y ago

Or... maybe they just post good content? You yourself said the extension marks the cumulative amount of upvotes you've given a user. So, unless you yourself are engaged in this conspiracy to inflate GallowBoob's upvotes, then all this is evidence of is that GallowBoob seems uniquely skilled at finding and posting viral content.

nsilvestri 6y ago
Shortly after GB's rise to fame he was offered a job at one those horrible viral licensing companies, which definitely suggests he's skilled at finding viral content.
BitwiseFool 6y ago
I should have been more clear. RES keeps track of both upvotes and downvotes. Even having a single upvote or downvote will change the color of the submitter's username and make it clear you've voted on their submissions before. I tend to upvote news articles and downvote reposts. I have definitely noticed that these power users recycle a lot of content.
andrewzah 6y ago
He also is paid to post on reddit. He also submits posts dozens of times, deleting them if they don't gain traction quickly. People don't dislike gallowboob and others because the content is necessarily bad... it's just inorganic and lame. I want to see content from other regular users, not power posters working for firms.
- this_user 6y ago
  He has also been repeatedly caught abusing his moderator status to gain more karma. This works by suppressing, or outright deleting, posts made by other users before they can gain traction, and then immediately reposting their content with his own account. And he is by far not the only power mod who is using this tactic.
asdff 6y ago
Some people follow the big accounts directly, so their posts are guaranteed to get early traction then build off exponentially and make the front page all the time.
- koboll 6y ago
  Right. No one complains when big Twitter accounts go viral more often than small accounts, because it's obvious why. So why the conspiracy-mongering about the same effect on Reddit? Is there any actual evidence that moderatorship confers an outsized likelihood of virality vs. a non-moderator with a similarly gigantic following / karma count?

nsilvestri 6y ago

I have a little over half a million karma, about 200k from posting links. I think it's incorrect to suggest that the "vast majority" of content is manipulated. You see the same names because they understand the game of karmawhoring. If you have one link which can fit in multiple subreddits and your goal is to get as many points as possible, you post it to all the relevant subreddits, repeat for every other link you have. It's a numbers game. More posts means it's more likely for one to stick, and you get better at it with time. You eventually pick up on what times of day are most effective or which subreddits get more consistent results, things consumers of the content wouldn't ever know, so they try to do the same and their post flops and they say that clearly it's manipulation. There is some manipulation, especially if you consider mods who remove posts at their discretion, but it's far from a "vast majority." I do have concerns related to some political subreddits, where there is evidence of bad actors attempting to influence the 2020 election. A subreddit (whose name escapes me) just had all of its moderators removed because it ended up being one person running three or four dozen alternate accounts.

elliekelly 6y ago
> I think it's incorrect to suggest that the "vast majority" of content is manipulated. You see the same names because they understand the game of karmawhoring. What is the distinction between content manipulation and the game of karmawhoring? They seem more or less the same to me. I think I would consider SEO a form of content manipulation, for example.
- nsilvestri 6y ago
  I'm distinguishing it between the "intended" way of using the site by making posts and then the community organically votes on it, and some unintended "manipulated" way where content is artificially voted upon or otherwise given an advantage over other posts.
  - elliekelly 6y ago
    And when someone posts OC, a photo, for example, to a small subreddit or at a low-trafficked time of day and a "karmawhore" screenshots the photo and posts it to several highly trafficked subreddits would you consider those upvotes organic or manipulated? It's my understanding that this is a common tactic used by people who are "karma farming" on an account. I can certainly understand how the karmawhore feels the upvotes are organic but I can also see how the owner of the original content would very much consider those upvotes manipulated. And when a karmawhore lifts content and uses a title that insinuates it's their content ("My Dog Spike Doing Funny Thing"), I think the fuzzy line between organic and manipulated feels a little less fuzzy and lot more manipulated. Not just for the content owner, but for the content consumers as well. I think there's some expectation, at least some of the time, that an "organic" OP will interact with commenters and provide more detail in response to questions and it can be disappointing when you come across an interesting post only to realize that isn't the case because OP is just looking to maximize eyeballs & upvotes.

throwphoton 6y ago

Someone should start a competing service then. My recommendation would be to have a "maximum karma" limit, at which point the account (mod or not) and all of its activity are deleted, and the owner has to sign up again and work their way back up from zero.

cfu0 6y ago
The idea being that you'd punish those users who generate most of the content for your platform? How does that make sense?
- throwphoton 6y ago
  Same way term limits make sense. Hit the ceiling, then you're done. Make room for someone else. Avoid stagnation.
  - friendlybus 6y ago
    You get paid in power, money, fame, access ect for being president. Providing content for free to make someone else money doesn't have the same appeal that could tolerate term limits.
  - the_af 6y ago
    If you can simply register another account and start over, how would this help avoid stagnation?
    - throwphoton 6y ago
      You'd lose any privileges associated with a high number of karma points, also all of your previous content would be removed, so people could cover the same territory in possibly new ways with less fear of being called redundant. It basically compensates for first-mover advantage in forums.
      - joshuaissac 6y ago

friendlybus 6y ago

Yes a lot of social media relies on cycling news and has the potential to slide in rumours that come out the 'other side' as fact. It's a flawed system, but it's worth watching the washing machine spin because a lot of great clean clothes come out from between all the suds and dirt.

ertian 6y ago

I'm not sure if that's what it shows. That's the same pattern you see on all kinds of sites: most Wikipedia edits are done by a handful of users. There's a small core of ridiculously-active people answering questions on Stack Overflow. Of the millions of people who try streaming games, a few are wildly successful and account for a significant share of all watched streams. Reddit, with it's super-submitters, seems to fit right into that pattern.

rellui 6y ago

Top subreddits are pretty much all like that. The smaller subs are really what makes reddit a great place. Often as the smaller subs grow bigger, I tend to find myself unsubbing from them.

koheripbal 6y ago
It used to be like that. Now almost every sub is toxic.

logicslave 6y ago

Most of the discussion about any products such as coffee makers, bikes, etc are manipulated and placed there by the companies selling those products. The front page is also heavily manipulated, political posts often end up there artificially.