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This system is already being gamed, and it has been for years. You can find comments on Reddit by marketers who describe how they create organic-looking account

This system is already being gamed, and it has been for years. You can find comments on Reddit by marketers who describe how they create organic-looking accounts, and then find recommendation threads and promote their brands there. People know how to write content that looks organic. Some people get caught, but others are fairly skilled at slipping marketing material into ordinary threads. I'm not even talking about the karma-farming bots out there--it's much easier for a bot to farm karma on Reddit than for an unaided person.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
We will soon see a post titled “HN’s favorite products in one place”.
- arjvik 4y ago
  I'd love to see this purely out of curiosity. There should be a way to see the list exactly as it was on the day the list app was released, avoiding any gaming of it.
- rchaud 4y ago
  They already did that, it was called Product Hunt, and it quickly became a landfill of low-quality side projects .
  - Existenceblinks 4y ago
    And self-congratulation of indiehacker networks. Those making $10k-$20k moving to twitter though, tweets like guru now. Those making $40k+ becomes business guys who talk un-related stuff for those who are finding good content and product. As someone who's struggling on market research right now, the current situation of these site is pretty bad, hard to get real insight.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      I stopped reading IndieHackers the moment it was acquired by Stripe. It's nothing more than a marketing tool now, and the quality of the content has shifted accordingly.
- flanbiscuit 4y ago
  This exists, in a way, but it's not all in one place This one comes to mind: https://hackernewsbooks.com/ https://hackernewsbooks.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12365693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12365693
rockostrich 4y ago
I think in niche subreddits are pretty resilient to this kind of gorilla marketing, at least in my experience. Folks who join them are usually pretty vocal when they've used a product and had good or bad experiences with it. Even in large niche subreddits like /r/coffee, /r/homebrewing, and /r/skincareaddiction which are all over 1m followers, there's pretty good self-moderation and calling out of astroturfing. /r/skincareaddiction might be the most susceptible to it since there are just so many products and skincare is pretty specific to the person, but I still see folks calling out shill posts and comments.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- klodolph 4y ago
  I don't think this is accurate. People call out astroturfing, sure. But when do they call it out? When it's obvious.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Sometimes the callouts won't be apparent. Someone will PM the moderator, the mod will review and remove that post.
  - rockostrich 4y ago
    Obviously, I only have anecdotal evidence. But I see it regularly happen on the subreddits I'm a part of.
    - klodolph 4y ago
      Equally anecdotal--I've seen lots of examples of astroturfing that hasn't been caught. People who run social media marketing accounts have occasionally explained exactly how they create their marketing accounts and how they make marketing posts. The account will have legitimate Reddit activity--basically, because somebody will be using it as a personal account. And when someone asks for recommendations for hiking boots or whatever? "I've been using X for a while now, they seem pretty reliable." Anyone looking at the comment history or post history will see what looks like a normal Reddit account. How much of the astroturfing is called out? 10%? 90%? Certainly nobody thinks it's 100%...
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
Reddit in particular with its very strong groupthink/circle jerk loop is really susceptible to this. Marketer's content gets popular/upvoted, then people parrot it, they get upvoted, repeat.
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  Recently, I successfully shut a 10,000+ karma reddit user on /r/webdev up because he spreads false information on particular html spec (that comment got 10 upvotes, unbelievable).
Existenceblinks 4y ago
True. I've been reading about CMS/headless CMS on reddit especially /r/webdev for the last 2 years. Not authentic at all. Even if it is, reddit population seems to be very outsider (can't find word to replace "newbie"), though it also depends on particular sub. /r/asianbeauty is quite authentic but lots of products aren't there, they seem to have discovery problem. Thus, reddit is good for market research where you wanted to read/hear newbie opinion (the mass).
- kodah 4y ago
  Reddit has a lot of very senior newbies in a lot of its subs. That's the way I describe what I think you're saying. There are some subs with great expertise, but a lot of it gets drowned out by the former.
  - Existenceblinks 4y ago
    I think pro level of particular topic tend to have their own website with articles / videos. So they don't need inbound by posting reddit so often.
- maxencecornet 4y ago
  Cough cough...Strapi...
  - Existenceblinks 4y ago
