Comment by stolio | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stolio | Hacker News Reader

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I became really unhappy with the moderation of r/science. To me it's highlighted the inadequacies of the old "peer reviewed journal" litmus test and shown how many value judgements it can help to hide.

Incredibly shaky research will get frontpaged because it resonates with popular political themes, and it receives the full clout of the name of science in the minds of reddit's userbase. For example this thread[0] which was peer reviewed in a journal that is openly written from a "feminist perspective"[1]. It may pass r/science's standards for being scientific but when a journal shares the same biases as the researchers they're reviewing that's a problem.

But if, say, Gerard t'Hooft were to write a great blog post about modern physics it's not welcome in r/science because it's not a peer reviewed paper, even though it probably has far more scientific merit than a lot of stories that r/science pushes to the default frontpage.

[0] - http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/22vbpp/barbie_expos... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Roles_%28journal%29

The value of /r/science isn't much in the articles, but in the comments reviewing them. And for example in your link about barbie exposure[0], the second comment from the top, with 1257 points starts a thread with good, strong criticism of the lack of value in that research.

This is a common occurrence in /r/science.It even becomes common(and popular) whenever some article comes with a "breakthrough" to ask "why isn't this true, like the rest of the noise we hear from the news"-and get very good answers.

And the discussion is very good, with scientistcs chiming in, explaining the details, the implications, and how is it related to other research(for example to other disease).

And AFAIK, it's one of the best places on the web to get critique and review and discussion scientific research- that is available to layman.

[0]http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/22vbpp/barbie_expos...

I think it's (ballpark) safe to say a story that gets frontpaged for two days will have at least its title read by a million people.[0] Most of those people aren't going to attempt to wade through the comments section looking for insight, of those that do many won't find it. A decent chunk of casual readers will read the title, see it agrees with their social views and move on with the knowledge that their social activism has the backing of modern science. This may not seem like a big deal but remember that people thinking non-scientific things were science is how the anti-vax movement started.

Take the Barbie story as an example. Even when it was becoming clear that the study was weak, that the reviewing journal shared the same biases as the researchers, that the title was misleading, etc. the mods didn't do what's common for other large subs which is flair the title as "potentially misleading" or "early study, may not be reproducible" or just something to let the casual viewer know that this isn't science in the way that what's going on at CERN is science.

[0] - http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/about/traffic

Have you talked with the moderators about your concerns , and if so what did they say ?

Yes I have. I butted heads with them over this a while back. In their defense I probably could have handled myself better, I wasn't using bad language or all caps but few of us are at our best in the midst of an emotional argument.

It was a while ago, I think I called out some feminist bias in a thread (not the Barbie thread from above) and a few of my comments were deleted which I didn't think was called for. When I messaged the mods my concerns weren't addressed and I was stonewalled. When I was unhappy about being stonewalled I was threatened with the banhammer.

It's worth noting I've spent far more time in r/askscience and I have zero complaints there or in any of the other science/engineering subs.

On the plus side I have a better understanding for the complaints creationists and quantum mystics have about dealing with people who study science, which helps in dealing with friends and family.

Sorry, but any self-moderated forum is going to have content you don't like and lack content you like. That subreddit has the community's self-moderation, which scales, and moderators who don't. The moderators' aren't going to spend their day making judgment calls, they write clear rules[0] and let things take their course. “Must be peer-reviewed research” is pretty clear cut and the signal to noise is better than without it. Who cares if it's too strict; you have other subreddits.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_submission_...

You missed the point of my comment. I'm saying that much of the "science" is so soft that the process is still based on judgement calls. Not only do I disagree with some of those judgment calls, but I prefer transparent value judgements to hidden value judgements.

And that's the fatal flaw of Reddit. The more people it attracts the worse the content becomes. /r/iama used to be really good, but it has turned into a vapid wasteland of PR departments.

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