r/announcements • u/spez • Nov 30 '16
TIFU by editing some comments and creating an unnecessary controversy.
tl;dr: I fucked up. I ruined Thanksgiving. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. We are taking a more aggressive stance against toxic users and poorly behaving communities. You can filter r/all now.
Hi All,
I am sorry: I am sorry for compromising the trust you all have in Reddit, and I am sorry to those that I created work and stress for, particularly over the holidays. It is heartbreaking to think that my actions distracted people from their family over the holiday; instigated harassment of our moderators; and may have harmed Reddit itself, which I love more than just about anything.
The United States is more divided than ever, and we see that tension within Reddit itself. The community that was formed in support of President-elect Donald Trump organized and grew rapidly, but within it were users that devoted themselves to antagonising the broader Reddit community.
Many of you are aware of my attempt to troll the trolls last week. I honestly thought I might find some common ground with that community by meeting them on their level. It did not go as planned. I restored the original comments after less than an hour, and explained what I did.
I spent my formative years as a young troll on the Internet. I also led the team that built Reddit ten years ago, and spent years moderating the original Reddit communities, so I am as comfortable online as anyone. As CEO, I am often out in the world speaking about how Reddit is the home to conversation online, and a follow on question about harassment on our site is always asked. We have dedicated many of our resources to fighting harassment on Reddit, which is why letting one of our most engaged communities openly harass me felt hypocritical.
While many users across the site found what I did funny, or appreciated that I was standing up to the bullies (I received plenty of support from users of r/the_donald), many others did not. I understand what I did has greater implications than my relationship with one community, and it is fair to raise the question of whether this erodes trust in Reddit. I hope our transparency around this event is an indication that we take matters of trust seriously. Reddit is no longer the little website my college roommate, u/kn0thing, and I started more than eleven years ago. It is a massive collection of communities that provides news, entertainment, and fulfillment for millions of people around the world, and I am continually humbled by what Reddit has grown into. I will never risk your trust like this again, and we are updating our internal controls to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.
More than anything, I want Reddit to heal, and I want our country to heal, and although many of you have asked us to ban the r/the_donald outright, it is with this spirit of healing that I have resisted doing so. If there is anything about this election that we have learned, it is that there are communities that feel alienated and just want to be heard, and Reddit has always been a place where those voices can be heard.
However, when we separate the behavior of some of r/the_donald users from their politics, it is their behavior we cannot tolerate. The opening statement of our Content Policy asks that we all show enough respect to others so that we all may continue to enjoy Reddit for what it is. It is my first duty to do what is best for Reddit, and the current situation is not sustainable.
Historically, we have relied on our relationship with moderators to curb bad behaviors. While some of the moderators have been helpful, this has not been wholly effective, and we are now taking a more proactive approach to policing behavior that is detrimental to Reddit:
We have identified hundreds of the most toxic users and are taking action against them, ranging from warnings to timeouts to permanent bans. Posts stickied on r/the_donald will no longer appear in r/all. r/all is not our frontpage, but is a popular listing that our most engaged users frequent, including myself. The sticky feature was designed for moderators to make announcements or highlight specific posts. It was not meant to circumvent organic voting, which r/the_donald does to slingshot posts into r/all, often in a manner that is antagonistic to the rest of the community.
We will continue taking on the most troublesome users, and going forward, if we do not see the situation improve, we will continue to take privileges from communities whose users continually cross the line—up to an outright ban.
Again, I am sorry for the trouble I have caused. While I intended no harm, that was not the result, and I hope these changes improve your experience on Reddit.
Steve
PS: As a bonus, I have enabled filtering for r/all for all users. You can modify the filters by visiting r/all on the desktop web (I’m old, sorry), but it will affect all platforms, including our native apps on iOS and Android.
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u/Cycloneblaze Nov 30 '16
You can filter r/all now.
Thank god. Best thing to come out of this.
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
Yeah, sorry. I started working on back when we made the algo changes to r/all months ago, but I hit some spaghetti in the code and stopped. Last week I had the right combination of incentive and free time to get it done.
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u/tabarra Nov 30 '16
Give some love to Reddit's GitHub page. There are people trying to help you guys, but looks like you are not even reviewing issues or pull requests.
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u/Troll_berry_pie Nov 30 '16 edited Jan 11 '17
Could you please edit the algorithm? Nothing about the Brazil plane crash showed up on my front page until like 10 hours after it happened.
It's really annoying when I discover something first from Facebook rather than Reddit.
The site's been like that for months now.
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u/cauthon Nov 30 '16
Will you be able to report statistics on which subreddits are the most filtered?
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Nov 30 '16
Took way too long, but glad it's finally here.