    Yes, those who got load of VC money to comfortably allocate some huge marketing budgets.
diehunde 4y ago
I think the moderators could easily prevent this. Just block comments from new accounts or accounts with karma less than some value.
- throw10920 4y ago
  Karma-farming bots exist. It's trivial to make bot accounts and farm karma on meme subs until you're over the threshold, and then go and comment in product-related subreddits. Technical solutions are extremely difficult. A verified purchase mechanism is difficult to do unless you control the purchase platform. The "easiest" solution is a web of trust, but that has a significant non-technical component by definition.
  - sbarre 4y ago
    I'm sure the reason is "too complicated and not worth it" but I've always been surprised that Reddit doesn't have per-sub karma.
    - llbeansandrice 4y ago
      It does and you can limit posters to in-sub karma. afaik the only way to implement that solution is to write a custom bot though. Reddit's tools for moderation are basically garbage.
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    The Reddit karma algorithm is already a black box, so there's not much harm in making it more complex, thus: Measure the general up-votiness of each sub, and scale cross-sub karma based on this value. A +100 post on a sub with 1000 members on a technical topic where people tend to downvote for minor errors is worth way more than a +1000 post on a fast-moving sub that's mostly reposted memes.
- jjri 4y ago
  It is never as simple as "just" doing something. A lot of people have multiple Reddit accounts because it is a forum for everything. Then next is how to determine that arbitrary karma value, what if a lurker has some valuable experience to share? Besides, these are relatively low barriers to entry. Check @weird-eye-issue anecdote below.
criley2 4y ago
The catch here is that real users also make recommendations. I recommend things on reddit all the time, and I'm not some nefarious marketer. I've also had a lot of good stuff recommended to me on reddit over the years. If that was by a marketer, then frankly, the best marketing in the world is "hire subject matter experts to go into amateur forums and recommend good solutions for them" because that's what it feels like I'm getting on a lot of good nitty gritty subreddits.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Yeah, I make recommendations on Reddit fairly often. I try to provide enough detail to make it clear that I’ve actually used the product in question, hopefully that helps separate my posts from those of astroturfers.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  I agree. I'd even go a step further - I'm a mod on r/budgetaudiophile and we're even open to company reps as long as they're from reputable companies and are transparent. subject matter experts The trick in a lot of hobbies is that it's so hard to have anybody, even a professional reviewer, stay current with this stuff. There are a lot of audio products out there. It's hard to say what's good and bad without putting each one through some objective measurements, and for some products (ie, DACs, amps, etc) this requires $50,000+ pieces of equipment and/or hours of time.
  - llbeansandrice 4y ago
    The balance between free marketing and access to community-loved brands is an absolute razor's edge to balance. Each sub does it differently and there's no correct solution. One person's astroturfing is another's excitement for an AMA with a company or retailer.
dimitrios1 4y ago
Having spent some time on these subs, especially /r/edc and /r/coffee, I could have guessed 8 or 9 out of the top 10 in each. The more interesting things are the obvious ones that don't get discussed, but form some sort of an "accepted canon" For example, the v60, despite being out of the top 10 on /r/coffee, it's assumed if you do pourovers, you have at least some form of this classic coffee maker.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  The more interesting things are the obvious ones that don't get discussed, but form some sort of an "accepted canon" Well stated. My experience on r/budgetaudiophile and r/audiophile matches this as well.
shostack 4y ago
The most obnoxious are the obvious ones in subs like /r/oddlysatisfying and /r/blackmagicfuckery where it's some cheapo product with a staged product video from one poster, then the inevitable plant post of "OMG where can I buy this amazing thing!" Followed by some helpful link to a drop shipping store, sometimes not till substantially after the post has fallen off the front page to avoid scrutiny.
Nicholas_C 4y ago
A good example of this is the Reddit post below. The post looks somewhat natural but if you read the text critically it sounds very suspicious. This post had 8k+ upvotes and only a few comments calling it out at the very bottom of the thread that most people would never see. https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/wfa6q6/what_is_up_with_mark_cuban_and_his_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/wfa6q6/what_i...
- jiscariot 4y ago
  Makes me wondering how many of those thread replies are part of the same campaign. Some are so insanely praiseworthy of the venture. This also reminds me just how atrocious the reddit UI is.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

