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I want you to be right but the GME and AMC nonsense doesn’t instill a lot of confidence that Reddit isn’t being gamed already by automated accounts. I’ve had m

I want you to be right but the GME and AMC nonsense doesn’t instill a lot of confidence that Reddit isn’t being gamed already by automated accounts. I’ve had my own comment altered a little and regurgitated by a bot before, which was extremely creepy. But you are right that the signal to noise is at least better on Reddit.

city41 5y ago
I do think it is slowly deteriorating though. I've noticed it on indie gaming subreddits. A dev will announce a new game and I suspect a lot of the comments are fake. Maybe not bots just yet, probably more likely the dev gathered a large group of friends to help out. But it wouldn't surprise me if this type of promotion became more and more bot driven as time goes on.
hectormalot 5y ago
I don’t know. It depends on the ‘quality’ of the community. Eg when I’m considering a new IT tool, I tend to search ‘!hn $tool’ just to see what the comments on HN are like, as it’s the most reasonable signal I can find vs google. Similar example, when searching for a good EV charging pass my first go-to were the Tweakers.net forums. It’s a place where the general IT crowd of the Netherlands hangs out and indeed someone already wrote a very extensive topic on the EV charging world, the business models, what to watch out for, etc. I suppose if you have the same for cooking, cycling, cars, etc. It might actually end up going that direction for more people. As a community becomes higher quality though, it also becomes more interesting for scammers to abuse. (The Bitcoin Reddits you mentioned are a great example). Good moderation is key I think.
burnt_toast 5y ago
The bots can definitely be frustrating. I like to stick to smaller subreddits as they tend to be more authentic. Usually anything under 100K subscribers (with exceptions) can be really enjoyable to lurk + a great source of info.
shp0ngle 5y ago
The GME/AMC nonsense will get downvoted on more serious subs. The one that started it is called “wall street bets” and people openly call each other “retards” and “autists” over there.
8note 5y ago
The GME nonsense was a guy posting that he bought a lot of options and why. Then he kept posting updates
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Sure but then it kept going with millions of posts with diamond hand emojis that had me deeply in the uncanny valley.

city41 5y ago

I do think it is slowly deteriorating though. I've noticed it on indie gaming subreddits. A dev will announce a new game and I suspect a lot of the comments are fake. Maybe not bots just yet, probably more likely the dev gathered a large group of friends to help out. But it wouldn't surprise me if this type of promotion became more and more bot driven as time goes on.

hectormalot 5y ago

I don’t know. It depends on the ‘quality’ of the community. Eg when I’m considering a new IT tool, I tend to search ‘!hn $tool’ just to see what the comments on HN are like, as it’s the most reasonable signal I can find vs google. Similar example, when searching for a good EV charging pass my first go-to were the Tweakers.net forums. It’s a place where the general IT crowd of the Netherlands hangs out and indeed someone already wrote a very extensive topic on the EV charging world, the business models, what to watch out for, etc. I suppose if you have the same for cooking, cycling, cars, etc. It might actually end up going that direction for more people. As a community becomes higher quality though, it also becomes more interesting for scammers to abuse. (The Bitcoin Reddits you mentioned are a great example). Good moderation is key I think.

burnt_toast 5y ago

The bots can definitely be frustrating. I like to stick to smaller subreddits as they tend to be more authentic. Usually anything under 100K subscribers (with exceptions) can be really enjoyable to lurk + a great source of info.

shp0ngle 5y ago

The GME/AMC nonsense will get downvoted on more serious subs. The one that started it is called “wall street bets” and people openly call each other “retards” and “autists” over there.

8note 5y ago

The GME nonsense was a guy posting that he bought a lot of options and why. Then he kept posting updates

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Sure but then it kept going with millions of posts with diamond hand emojis that had me deeply in the uncanny valley.