12 ms·

I love reveddit.com, it's hilarious to look at the typical r/science post and see 60%+ of comments removed on average (the 'controversial' ones go 75%+). If th

by dmix 4y ago

I love reveddit.com, it's hilarious to look at the typical r/science post and see 60%+ of comments removed on average (the 'controversial' ones go 75%+). If the moderators agree with the study there is zero dissent tolerated. This subreddit has something like 1000+ moderators and they remove any comments that doesn't fit into Reddit's very narrowly defined overton window. Not just people being off-topic or taboo... but often anyone who questions the studies being posted. My only critique is that it doesn't work with Firefox. I have to pull up Chrome which I only use for work. Do you have a social media profile to follow/provide feedback to?

rhaksw 4y ago
> I love reveddit.com, it's hilarious to look at the typical r/science post and see 60%+ of comments removed on average (the 'controversial' ones go 75%+). Yeah I mention r/science at 7:00 in the linked video. > If the moderators agree with the study there is zero dissent tolerated. This subreddit has something like 1000+ moderators and they remove any comments that doesn't fit into Reddit's very narrowly defined overton window. Not just people being off-topic or taboo... but often anyone who questions the studies being posted. I'm sure that's true. I haven't looked at the exact biases in that group too much. For awhile I was collecting examples of biased removals in certain groups, but that was just so I could come up with relatable stories to tell. I disagree with pretty much every secretive removal. Even in cases where someone is threatening violence I wonder whether we should keep such a removal secret from the author: an extremist in a given group, whose views went unchallenged, may perceive silence as agreement and therefore believe they're part of a team when in fact they're not. > My only critique is that it doesn't work with Firefox. I have to pull up Chrome which I only use for work. Do you have a social media profile to follow/provide feedback to? It does work on Firefox but you have to disable tracking protection [1]. The reason is because Reddit, to which Reveddit obviously must connect, appears on an arbitrary list of domains that Firefox's partner Disconnect.me considers to be "trackers" [2]. That list breaks tons of websites that are tracked and seemingly ignored in this 8 year old bug [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1101005 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1101005]. The bug is updated with new sites almost every day. I'm not up to date on how browsers or standards are changing, but I'm guessing the Disconnect.me list is a hack until a better solution can be found. I don't know of a better solution. I'm all ears if you have one provided it doesn't cost me more or hurt the site's operation by putting its logic on a server [3]. [1] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#firefox https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#firefox [2] https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection/blob/b3f9cdcea541ab876e63970daadc490f9de2befa/services.json#L10851 https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protecti... [3] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.privacy/XO84EzrwWp0 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.privacy/...
- Dah00n 4y ago
  Blocking trackers is a feature not a bug. Disagreeing with what belongs on the list is fine of course but it isn't a bug. IMO Reddit belongs there equally as much or as little as Google and Facebook.
  - rhaksw 4y ago
    > Blocking trackers is a feature not a bug. I didn't say it was a bug, I said the list of websites broken by that feature are tracked in a bug.
- dmix 4y ago
  > I don't know of a better solution. I'm all ears if you have one No, that makes sense. I see you've added a modal that explains how to get it to work with FF. My bad, I think I used Unddit in the past which didn't say this. I'll use Reveddit instead. Besides maybe a web extension that somehow bypasses those controls? (idk if that works). > Yeah I mention r/science at 7:00 in the linked video. Thanks I'll watch the video tomorrow. Appreciate your work.
  - rhaksw 4y ago
    > I see you've added a modal that explains how to get it to work with FF. My bad, I think I used Unddit in the past which didn't say this. I'll use Reveddit instead. No worries. I'll just share the differences with Unddit here for any interested. AFAIK Unddit only works with threads, whereas Reveddit works with nearly any type of Reddit page, including subreddits and domains. And last I checked, Unddit shows a limited number of comments up front, whereas Reveddit loads them all. So if a thread has more than 1,000 comments, and you visit an Unddit link, it might be missing some, and you won't know to check for more unless you know how the site works. In my opinion, that's unintuitive, so I choose to load everything up front. Also, Unddit shows user-deleted comments [1] while Reveddit does not [2]. The most distinguishing features of Reveddit IMO are that it works with user pages, can restore comments from user pages, has an extension that can notify you of removals when they occur [3], it has more filters, sort options, etc. > Besides maybe a web extension that somehow bypasses those controls? (idk if that works). Well that's basically what the modal describes. You can customize where you want to turn it off, no extension needed. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pushshift/comments/qiwurl/what_happened_to_removedditcom/hin7wbe/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pushshift/comments/qiwurl/what_happ... [2] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#user-deleted https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#user-deleted [3] https://www.reveddit.com/add-ons/direct/ https://www.reveddit.com/add-ons/direct/