We will soon see a post titled “HN’s favorite products in one place”.

arjvik 4y ago
I'd love to see this purely out of curiosity. There should be a way to see the list exactly as it was on the day the list app was released, avoiding any gaming of it.
rchaud 4y ago
They already did that, it was called Product Hunt, and it quickly became a landfill of low-quality side projects .
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  And self-congratulation of indiehacker networks. Those making $10k-$20k moving to twitter though, tweets like guru now. Those making $40k+ becomes business guys who talk un-related stuff for those who are finding good content and product. As someone who's struggling on market research right now, the current situation of these site is pretty bad, hard to get real insight.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    I stopped reading IndieHackers the moment it was acquired by Stripe. It's nothing more than a marketing tool now, and the quality of the content has shifted accordingly.
flanbiscuit 4y ago
This exists, in a way, but it's not all in one place This one comes to mind: https://hackernewsbooks.com/ https://hackernewsbooks.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12365693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12365693

rockostrich 4y ago

I think in niche subreddits are pretty resilient to this kind of gorilla marketing, at least in my experience. Folks who join them are usually pretty vocal when they've used a product and had good or bad experiences with it. Even in large niche subreddits like /r/coffee, /r/homebrewing, and /r/skincareaddiction which are all over 1m followers, there's pretty good self-moderation and calling out of astroturfing. /r/skincareaddiction might be the most susceptible to it since there are just so many products and skincare is pretty specific to the person, but I still see folks calling out shill posts and comments.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
klodolph 4y ago
I don't think this is accurate. People call out astroturfing, sure. But when do they call it out? When it's obvious.
- rchaud 4y ago
  Sometimes the callouts won't be apparent. Someone will PM the moderator, the mod will review and remove that post.
- rockostrich 4y ago
  Obviously, I only have anecdotal evidence. But I see it regularly happen on the subreddits I'm a part of.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    Equally anecdotal--I've seen lots of examples of astroturfing that hasn't been caught. People who run social media marketing accounts have occasionally explained exactly how they create their marketing accounts and how they make marketing posts. The account will have legitimate Reddit activity--basically, because somebody will be using it as a personal account. And when someone asks for recommendations for hiking boots or whatever? "I've been using X for a while now, they seem pretty reliable." Anyone looking at the comment history or post history will see what looks like a normal Reddit account. How much of the astroturfing is called out? 10%? 90%? Certainly nobody thinks it's 100%...

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

Reddit in particular with its very strong groupthink/circle jerk loop is really susceptible to this. Marketer's content gets popular/upvoted, then people parrot it, they get upvoted, repeat.

Existenceblinks 4y ago
Recently, I successfully shut a 10,000+ karma reddit user on /r/webdev up because he spreads false information on particular html spec (that comment got 10 upvotes, unbelievable).

Existenceblinks 4y ago

True. I've been reading about CMS/headless CMS on reddit especially /r/webdev for the last 2 years. Not authentic at all. Even if it is, reddit population seems to be very outsider (can't find word to replace "newbie"), though it also depends on particular sub. /r/asianbeauty is quite authentic but lots of products aren't there, they seem to have discovery problem. Thus, reddit is good for market research where you wanted to read/hear newbie opinion (the mass).

kodah 4y ago
Reddit has a lot of very senior newbies in a lot of its subs. That's the way I describe what I think you're saying. There are some subs with great expertise, but a lot of it gets drowned out by the former.
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  I think pro level of particular topic tend to have their own website with articles / videos. So they don't need inbound by posting reddit so often.
maxencecornet 4y ago
Cough cough...Strapi...
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  Yes, those who got load of VC money to comfortably allocate some huge marketing budgets.

diehunde 4y ago

I think the moderators could easily prevent this. Just block comments from new accounts or accounts with karma less than some value.