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u/Sargon16 Nov 30 '16
Hasn't this been a thing in RES for a long time?
Honestly I can't imagine browsing r/all without filtering the_donald with RES. It would be a nightmare.
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u/theydeletedme Nov 30 '16
Now I won't feel obligated to mention RES or Reddit is Fun whenever someone complains about /r/all.
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u/ehudros Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
YES YES YES! This fixes Reddit for me, no more The_Donald spam :)
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u/Manos_Of_Fate Nov 30 '16
To be fair, this has been in the works for some time now. It was the stated reason for not adding the feature to the official mobile client, because it would be unnecessary once the native filter went live.
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u/Data_Stream Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
This is great news, it makes Reddit usable again for a lot of people who just have a hard time even looking at the toxicity from that community.
I think it's actually good for places like that to exist, and in the past I've even criticized Reddit for being "too sanitized" in recent years, as it used to be a lot more controversial. Part of the draw to Reddit is that you might see something offensive, something weird or vulgar, and radical ideas from questionable sources. This needs to be a place where, if you're looking for it, you can find just about anything (so long as it's legal for them to host)
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But looking at that vulgarity on the front page every single day is just emotionally draining sometimes, makes a person decide to stay away from Reddit entirely.
What is it they say about the abyss staring back into you? Well recently I've felt that way, wade through the cesspool enough and you'll still smell bad even after a good shower.
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Nov 30 '16 edited Jun 09 '23
Imma take this opportunity to ask you something /u/spez
i'd really like a way for me to find new subreddits on my frontpage without having to find a popular post or comment on /r/all or having to dig for it. Especially the smaller, niche communities.
Have you ever though of adding a recommended subreddits tab somewhere? There definitely isn't one on the mobile app and I dont think there is one on the website.
EDIT: Some people are mentioning www.reddit.com/explore . If only I had known about this sooner (but to be honest doesn't really "satisfy" my concern, as nice as it is). I already found a (hopefully) interesting community
EDIT 2: 6.5 years later, fuck you spez, you lying piece of shit. You and reddit should be ashamed of yourselves. RIP Apollo.
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
New frontpage alogrithm is a major initiative of ours right now. So, yes!
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Nov 30 '16
Is there going to be even more porn on the front page with the new algorithm?
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u/CaptInsane Nov 30 '16
How do you feel about ArsTechnica's David Kravets comparing you to Ellen Pao, and that despite all the hate she got she didn't stoop this low?
Even Ellen Pao, the former Reddit CEO, didn't change comments despite a barrage of insults levied at her last year as the site began cleaning up its community.
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u/spez Nov 30 '16 edited Dec 01 '16
It's fair. Ellen wasn't the first Reddit engineer, so she probably lacked the expertise to do it, and even if she did, she was smart enough to not.
u: Since this is blowing up, let me clarify. Ellen wasn't an engineer, so she probably lacked access, and if she did have access, she wouldn't have done this. I have said many times I thought the way she was treated on Reddit was despicable. The changes we made to r/all earlier this summer would have mitigated some of the harassment, and I regret we didn't make those changes years ago.
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Nov 30 '16
comparing you to Ellen Pao
I'd consider that a compliment considering what she put up with & how well she handled it.
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u/316nuts Nov 30 '16
ya big dummy
didn't no one tell you to not feed the trolls
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
I know, I know. It's been my motto for over a decade. I honestly thought they might see some humor in it, we could find some common ground through trollery, and maybe take some of the vitriol out of our relationship.
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u/N8CCRG Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
If there's one thing we've all learned from a certain portion of the reddit community, it's that they 100% can't
dish out what they dealtake what they dish out. They rail on safe spaces and yet have one of the most heavily policed safe spaces in the entire site.→ More replies (748)68
Nov 30 '16
I'm filtering every sub on reddit so I can get nothing but /r/316cats on /r/all, but it's really hard :(
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u/Soltheron Nov 30 '16
didn't no one tell you to not feed the trolls
Yeah, elect them president instead.
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u/i_am_not_sam Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
Can any admin edit a comment/post? How would we know?
Has this ever happened before?
Are there any clear cut policies for what constitutes a ban-worthy offense for a sub-reddit?
edit: (from me, not /u/spez. Really)
I'm glad you saw it to apologize. I was in the "so fucking what"/"it was just a small edit" camp but I can see why some people would be so angry about it. It was poor judgement and you put yourself in a lose-lose situation. That said, most of us will still use the site as before because I honestly can't think of any other content aggregator like this one.