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mariusor 4y ago
> This subreddit has something like 1000+ moderators and they remove any comments that doesn't fit into Reddit's very narrowly defined overton window Or the subreddit has a very strict set of rules for posting top level comments which include: > 3. Non-professional personal anecdotes will be removed > 4. Criticism of published work should assume basic competence of the researchers and reviewers > 5. Comments dismissing established findings and fields of science must provide evidence
- dmix 4y ago
  Just curious, have you spent time looking at the type of comments getting removed? Have you looked at any of the top threads on Reveddit/Unddit with 75% of the comments gone? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how it goes way, way beyond those rules you just listed, into something that can only be described as a petty dictatorship - but with any hundred angry nerds who happened to show up playing the dictator. Zero transparency, zero due process, no one cares. This sort of excuse (blindly believing all that matters is "just don't be an asshole on the internet and you have nothing to worry about", "just follow the rules on the sidebar") is exactly how this sort of thing happens and no one bothers to look into it. If Reddit had a button to list the comments arbitrarily removed (like Google shows DMCA request removals) you can be sure the outrage would be 100x and those sidebar rules would seem meaningless besides maybe 20% of the time. I chose r/science because that's a topic that typically prides itself on caring about finding the truth, not about satisfying the ideological whims of the gatekeepers.
  - mariusor 4y ago
    You call it petty dictatorship, I call it the best moderated subreddit of the whole platform.
    - dmix 4y ago
      You just happen to be lucky enough to be within the very narrow overton window. Or at least a) believe what's being curated for you and b) never cared to look at what's not being said. You should hope that your views (or more accurately, their views) never stray from it and the information that a tiny group of people are controlling is good for the entire population. You could say just use another subreddit. But this isn't limited to one.
otikik 4y ago
My take: science has been politicized. As a result people feel like they are entitled to share their (often naive and inexperienced) opinion. Problem is this: science is not democratic. Consensus plays a role, but not everyone getting to the point were you are equipped to peer review others often takes years of effort and study. That’s unavoidable, given that the easy questions have already been answered. A single … “folkloric” comment is not problematic. When 60% or 75% of the comments are like that, the problem is that the subreddit isn’t science any more. It has become “wacky theory time”. So at that time you have a choice: either you moderate, in order to keep the channel on-topic, or you accept everything, at which point the guys who benefit from science not being available to the general public have won. Of course this moderation process isn’t going to be perfect and there will be false positives. I have been on the receiving end of a campaign organized by a somewhat popular forum in order to fill up a direct democracy platform with as many memes and random shit as possible. The worst night I just had to hide everything that was posted, the signal to noise was too high. This meant that some legitimate proposals where lost. It wasn’t a perfect solution either, but it was the only one we had. From my experience, I think without moderation r/science would become “aliens built the pyramids” in a week.
- rhaksw 4y ago
  > science is not democratic I strongly disagree, it's inherently democratic. The scientific method is all about making mistakes and trying again. Discourse is all about sharing knowledge. Open societies do this effectively. Jonathan Rauch, in Kindly Inquisitors (1993) wrote, > Authoritarian systems have their intellectual giants. What they lack is the capacity to organize and exploit their masses of middling thinkers. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=uZUVAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&q=%22Authoritarian+systems+have+their+intellectual+giants.+What+they+lack+is+the+capacity+to+organize+and+exploit+their+masses+of+middling+thinkers.%22 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=uZUVAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA74... > From my experience, I think without moderation r/science would become “aliens built the pyramids” in a week. It might. What would happen then? I'd argue there'd be a lot of good discussion. The reason people don't think it's possible to change people's minds over the last 7-8 years is because during this whole period you didn't know about shadow moderation. Watch the linked talk, look at the examples. Deception is being crowdsourced and it is happening across every ideology, geography, and on every major platform.
ShredKazoo 4y ago
One theory here: Moderation is hard work, people want something in return for hard work, reddit isn't willing to pay mods. Inevitable result: Over time, the mod pool consists more and more of people who get something in return for the act of moderating itself. Either they get to push an agenda, they get to be petty tyrants, or both. This could explain the pattern where for any given topic, you'll often see discussion of that topic splinter into several diametrically opposed subreddits which are constantly trying to dunk on each other. No one wants to moderate a sub which attempts to synthesize all the perspectives, but there is a supply of mods available for a sub that dunks on "the bad guys".

