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They spammed posts and comments with fake accounts to fake growth until it caught on and then talked about it on HackerNews ...

doodlebugging 3y ago
Yes. This is what I remember from the earliest days. Back and forth between their own posts using multiple accounts to give the impression of active engagement and a growing community. Reposting things from Digg, Fark, etc and grabbing memes like Rickrolls, goatse, to draw eyeballs and clicks to their single page scrolling interface. Dodging bullshit posts was a game of waiting for comments to post so you could see which actually had real content and not some nasty meme from somewhere else. Deciding that they needed a coat of arms and figuring out what should go on it, the alien, narwhals, etc.
jedberg 3y ago
Lol HN didn't exist until reddit was popular. HN was in fact created because reddit go so popular it no longer appealed to PG, so he started HN so he could moderate the conversation himself and steer the community they way he wanted it to go. The other thing you said partly true -- in the beginning the founders had about 100 accounts that they posted with, but there were no comments back then. There was never fake commenting, and the posts weren't "fake" either. Alexis would scour the internet all day looking for interesting things and then posting them with random accounts, as would Steve. So if anything Alexis and Steve were just really prolific users. But the site was self sustaining by the time comments launched. ie. There would be fresh content even if Steve and Alexis didn't post anything that day.
- effingwewt 3y ago
  Thats some mighty handwavy mental gymnastics to not call them liars. Pretending to be different people to post qualifies as 'fake posts'. Fake it till you make it, or fraud? Either way it's still bullshit.
  - inkywatcher 3y ago
    While I am very ready to be critical of Reddit, including its creators, community, interface, and aesthetic, I am not personally offended that a couple jabronis posted a bunch of stuff to build up some initial momentum.
- earthscienceman 3y ago
  Jedberg. I've called you and them out on this before. There are HackerNews comments from '08 and '09 where the astroturfing and fake accounts are openly mentioned. Don't make me go through the effort to dig them up. As for the order of events, I wasn't clear. I meant they talked about it on HackerNews but not contemporaneously.
- doublerabbit 3y ago
  Digg had it first, Reddit was Digg's second cousin. Reddit never took off until Digg shot itself in the kneecap. Digg was where the "fresh content" came from. If Digg hadn't made the v2.0 mistake; Reddit wouldn't be where it was now. The accounts may of not been fake, but reddit for sure had many plants; it was even boasted by the administration team prior Conde Nest. And now it's more blatant than before.
  - mattlondon 3y ago
    Came here to say this. Reddit was this quaint tiny site that was a breath of fresh air after digg's self-destruction. In those days there were no sub-reddits, just the front page. I left after sub-reddits started and it went to shit as a result. It has been downhill since then (at least for what I want). HN is much more like what the original Reddit was like. I can imagine that if HN gets "sub" things it will also self-deatruct like Reddit has.
  - hayst4ck 3y ago
    > Digg was where the "fresh content" came from. This is not quite true. StumbleUpon is where fresh content came from. It was popularized on digg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StumbleUpon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StumbleUpon
    - doublerabbit 3y ago
      Fancy that. Thanks for the update in history. I guess before that it was Newgrounds.
effingwewt 3y ago
Exactly what I thought when I saw the title. You really needed an entire podcast to describe that?! RIP Aaron, was a great guy. Alexis and Steve are bullshit artists that got rich. Steve was especially bad when he dipped back in.
dang 3y ago
Could you please stop taking this thread into flamewar? We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35677196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35677196.

doodlebugging 3y ago

Yes. This is what I remember from the earliest days. Back and forth between their own posts using multiple accounts to give the impression of active engagement and a growing community. Reposting things from Digg, Fark, etc and grabbing memes like Rickrolls, goatse, to draw eyeballs and clicks to their single page scrolling interface. Dodging bullshit posts was a game of waiting for comments to post so you could see which actually had real content and not some nasty meme from somewhere else. Deciding that they needed a coat of arms and figuring out what should go on it, the alien, narwhals, etc.

jedberg 3y ago

Lol HN didn't exist until reddit was popular. HN was in fact created because reddit go so popular it no longer appealed to PG, so he started HN so he could moderate the conversation himself and steer the community they way he wanted it to go. The other thing you said partly true -- in the beginning the founders had about 100 accounts that they posted with, but there were no comments back then. There was never fake commenting, and the posts weren't "fake" either. Alexis would scour the internet all day looking for interesting things and then posting them with random accounts, as would Steve. So if anything Alexis and Steve were just really prolific users. But the site was self sustaining by the time comments launched. ie. There would be fresh content even if Steve and Alexis didn't post anything that day.

effingwewt 3y ago
Thats some mighty handwavy mental gymnastics to not call them liars. Pretending to be different people to post qualifies as 'fake posts'. Fake it till you make it, or fraud? Either way it's still bullshit.
- inkywatcher 3y ago
  While I am very ready to be critical of Reddit, including its creators, community, interface, and aesthetic, I am not personally offended that a couple jabronis posted a bunch of stuff to build up some initial momentum.
earthscienceman 3y ago
Jedberg. I've called you and them out on this before. There are HackerNews comments from '08 and '09 where the astroturfing and fake accounts are openly mentioned. Don't make me go through the effort to dig them up. As for the order of events, I wasn't clear. I meant they talked about it on HackerNews but not contemporaneously.
doublerabbit 3y ago
Digg had it first, Reddit was Digg's second cousin. Reddit never took off until Digg shot itself in the kneecap. Digg was where the "fresh content" came from. If Digg hadn't made the v2.0 mistake; Reddit wouldn't be where it was now. The accounts may of not been fake, but reddit for sure had many plants; it was even boasted by the administration team prior Conde Nest. And now it's more blatant than before.
- mattlondon 3y ago
  Came here to say this. Reddit was this quaint tiny site that was a breath of fresh air after digg's self-destruction. In those days there were no sub-reddits, just the front page. I left after sub-reddits started and it went to shit as a result. It has been downhill since then (at least for what I want). HN is much more like what the original Reddit was like. I can imagine that if HN gets "sub" things it will also self-deatruct like Reddit has.
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  > Digg was where the "fresh content" came from. This is not quite true. StumbleUpon is where fresh content came from. It was popularized on digg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StumbleUpon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StumbleUpon
  - doublerabbit 3y ago
    Fancy that. Thanks for the update in history. I guess before that it was Newgrounds.

effingwewt 3y ago

Exactly what I thought when I saw the title. You really needed an entire podcast to describe that?! RIP Aaron, was a great guy. Alexis and Steve are bullshit artists that got rich. Steve was especially bad when he dipped back in.

dang 3y ago

Could you please stop taking this thread into flamewar? We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35677196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35677196.