Comment by jsmthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsmthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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> But it clearly was.

That's the problem. It's not clear. There's a lot of unanswered questions there: how does off-site activity on Tumblr and other sites get linked back to specific people and the overall thrust of a subreddit? How do you even solve that problem in general?

I have personally observed chan (not 4chan) threads involving skimming certain subreddits and finding targets to harass without even having Reddit accounts. We've long observed 4chan/goon "Redditors" in YouTube comment threads. I'm with you on releasing how they got there, and I think it would provide a lot of clarity.

One last thing, I have to correct you: I never said Reddit was squashing free speech. I wish they'd pick a consistent value on it, that's all, and I pointed out specific things said in the press about free speech. I'm less concerned about FPH than I am about something like /r/jailbait, which got removed because it became the squeaky wheel due to CNN attention. There are worse subreddits regarding sexualization of children, and Reddit fails to uphold its own standard there, which negates the standard itself. That's my problem.

Reddit does have a consistant position:

1) don't brigade.

2) don't dox

3) mods can mod what they like; the commonly agreed best subs use extensive vigorous modding

4) admins aren't going to get involved unless you break the tiny number of rules.

Reddit should release the graphs that subs have of visitors. A FPH brigade causes 10,000 extra visitors, thousands of extra votes, and hundreds of comments. In smaller subs this is very destructive. That is very clearly reddit activity that can be tied to FPH posts and FPH subscribers.

And if Reddit did apply their rules consistantly it would result in a lot more subs being closed - the pro-self harm subs, the pro eating disorder subs, and the pro suicide groups are clear contenders for banning. (To be fair the suicide groups do get banned. I think they've worked out an equilibrium of being as pro suicide as they can without getting banned).

(I didn't downvote your posts. I don't think they deserve the downvotes.)

> (I didn't downvote your posts. I don't think they deserve the downvotes.)

Thanks. I'm used to it, honestly, because it's become obvious over time that holding an opinion in contrast to what HN wants to hear is a nearly guaranteed ticket to comment illegibility. HN is the only forum on which I participate where disagreement is acceptably expressed as making someone's thoughts more difficult to read.

I'm merely presenting my (long earned) observations on Reddit. I absolutely think it's a shitshow, a terrible place full of terrible people, but I suspect I'm being punished for daring to suggest that there is something wrong with the site itself. In the smaller subreddits, there are absolutely small embers of really powerfully rewarding conversation. There is stuff worth saving on Reddit, and I think the loud stuff drowns it out. I've had extremely fulfilling conversations about network security, application security, game modification, and polyamory in the various communities of which I am a part, and I've learned a lot. My experience isn't representative because I subscribe to nearly zero default subs.

To your point, I think SRS serves as the complete counterexample to everything you're saying. The entire purpose of SRS is to brigade and single out individual Redditors, and I've seen the results firsthand. If FPH was doing it, there isn't a universe in existence where SRS gets off that hook and it makes sense. Transparency is important here, as you say.

Brigading is not against reddit's rules[0], despite semi-popular belief. Some big subs actually encourage it by not allowing np (non-participation) links to be posted on their sub[1].

[0]https://www.reddit.com/rules/ [1]https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/39nwjh/meta...

Brigading, on the scale FPH did it, falls under vote manipulation and don't break the site.

EDIT: Subs encourage use of non-participation links because for ages Reddit has banned subs that brigade.

Excuse me, but what is "brigading", actually?

Until now I assumed it was gathering lots of users to harass people IRL or on other web sites, but I guess I'm mistaken?

In Reddit context:

/r/ThisSubReddit exists. There's a post in /r/ThisSubReddit that someone doesn't like. They post a link to that post to /r/OtherSubReddit, sometimes with commentary (eg, "look at this idiot!")

That causes a bunch of people from /r/OtherSubReddit to visit /r/ThisSubReddit. That's okay, unless they start voting; or insulting; or harassing users.

The voting is not okay because often the brigading sub is much larger than the sub being brigaded. (FPH had 150,000 subscribed users) People generally agree that the heavily modded subs are better. Brigading makes it really hard for mods to do any modding. (If just 1% of FPH subs decide to vote that's 1,500 people. If your sub is only 800 subscribers you're going to get crushed by FPH.)

The harassment is not okay because, well, fuck those people who think it's okay to visit a self-harm support sub and tell people to kill themselves.

That kind of brigading has been risky for subs for a while now; plenty of subs got warned, temp banned, or permanently banned for this.

fatpeoplehate was warned multiple times about brigading. But the problem with FPH was not just on-Reddit brigading. They took it to facebook, youtube, a bunch of other websites. They also, if the admins are to be believed, took it AFK to people's IRL work / school / homes.

>Reddit does have a consistant position

Even if the "position" in statements by the administrators were "consistent" (doubtful, but that's besides the point), the application of these rules is manifestly not.

>the commonly agreed best subs use extensive vigorous modding

Do you include TIL among those? I do. Best sub there is.

The only they they use 'extensive vigorous modding' for is verifying whether titles follow the rules. And ~100% of that is based on user reports, they just double-check.

Aside from that, there is 0 moderation, other than for sitewide rule violations. You can say anything_you_want in comments and they will take no action.

Reddit would have had my support if they enforced the rules as you say. Unfortunately Reddit chose instead to enforce the brand new harassment rule, ban the sub, ban the mods, and then ban any sub that even looked like FPH.

It would have been a far, far more effective message if they said "We have banned FPH and the moderators due to their brigading and doxxing. Let this be a lesson to all subs: if you do these things, you will be disbanded." and then left alone all of the other subs that superficially looked like FPH but didn't engage in that specific behavior.

Instead they got a minor revolt, and the latest revolt seems like a manifestation of a lot of the hard feelings from that attempt.

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