I'm also glad you guys finally got around to implementing the sub-reddit blocking feature. I'd done that with RES a long time and I truly didn't understand why people were so bent out of shape over /r/the_donald. If the charges about "doxxing, harassment" etc. are true (and I can see it happening) then the questions to ask are
is the sub responsible for it? If yes, then what do reddit's policies say about this behavior?
if the sub isn't responsible then how are you
evaluating the truth in this accusation
taking action to protect reddit from other websites and social media
planning to prevent something like this (power user getting harassed to the point of doing something extremely silly/unprofessional) from every happening again?
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
Can any admin edit a comment/post? How would we know?
No. Only engineers with access to production data, and that is being limited.
Has this ever happened before?
In 2009 I replaced the word "fag" with "fog". Over the years I have fixed typos in titles when people ask since we don't allow title editing by default.
This whole experience has been pretty painful. Even with the best of intentions, I (we) won't do this again.
Are there any clear cut policies for what constitutes a ban-worthy offense for a sub-reddit?
The clear cut policies are in our Content Policy.
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u/Jaciola Nov 30 '16
Over the years I have fixed typos in titles when people ask since we don't allow title editing by default.
Question for you. I understand the reason for not editing titles is to not have people create popular posts and then change the title to something inflammatory.
However, why not allow a small 5 minute window to change the title? It shouldn't be long enough to blow up but may be long enough to help prevent a typo
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
However, why not allow a small 5 minute window to change the title? It shouldn't be long enough to blow up but may be long enough to help prevent a typo
Totally reasonable.
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Nov 30 '16
In 2009 I replaced the word "fag" with "fog".
How deep does the rabbit hole go???????
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Nov 30 '16
Follow up: does the change to stickies only impact /r/The_Donald, its affiliate subs (and they have many) or all subreddits altogether?
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u/ThatAstronautGuy Nov 30 '16
any admin with write access to the live database could edit anything they wanted to, most likely with no traces left behind anywhere. However most people would not have this (or should not). Only the higher level devs would have this.
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u/panthera_tigress Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
So do you still have the ability to ninja edit anyone's post, or is that not a thing reddit admins can do anymore?
Because I think that should be a thing that reddit admins literally cannot do.
Edit: by this I mean that admins/engineers/whatever shouldn't be able to edit without it being marked, not that they shouldn't be able to edit at all. I understand that it's not possible for the latter to happen.
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
admins (employees) can't do this in general. It's because I had access to everything as an engineer, which we are limiting going forward.
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Nov 30 '16
Alternatively: can you make a subreddit where every user can edit every other user's post? Then we can all powertrip.
/u/powerlanguage pls
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u/Meepster23 Nov 30 '16 edited Dec 01 '16
They own the damn database. They will always be able to edit posts if they really want to. This is literally a thing you cannot prevent.
Edit: since OP updated the question a little, here's a more full response
Part of the problem here I think is a misunderstanding of what "untraceable" actually means. What spez did wasn't "untraceable" in the sense that there was no way to tell in the DB that it happened. It was only unknown to the end user because he didn't update the comment record to include the edited flag.
A forensic investigation could easily show that spez edited in (or at least someone) a record in the DB as opposed to the end user.
Now, to extend that ability to all site users is the impossible part. What is displayed to the end user is always under the control of Reddit. They choose what to show you and what not to. They could release their logs, but in reality, they could be altered because they aren't about to just turn over a copy of their db and backups.
If all you want is the ability to tell if an admin edited a comment for like, say, a police investigation. That already exists and could be easily turned on (audit logging is an out of the box feature of most databases) to a greater extent if it isn't already.
If you want to display to the user with 100% certainty that the admins have not updated a comment in the database, then you are shit out of luck. Scraping the site externally and cataloging comments could give you an idea, but it doesn't prove who modified a comment, just that a comment got modified and didn't get the edit flag set for whatever reason.
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u/cards_dot_dll Nov 30 '16
That's like asking Jesus to microwave a burrito so hot he can't eat it.
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u/deadlyenmity Nov 30 '16
This is like saying "I dont think the superintendent for the apartment should have a key for the building"
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u/frymaster Nov 30 '16
Because I think that should be a thing that reddit admins literally cannot do
I'm not sure if you are any kind of programmer, so apologies if this comment is just telling you what you already know, but, from what spez is saying, there hasn't ever been a button you can click on reddit-the-website which allows you to edit other people's comments. However, because the engineers look after the database, they can directly alter comments in the back end. That's not something that can realistically be prevented, though you can have procedures about when and what you do with such access, and who has it.
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u/enginears Nov 30 '16
Yeah I've been a daily user of Reddit for 4+ years now and I truly don't care. I like Reddit. You can do whatever you want and I wont stop coming here. So just saying. You probably dont hear this side too often.
