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I agree on the surface it seems paranoid, here are my data points- I'm a reasonable person of sound body and mind and very well socialised (I'm certain that I

by drcross 13y ago

I agree on the surface it seems paranoid, here are my data points- I'm a reasonable person of sound body and mind and very well socialised (I'm certain that I don't have a mental illness). I've been on the sub since there were 20k users, there are now 120k I've helped countless newbies and formed relationships with other long term users of the sub who also have a high reputation. I've made many high quality posts on bitcoin data analysis (and a few crappy memes along the way). Something is definitely different in the past few months, and a lot of the other old timers would agree with me, the subject matter is not normal. I have loads of anecdotal "Wait a minute, that not the way things are meant to work" situations, where some comments are being downvoted and upvoted abnormally. Some comments are meant to only confuse you or deride the conversation and bring it off topic. Some threads are calling into question the Mods and their motives. Some comments on threads are pushing the traditional banking system benefits. There has been an influx of 0 day users who seem to speak on authority about financial instruments. These are not trolls. Some users will reply with what seems like a positive post and then flip completely 180 degrees by the end of their reply. What I'm trying to say is that the human neural network pattern matching machine is incredibly good at finding inconsistencies, my alarm bells are ringing, there is some organisation at work in the sub. I would like to start gathering data on the extend of this by comparing users account age, their topic of conversation and the techniques they use. I'll need some help from my trusted friends on /r/bitcoin and I'm still coming up with the process on the best way to collect information to prove or disprove my hypothesis.

rasz_pl 13y ago
>What I'm trying to say is that the human neural network >pattern matching machine is incredibly good at finding >inconsistencies, my alarm bells are ringing, there is some >organisation at work in the sub. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
- ZenPro 13y ago
  That a nice link and possibly true but equally there is compelling evidence to suggest people with experience are highly attuned to a change in environment despite being unable to articulate why. Malcolm Gladwells Blink dealt with the issue.
  - drcross 13y ago
    This is a topic that I find particularly interesting. I have a strong confidence in my pattern matching abilities, for my day job I have to process pages of text on a daily basis with complete precision and very little allowances for error. I mine data like this for a living. I had to do the same to get my masters degree in science. It will take me some work to get the results of what is going on but I will build a model and see how I go.
pavel_lishin 13y ago
Are you sure this isn't just the result of a 6x growth? As Bitcoin and the subreddit becomes more popular, wouldn't you expect more people of various backgrounds and with various goals to join? It also doesn't take a small nationstate to stir shit up, it just takes a vocal determined minority; or a bunch of noobs; or a bunch of trolls. (And when I say "bunch", I mean a number that's in the double-digits.)
- danford 13y ago
  >It also doesn't take a small nationstate to stir shit up, it just takes a vocal determined minority Very true. It doesn't really take many upvotes to make it to the front page of a sub-reddit, just a high up-to-down ratio. Reddit would be an easy target for manipulation by a small group if they really wanted to. My idea: have a default post sorting algorithm, but create an add-on that allows users to create their own sorting algorithm. Most likely users will find the best algorithm, share it, and spread it, but their would also be many algorithms in use, so you have multiple systems you would have to game.
  - pavel_lishin 13y ago
    Would that scale to the Reddit userbase? Worst case scenario is one algorithm per user, 120k algorithms on /r/bitcoin alone.
    - Houshalter 13y ago
      They could have it done locally.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    That's a really cool idea but I don't see it ever happening. The admins are really conservative about major site features. It took them years to fix the sign error bug on the sorting algorithm when it was publicly known. Only comments are ranked by upvote to downvote ratio. Posts are ranked by total upvotes plus the time.
- mpyne 13y ago
MisterWebz 13y ago
> by comparing users account age, their topic of conversation and the techniques they use. Wouldn't that give you a lot of false positives? Perhaps you could first try finding accounts with similar writing style. Though I'm not sure about the accuracy of such algorithms.
buzzybee 13y ago
Oh, it definitely happens. It's easier to spot on low-traffic subs because a single topic that matches the right keywords will suddenly blow up with both a spike in upvotes and dozens or hundreds of heavily opinionated comments. Here is a classic guide to "forum spies": http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm The tactics are well known to the financial system. Penny stock boards, for example, are full of engineered disinformation because all participants are competing to manipulate the market. I believe the sockpuppets used for reddit are directed in some more autonomous fashion, though.

by drcross 13y ago

rasz_pl 13y ago

>What I'm trying to say is that the human neural network >pattern matching machine is incredibly good at finding >inconsistencies, my alarm bells are ringing, there is some >organisation at work in the sub. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

ZenPro 13y ago
That a nice link and possibly true but equally there is compelling evidence to suggest people with experience are highly attuned to a change in environment despite being unable to articulate why. Malcolm Gladwells Blink dealt with the issue.
- drcross 13y ago
  This is a topic that I find particularly interesting. I have a strong confidence in my pattern matching abilities, for my day job I have to process pages of text on a daily basis with complete precision and very little allowances for error. I mine data like this for a living. I had to do the same to get my masters degree in science. It will take me some work to get the results of what is going on but I will build a model and see how I go.

pavel_lishin 13y ago

Are you sure this isn't just the result of a 6x growth? As Bitcoin and the subreddit becomes more popular, wouldn't you expect more people of various backgrounds and with various goals to join? It also doesn't take a small nationstate to stir shit up, it just takes a vocal determined minority; or a bunch of noobs; or a bunch of trolls. (And when I say "bunch", I mean a number that's in the double-digits.)

danford 13y ago
>It also doesn't take a small nationstate to stir shit up, it just takes a vocal determined minority Very true. It doesn't really take many upvotes to make it to the front page of a sub-reddit, just a high up-to-down ratio. Reddit would be an easy target for manipulation by a small group if they really wanted to. My idea: have a default post sorting algorithm, but create an add-on that allows users to create their own sorting algorithm. Most likely users will find the best algorithm, share it, and spread it, but their would also be many algorithms in use, so you have multiple systems you would have to game.
- pavel_lishin 13y ago
  Would that scale to the Reddit userbase? Worst case scenario is one algorithm per user, 120k algorithms on /r/bitcoin alone.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    They could have it done locally.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  That's a really cool idea but I don't see it ever happening. The admins are really conservative about major site features. It took them years to fix the sign error bug on the sorting algorithm when it was publicly known. Only comments are ranked by upvote to downvote ratio. Posts are ranked by total upvotes plus the time.
mpyne 13y ago

MisterWebz 13y ago

> by comparing users account age, their topic of conversation and the techniques they use. Wouldn't that give you a lot of false positives? Perhaps you could first try finding accounts with similar writing style. Though I'm not sure about the accuracy of such algorithms.

buzzybee 13y ago

Oh, it definitely happens. It's easier to spot on low-traffic subs because a single topic that matches the right keywords will suddenly blow up with both a spike in upvotes and dozens or hundreds of heavily opinionated comments. Here is a classic guide to "forum spies": http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm The tactics are well known to the financial system. Penny stock boards, for example, are full of engineered disinformation because all participants are competing to manipulate the market. I believe the sockpuppets used for reddit are directed in some more autonomous fashion, though.