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> - Reddit founders submitted links (wrote comments?) everyday using different usernames, to get the community going. Can we please not celebrate scammy behavi

> - Reddit founders submitted links (wrote comments?) everyday using different usernames, to get the community going. Can we please not celebrate scammy behavior?

scubbo 3y ago
I mean....if the content is there, and people found it engaging enough to want to interact with it, is it really scammy? _Dishonest_ is probably a fair descriptor of presenting the content as coming from more people than actually were (and if those "usage numbers" were presented as actual usage numbers for, like, VC funding, then it's an out-and-out scam), but I don't think it's really _that_ much of a scam as-presented. If someone told me tomorrow that all of the content I'd read on Hacker News for the last month had all been provided by one extremely prolific person with a bunch of sockpuppets, rather than by multiple actual real human people, it wouldn't reduce the value or enjoyment I'd got from them.
- humanrebar 3y ago
  Maybe we need to agree to disagree, but I find dishonesty scummy. And I would find invented discussions less engaging.
  - scubbo 3y ago
    The flipped vowel is extraordinarily relevant! I agree that it's scummy, but not scammy. > And I would find invented discussions less engaging I would predict that I would, too - but, evidence suggests that it was engaging enough to get people interested, so maybe our predictions are incorrect.
  - justanotherjoe 3y ago
    the truth doesnt need to be defended cause the truth is no one, and it doesnt care to be defended. The one you should defend is common good. And truths as when they pertain to common good.
- taneq 3y ago
  What's the definition of "scammy" if not "dishonest for profit"?
  - IggleSniggle 3y ago
    I think scam generally implies that someone was swindled, told they'd get A and get Q (or nothing at all). Sold a bill of goods (but not the goods). In the case of something like Reddit, you come to read content, and once you've readit, you write it, and then read some more. I'm not sure you're ever really sold that you're even engaging with actual people. These days, I frequently wonder what percentage of comments on any of these sites is genuine (although I happen to believe it's still a pretty high percentage). Its good to assume noble intent, but to also carry around skepticism.
    - brightlancer 3y ago
      > I think scam generally implies that someone was swindled, told they'd get A and get Q (or nothing at all). Sold a bill of goods (but not the goods). It's much more broad than that. A common sales tactic is to pretend there are other folks interested in what's being sold; maybe this is to make it seem popular, maybe this is to push Buy It Now for a limited (maybe one) item. Some folks will have a fake interested party show up in person. I would call all of that a scam, even if I'm paying the listed price and get what was promised.
  - scubbo 3y ago
    As a sibling commenter suggested - to me, in order to have been scammed I need to have lost something (or, equivalently - been induced to pay more for something than I would have otherwise considered a fair price). You can certainly make the case that Redditors were "buying" entertainment with their time, so it's reasonable to describe a transaction as having taken place. I don't, however, believe that the content and comments they were consuming would be devalued if they found out that it was being submitted by a small number of people using multiple accounts. The entertainment value derived was the same. Dishonesty is not sufficient to render something a scam - the scam-ee needs to "lose out" in some way. In this situation, I don't believe they did.
dougSF70 3y ago
Same thing happened on this site. To this day most comments and discussions are between the two HN moderators using a panopoly of usernames and ip-cloaking.
- ngngngng 3y ago
  Why would ip-cloaking be necessary if it's your own site?
  - dougSF70 3y ago
    Great question.
- yen223 3y ago
  we are all dang on this blessed day
  - dougSF70 3y ago
    Indeed.
  - datadrivenangel 3y ago
    dang-mode for days?
- tfsh 3y ago
  Can't tell if you're being sarcastic, however it doesn't translate well in online discussions. So I'll take your comment at face value and provide you with what I hope to be an illuminating thought exercise. According to Dang there are (or were) 13,000 comments a day [1], if we assume "most" to be ~6501 with an average comment length of 65 words, that's 422,565 or ~211,000 words per day from our two gracious moderators. Assuming the standard working hours of nine to five, that would equate to 26,375 words per hour or 439 words per minute, coincidentally breaking many records. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454140 (yes, I realise this comment is slightly OTT, but I was interested to see what the raw numbers would be)
systemvoltage 3y ago
Can you show us where exactly is OP’s comment indicative of a “celebration”? They’re simply citing examples.
tomhoward 3y ago
Why do people have to be such grumps about this kind of thing? No laws were broken, nobody got hurt, it continued only for a few weeks whilst the site got up and running, and we only hear about it because the site became successful. Yes you're correct that it was not 100% authentic and honest. So what? White lies are a thing that everyone can accept. Zero harm was done. We can afford to see the fun in something like this! (And for the record, I don't really use or like Reddit.)
- peterashford 3y ago
  "it was not 100% authentic and honest. So what?" i.e.: it was a lie. Which some people think isn't great behaviour. Clearly, you disagree but I think it's reasonably normal for people to have issues with lying
  - tomhoward 3y ago
    > I think it's reasonably normal for people to have issues with lying My point is that it's needlessly grumpy. It's fine if you want to be grumpy! But it's worth examining why this is a particular thing that triggers you. Far worse lies are told by politicians of all stripes every day, and we accept it as part of the system (particularly if it's a politician we voted for, not so much if it's one we voted against.) We should have a think about why we're getting tied up in knots over some shenanigans played by a couple of early 20-somethings almost two decades ago.
    - ekianjo 3y ago
      > ar worse lies are told by politicians of all stripes every day, and we accept it as part of the system Who pretended that we were OK with politicians lying through every breath? Don't put words in people's mouths.
      - tomhoward 3y ago
        Sure but the point is we all have our own standard for what kinds of subterfuge can be acceptable in certain circumstances. As I said in the first comment, we all accept the concept of white lies. We also accept jokes, pranks, stunts and hacks of various kinds. We can choose to be grumpy, moralistic and finger-waggy about Reddit’s method of breaking out of their chicken-and-egg trap, or we can see it as a harmless, funny prank. It all comes down the the question of who was harmed, and in this debate, nobody has even tried to point to any case of a real person who was in any way harmed by this act. Any claims of harm are imagined hypotheticals to justify the finger-wagging, which is what this is really all about.