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
Thank you. Appreciate the sentiment. At the end of the day, we just want you all to have a pleasant time.
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u/makemeking706 Nov 30 '16
Never underestimate the power of addiction...or a lack of good alternatives.
8+ years checking in.
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u/penultimate_supper Nov 30 '16
Yeah, this is me. I don't think reddit has a particular responsibility to be a bastion of free speech. I think it says something about the character of people like /u/spez who run reddit that they want it to be one, but I don't require that in a service I use that I have no stake in. As long as the government doesn't start censoring reddit I feel that my freespeech rights are intact, and as long as reddit still provides a service I enjoy, I'll keep coming.
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Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
I think the silent voice (the user that dgaf) is the majority of Reddit.
It's only made into a big deal because he's a big guy.
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u/mrbarry1024 Nov 30 '16
Same. Reddit is not a serious website so why should it matter. It's just cat pictures.
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u/78952497829864 Nov 30 '16
Hi spez,
Related to the editing incident and trust, in this article in New York Magazine, it says:
After leaving, Huffman found that he had a hard time letting go. He still had administrative access to the site and continued tinkering with its code. Once that access was cut off, he found a back door for another six months before finally being locked out.
Am I correct that this means you could still do things like edit users' posts, view their private data (including private messages and subreddits), shadowban users, etc. for a long period of time while not even working at reddit any more?
If that is true, it's extremely alarming and raises a lot of questions, including:
Why did you need administrative access after quitting?
What supervision was there of a non-employee with admin access?
Have there been other non-employees with admin access? Are there any right now?
How was it acceptable (or even legal) to use "a back door" to take back privileged access that the company clearly didn't want you to have?
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
Why did you need administrative access after quitting?
When I left, Reddit was six people, and I had the majority of the engineering knowledge, so I continued to help out even after I left.
What supervision was there of a non-employee with admin access?
There were six of us, and we were all close friends. My actions were limited to quick fixes here and there.
Have there been other non-employees with admin access? Are there any right now?
No, that was disabled long ago. A few notable ex-employees have distinguish mode in recognition of their contributions to Reddit.
How was it acceptable (or even legal) to use "a back door" to take back privileged access that the company clearly didn't want you to have?
That's just bad reporting. Someone made a patch to remove my access. I made a patch to add it back. Nothing was done in secret. This was back in 2010. My access was removed sometime in 2010 when Reddit and I had fully separated.
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u/Drunken_Economist Nov 30 '16
A few notable ex-employees have distinguish mode in recognition of their contributions to Reddit
To expand a bit on this, this means they can make their username appear redish and have a cool little
[Δ]icon next to it on posts and comments, if they want (kinda like this comment has). That's all "distinguish mode" means.→ More replies (233)16
u/farkinga Nov 30 '16
I've never created a backdoor into any system I architected. However, as the architect, there's nobody more qualified to compromise the system than the person who designed it. I can't fully imagine a system that I could build that I could not subsequently break into.
Anyway, reddit has become super serious and it wasn't always that way. In a spirit of hacking and pranking (which can be practiced in a socially responsible manner - or not), I can easily see this happening without malice.
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u/d4rch0n Nov 30 '16
Why did you need administrative access after quitting?
Lots of companies don't have great procedures for terminated/quitting employees. They continue as normal, and don't even think to restrict previous access they had. They might not even know they had access to the DB at some point. Could be they forgot to kill his VPN access or access to a server. Could be some global read/write user for the database. Lots of businesses give root to all employees that need any sort of access to a server.
Wouldn't be surprised if it's just negligence in this case. Controlling access is difficult, requires a lot of work, and a lot of maintenance to ensure the right people have the right access all the time. It's easy to mess this up because it's not a problem until someone abuses it, and it's hard to detect that.
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u/867-53oh-nine Nov 30 '16
He designed the system. Of course he knows how to get in.
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Nov 30 '16
/u/spez, most users possessing even a modicum of common sense forgive you for snapping and deciding to troll the trolls. You're only human and reddit's mantra has always been "remember the human".
We're sorry the admins, yourself included, had a miserable thanksgiving.
I have a follow up question: does this new sticky-post behavior only impact /r/The_Donald or its affiliate subs as well?
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
Right now, just them.
In the past, when a community was deliberately wasting our time, we would look for general solutions that wouldn't single out a specific community. Unfortunately, that usually causes civilian casualties (e.g. when we removed all stickies from r/all and broke sports communities).
Going forward, we'll just take away their toys specifically and move on.