by dmix 4y ago

rhaksw 4y ago

> I love reveddit.com, it's hilarious to look at the typical r/science post and see 60%+ of comments removed on average (the 'controversial' ones go 75%+). Yeah I mention r/science at 7:00 in the linked video. > If the moderators agree with the study there is zero dissent tolerated. This subreddit has something like 1000+ moderators and they remove any comments that doesn't fit into Reddit's very narrowly defined overton window. Not just people being off-topic or taboo... but often anyone who questions the studies being posted. I'm sure that's true. I haven't looked at the exact biases in that group too much. For awhile I was collecting examples of biased removals in certain groups, but that was just so I could come up with relatable stories to tell. I disagree with pretty much every secretive removal. Even in cases where someone is threatening violence I wonder whether we should keep such a removal secret from the author: an extremist in a given group, whose views went unchallenged, may perceive silence as agreement and therefore believe they're part of a team when in fact they're not. > My only critique is that it doesn't work with Firefox. I have to pull up Chrome which I only use for work. Do you have a social media profile to follow/provide feedback to? It does work on Firefox but you have to disable tracking protection [1]. The reason is because Reddit, to which Reveddit obviously must connect, appears on an arbitrary list of domains that Firefox's partner Disconnect.me considers to be "trackers" [2]. That list breaks tons of websites that are tracked and seemingly ignored in this 8 year old bug [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1101005 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1101005]. The bug is updated with new sites almost every day. I'm not up to date on how browsers or standards are changing, but I'm guessing the Disconnect.me list is a hack until a better solution can be found. I don't know of a better solution. I'm all ears if you have one provided it doesn't cost me more or hurt the site's operation by putting its logic on a server [3]. [1] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#firefox https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#firefox [2] https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection/blob/b3f9cdcea541ab876e63970daadc490f9de2befa/services.json#L10851 https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protecti... [3] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.privacy/XO84EzrwWp0 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.privacy/...

Dah00n 4y ago
Blocking trackers is a feature not a bug. Disagreeing with what belongs on the list is fine of course but it isn't a bug. IMO Reddit belongs there equally as much or as little as Google and Facebook.
- rhaksw 4y ago
  > Blocking trackers is a feature not a bug. I didn't say it was a bug, I said the list of websites broken by that feature are tracked in a bug.
dmix 4y ago
> I don't know of a better solution. I'm all ears if you have one No, that makes sense. I see you've added a modal that explains how to get it to work with FF. My bad, I think I used Unddit in the past which didn't say this. I'll use Reveddit instead. Besides maybe a web extension that somehow bypasses those controls? (idk if that works). > Yeah I mention r/science at 7:00 in the linked video. Thanks I'll watch the video tomorrow. Appreciate your work.
- rhaksw 4y ago
  > I see you've added a modal that explains how to get it to work with FF. My bad, I think I used Unddit in the past which didn't say this. I'll use Reveddit instead. No worries. I'll just share the differences with Unddit here for any interested. AFAIK Unddit only works with threads, whereas Reveddit works with nearly any type of Reddit page, including subreddits and domains. And last I checked, Unddit shows a limited number of comments up front, whereas Reveddit loads them all. So if a thread has more than 1,000 comments, and you visit an Unddit link, it might be missing some, and you won't know to check for more unless you know how the site works. In my opinion, that's unintuitive, so I choose to load everything up front. Also, Unddit shows user-deleted comments [1] while Reveddit does not [2]. The most distinguishing features of Reveddit IMO are that it works with user pages, can restore comments from user pages, has an extension that can notify you of removals when they occur [3], it has more filters, sort options, etc. > Besides maybe a web extension that somehow bypasses those controls? (idk if that works). Well that's basically what the modal describes. You can customize where you want to turn it off, no extension needed. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pushshift/comments/qiwurl/what_happened_to_removedditcom/hin7wbe/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pushshift/comments/qiwurl/what_happ... [2] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#user-deleted https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#user-deleted [3] https://www.reveddit.com/add-ons/direct/ https://www.reveddit.com/add-ons/direct/