> - Reddit founders submitted links (wrote comments?) everyday using different usernames, to get the community going. Can we please not celebrate scammy behavior?

scubbo 3y ago

I mean....if the content is there, and people found it engaging enough to want to interact with it, is it really scammy? _Dishonest_ is probably a fair descriptor of presenting the content as coming from more people than actually were (and if those "usage numbers" were presented as actual usage numbers for, like, VC funding, then it's an out-and-out scam), but I don't think it's really _that_ much of a scam as-presented. If someone told me tomorrow that all of the content I'd read on Hacker News for the last month had all been provided by one extremely prolific person with a bunch of sockpuppets, rather than by multiple actual real human people, it wouldn't reduce the value or enjoyment I'd got from them.

humanrebar 3y ago
Maybe we need to agree to disagree, but I find dishonesty scummy. And I would find invented discussions less engaging.
- scubbo 3y ago
  The flipped vowel is extraordinarily relevant! I agree that it's scummy, but not scammy. > And I would find invented discussions less engaging I would predict that I would, too - but, evidence suggests that it was engaging enough to get people interested, so maybe our predictions are incorrect.
- justanotherjoe 3y ago
  the truth doesnt need to be defended cause the truth is no one, and it doesnt care to be defended. The one you should defend is common good. And truths as when they pertain to common good.
taneq 3y ago
What's the definition of "scammy" if not "dishonest for profit"?
- IggleSniggle 3y ago
  I think scam generally implies that someone was swindled, told they'd get A and get Q (or nothing at all). Sold a bill of goods (but not the goods). In the case of something like Reddit, you come to read content, and once you've readit, you write it, and then read some more. I'm not sure you're ever really sold that you're even engaging with actual people. These days, I frequently wonder what percentage of comments on any of these sites is genuine (although I happen to believe it's still a pretty high percentage). Its good to assume noble intent, but to also carry around skepticism.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    > I think scam generally implies that someone was swindled, told they'd get A and get Q (or nothing at all). Sold a bill of goods (but not the goods). It's much more broad than that. A common sales tactic is to pretend there are other folks interested in what's being sold; maybe this is to make it seem popular, maybe this is to push Buy It Now for a limited (maybe one) item. Some folks will have a fake interested party show up in person. I would call all of that a scam, even if I'm paying the listed price and get what was promised.
- scubbo 3y ago
  As a sibling commenter suggested - to me, in order to have been scammed I need to have lost something (or, equivalently - been induced to pay more for something than I would have otherwise considered a fair price). You can certainly make the case that Redditors were "buying" entertainment with their time, so it's reasonable to describe a transaction as having taken place. I don't, however, believe that the content and comments they were consuming would be devalued if they found out that it was being submitted by a small number of people using multiple accounts. The entertainment value derived was the same. Dishonesty is not sufficient to render something a scam - the scam-ee needs to "lose out" in some way. In this situation, I don't believe they did.