throw10920 4y ago
Karma-farming bots exist. It's trivial to make bot accounts and farm karma on meme subs until you're over the threshold, and then go and comment in product-related subreddits. Technical solutions are extremely difficult. A verified purchase mechanism is difficult to do unless you control the purchase platform. The "easiest" solution is a web of trust, but that has a significant non-technical component by definition.
- sbarre 4y ago
  I'm sure the reason is "too complicated and not worth it" but I've always been surprised that Reddit doesn't have per-sub karma.
  - llbeansandrice 4y ago
    It does and you can limit posters to in-sub karma. afaik the only way to implement that solution is to write a custom bot though. Reddit's tools for moderation are basically garbage.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  The Reddit karma algorithm is already a black box, so there's not much harm in making it more complex, thus: Measure the general up-votiness of each sub, and scale cross-sub karma based on this value. A +100 post on a sub with 1000 members on a technical topic where people tend to downvote for minor errors is worth way more than a +1000 post on a fast-moving sub that's mostly reposted memes.
jjri 4y ago
It is never as simple as "just" doing something. A lot of people have multiple Reddit accounts because it is a forum for everything. Then next is how to determine that arbitrary karma value, what if a lurker has some valuable experience to share? Besides, these are relatively low barriers to entry. Check @weird-eye-issue anecdote below.

criley2 4y ago

The catch here is that real users also make recommendations. I recommend things on reddit all the time, and I'm not some nefarious marketer. I've also had a lot of good stuff recommended to me on reddit over the years. If that was by a marketer, then frankly, the best marketing in the world is "hire subject matter experts to go into amateur forums and recommend good solutions for them" because that's what it feels like I'm getting on a lot of good nitty gritty subreddits.

kitsunesoba 4y ago
Yeah, I make recommendations on Reddit fairly often. I try to provide enough detail to make it clear that I’ve actually used the product in question, hopefully that helps separate my posts from those of astroturfers.
JohnBooty 4y ago
I agree. I'd even go a step further - I'm a mod on r/budgetaudiophile and we're even open to company reps as long as they're from reputable companies and are transparent. subject matter experts The trick in a lot of hobbies is that it's so hard to have anybody, even a professional reviewer, stay current with this stuff. There are a lot of audio products out there. It's hard to say what's good and bad without putting each one through some objective measurements, and for some products (ie, DACs, amps, etc) this requires $50,000+ pieces of equipment and/or hours of time.
- llbeansandrice 4y ago
  The balance between free marketing and access to community-loved brands is an absolute razor's edge to balance. Each sub does it differently and there's no correct solution. One person's astroturfing is another's excitement for an AMA with a company or retailer.

dimitrios1 4y ago

Having spent some time on these subs, especially /r/edc and /r/coffee, I could have guessed 8 or 9 out of the top 10 in each. The more interesting things are the obvious ones that don't get discussed, but form some sort of an "accepted canon" For example, the v60, despite being out of the top 10 on /r/coffee, it's assumed if you do pourovers, you have at least some form of this classic coffee maker.

JohnBooty 4y ago
The more interesting things are the obvious ones that don't get discussed, but form some sort of an "accepted canon" Well stated. My experience on r/budgetaudiophile and r/audiophile matches this as well.

shostack 4y ago

The most obnoxious are the obvious ones in subs like /r/oddlysatisfying and /r/blackmagicfuckery where it's some cheapo product with a staged product video from one poster, then the inevitable plant post of "OMG where can I buy this amazing thing!" Followed by some helpful link to a drop shipping store, sometimes not till substantially after the post has fallen off the front page to avoid scrutiny.

Nicholas_C 4y ago

A good example of this is the Reddit post below. The post looks somewhat natural but if you read the text critically it sounds very suspicious. This post had 8k+ upvotes and only a few comments calling it out at the very bottom of the thread that most people would never see. https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/wfa6q6/what_is_up_with_mark_cuban_and_his_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/wfa6q6/what_i...

jiscariot 4y ago
Makes me wondering how many of those thread replies are part of the same campaign. Some are so insanely praiseworthy of the venture. This also reminds me just how atrocious the reddit UI is.