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mariusor 4y ago

> This subreddit has something like 1000+ moderators and they remove any comments that doesn't fit into Reddit's very narrowly defined overton window Or the subreddit has a very strict set of rules for posting top level comments which include: > 3. Non-professional personal anecdotes will be removed > 4. Criticism of published work should assume basic competence of the researchers and reviewers > 5. Comments dismissing established findings and fields of science must provide evidence

dmix 4y ago
Just curious, have you spent time looking at the type of comments getting removed? Have you looked at any of the top threads on Reveddit/Unddit with 75% of the comments gone? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how it goes way, way beyond those rules you just listed, into something that can only be described as a petty dictatorship - but with any hundred angry nerds who happened to show up playing the dictator. Zero transparency, zero due process, no one cares. This sort of excuse (blindly believing all that matters is "just don't be an asshole on the internet and you have nothing to worry about", "just follow the rules on the sidebar") is exactly how this sort of thing happens and no one bothers to look into it. If Reddit had a button to list the comments arbitrarily removed (like Google shows DMCA request removals) you can be sure the outrage would be 100x and those sidebar rules would seem meaningless besides maybe 20% of the time. I chose r/science because that's a topic that typically prides itself on caring about finding the truth, not about satisfying the ideological whims of the gatekeepers.
- mariusor 4y ago
  You call it petty dictatorship, I call it the best moderated subreddit of the whole platform.
  - dmix 4y ago
    You just happen to be lucky enough to be within the very narrow overton window. Or at least a) believe what's being curated for you and b) never cared to look at what's not being said. You should hope that your views (or more accurately, their views) never stray from it and the information that a tiny group of people are controlling is good for the entire population. You could say just use another subreddit. But this isn't limited to one.

otikik 4y ago

My take: science has been politicized. As a result people feel like they are entitled to share their (often naive and inexperienced) opinion. Problem is this: science is not democratic. Consensus plays a role, but not everyone getting to the point were you are equipped to peer review others often takes years of effort and study. That’s unavoidable, given that the easy questions have already been answered. A single … “folkloric” comment is not problematic. When 60% or 75% of the comments are like that, the problem is that the subreddit isn’t science any more. It has become “wacky theory time”. So at that time you have a choice: either you moderate, in order to keep the channel on-topic, or you accept everything, at which point the guys who benefit from science not being available to the general public have won. Of course this moderation process isn’t going to be perfect and there will be false positives. I have been on the receiving end of a campaign organized by a somewhat popular forum in order to fill up a direct democracy platform with as many memes and random shit as possible. The worst night I just had to hide everything that was posted, the signal to noise was too high. This meant that some legitimate proposals where lost. It wasn’t a perfect solution either, but it was the only one we had. From my experience, I think without moderation r/science would become “aliens built the pyramids” in a week.

rhaksw 4y ago
> science is not democratic I strongly disagree, it's inherently democratic. The scientific method is all about making mistakes and trying again. Discourse is all about sharing knowledge. Open societies do this effectively. Jonathan Rauch, in Kindly Inquisitors (1993) wrote, > Authoritarian systems have their intellectual giants. What they lack is the capacity to organize and exploit their masses of middling thinkers. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=uZUVAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&q=%22Authoritarian+systems+have+their+intellectual+giants.+What+they+lack+is+the+capacity+to+organize+and+exploit+their+masses+of+middling+thinkers.%22 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=uZUVAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA74... > From my experience, I think without moderation r/science would become “aliens built the pyramids” in a week. It might. What would happen then? I'd argue there'd be a lot of good discussion. The reason people don't think it's possible to change people's minds over the last 7-8 years is because during this whole period you didn't know about shadow moderation. Watch the linked talk, look at the examples. Deception is being crowdsourced and it is happening across every ideology, geography, and on every major platform.

ShredKazoo 4y ago

One theory here: Moderation is hard work, people want something in return for hard work, reddit isn't willing to pay mods. Inevitable result: Over time, the mod pool consists more and more of people who get something in return for the act of moderating itself. Either they get to push an agenda, they get to be petty tyrants, or both. This could explain the pattern where for any given topic, you'll often see discussion of that topic splinter into several diametrically opposed subreddits which are constantly trying to dunk on each other. No one wants to moderate a sub which attempts to synthesize all the perspectives, but there is a supply of mods available for a sub that dunks on "the bad guys".