dougSF70 3y ago

Same thing happened on this site. To this day most comments and discussions are between the two HN moderators using a panopoly of usernames and ip-cloaking.

ngngngng 3y ago
Why would ip-cloaking be necessary if it's your own site?
- dougSF70 3y ago
  Great question.
yen223 3y ago
we are all dang on this blessed day
- dougSF70 3y ago
  Indeed.
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  dang-mode for days?
tfsh 3y ago
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic, however it doesn't translate well in online discussions. So I'll take your comment at face value and provide you with what I hope to be an illuminating thought exercise. According to Dang there are (or were) 13,000 comments a day [1], if we assume "most" to be ~6501 with an average comment length of 65 words, that's 422,565 or ~211,000 words per day from our two gracious moderators. Assuming the standard working hours of nine to five, that would equate to 26,375 words per hour or 439 words per minute, coincidentally breaking many records. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454140 (yes, I realise this comment is slightly OTT, but I was interested to see what the raw numbers would be)

systemvoltage 3y ago

Can you show us where exactly is OP’s comment indicative of a “celebration”? They’re simply citing examples.

tomhoward 3y ago

Why do people have to be such grumps about this kind of thing? No laws were broken, nobody got hurt, it continued only for a few weeks whilst the site got up and running, and we only hear about it because the site became successful. Yes you're correct that it was not 100% authentic and honest. So what? White lies are a thing that everyone can accept. Zero harm was done. We can afford to see the fun in something like this! (And for the record, I don't really use or like Reddit.)

peterashford 3y ago
"it was not 100% authentic and honest. So what?" i.e.: it was a lie. Which some people think isn't great behaviour. Clearly, you disagree but I think it's reasonably normal for people to have issues with lying
- tomhoward 3y ago
  > I think it's reasonably normal for people to have issues with lying My point is that it's needlessly grumpy. It's fine if you want to be grumpy! But it's worth examining why this is a particular thing that triggers you. Far worse lies are told by politicians of all stripes every day, and we accept it as part of the system (particularly if it's a politician we voted for, not so much if it's one we voted against.) We should have a think about why we're getting tied up in knots over some shenanigans played by a couple of early 20-somethings almost two decades ago.
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    > ar worse lies are told by politicians of all stripes every day, and we accept it as part of the system Who pretended that we were OK with politicians lying through every breath? Don't put words in people's mouths.
    - tomhoward 3y ago
      Sure but the point is we all have our own standard for what kinds of subterfuge can be acceptable in certain circumstances. As I said in the first comment, we all accept the concept of white lies. We also accept jokes, pranks, stunts and hacks of various kinds. We can choose to be grumpy, moralistic and finger-waggy about Reddit’s method of breaking out of their chicken-and-egg trap, or we can see it as a harmless, funny prank. It all comes down the the question of who was harmed, and in this debate, nobody has even tried to point to any case of a real person who was in any way harmed by this act. Any claims of harm are imagined hypotheticals to justify the finger-wagging, which is what this is really all about.