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Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
I feel like stickied posts should just be a blanket ban across any subreddits. The donald can just migrate to one of it's other subreddits, or someone else can abuse the feature for their own use. Ban it site wide, don't let anyone manipulate /r/All like that
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u/TheFlashFrame Nov 30 '16
I gotta say man... I'm not a Trump supporter, but I don't agree with the "common sense" thing. This is the internet and the internet never forgets shit like that. /u/spez acknowledged that he fucked up, good. But he, I'm sure, also knows that this will haunt him and the site for eternity. People are always gonna talk about the possibility that a post or comment was edited. As he said, he jeopardised the trustworthiness of the site.
It sucks what happened, for everyone.
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u/tizorres Nov 30 '16
as a r/TIFU mod, thanks for not posting this there :P
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u/awaitsV Nov 30 '16
well it does qualify as a TIFU since it didn't happen today.
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u/Butcher_Of_Hope Nov 30 '16
That would have been hilarious, but I have a feeling this post will garner enough drama on its own.
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Nov 30 '16
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PicturElements Nov 30 '16
Another TIFU mod here. Don't have anything to say, but the thought of TIFU mods brigading this thread is too funny for my simple mind.
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u/Aroelen Nov 30 '16
PS: As a bonus, I have enabled filtering for r/all for all users. You can modify the filters by visiting r/all on the desktop web (I’m old, sorry), but it will affect all platforms, including our native apps on iOS and Android.
I think this should be much more noticeable, to be honest. I'm surprised it doesn't have its own post, that's one of the basic RES features people have asked for since forever to be on the site.
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u/ColinOnReddit Nov 30 '16
I do 99% of my Redditing on baconreader. I've had this function since I started. I haven't seen Bernie Sanders, trump, shit Reddit says, or any sports team pop up in a long time.
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u/PitchforkAssistant Nov 30 '16 edited Dec 01 '16
If anyone here wants to copy their RES filters over to the reddit filtering thing, here's an easy way to do it:
Press F12 and open the console tab.
Copy/paste this into the box at the bottom of the console and press enter:
$(".filtered-details input.sr-name").val($("#optionContainer-filteReddit-subreddits #tbody_subreddits input").map(function(){return $(this).val();}).get().join(" ")).submit();
You're done, it copied your RES filters over into reddit's add filters box and added them.
EDIT: Added direct link to filteReddit settings, fixed formatting and hopefully made the instructions a bit clearer
EDIT 2: If you are using regex in your subreddit filters or you have more than 100 filters, this might work:
$(".filtered-details input.sr-name").val($("#optionContainer-filteReddit-subreddits #tbody_subreddits input").map(function(index) {
if (!$(this).val().includes("/") && index < 100) {
return $(this).val();
}
}).get().join(" ")).submit();It won't try to add more than 100 (reddit's filter cap) and should ignore any filter containing regex.
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u/youtes Nov 30 '16
Any way to remove the (filtered) part from the tab title for all?
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u/Two-Tone- Nov 30 '16
I'm getting a
PUT https://www.reddit.com/api/filter/user/Two-Tone-/f/all/ 409 (Conflict)error.
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u/jexio Nov 30 '16
Can you keep track of how many people filter subs? I would love to see the amount of people filtering subs out of r/all
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Dec 01 '16
I'd love this. Even in this post there are donald users claiming "we refuse to see we are the minority."
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u/ItsBOOM Nov 30 '16
It was not meant to circumvent organic voting, which r/the_donald does to slingshot posts into /r/all
Is this really how so many posts got to the top of /r/all? It seems crazy because now that they have no stickies there is nothing in the first 2 pages from the_donald, even though the posts there have so many points. Was something else put in place to stop them from reaching /r/all as much?
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u/Retanaru Nov 30 '16
It is just that they had stickied every single popular post in the sub before so they all got removed. Gotta give it like 14 hours before their new posts can get past the slow algorithm.
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u/nosecohn Nov 30 '16
Thank you for this. May I suggest you bring on an ombudsman?
Large organizations that count on the public trust have long considered an ombudsman to be a good approach to enforcing transparency and balance. Reddit has become an international news and opinion platform used by a wide range of people, so it seems like a good time to consider bringing on this kind of oversight.
The mod team of /r/NeutralPolitics (shameless plug) frequently has to deal with situations where a disagreement between users with diametrically opposed views goes off the rails and crosses the line from a political discussion to a personal argument. We're intimately familiar with the need to include a variety of views in decision-making, to state our policies openly, and provide transparency in the way we implement them.
But doing so requires being dedicated to those principles first and foremost, and for an organization with the size and dynamism of reddit, the best way to do that would be with an independent oversight person or team. I hope you'll consider it.
Cheers and thank you again.
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u/ragu_baba Nov 30 '16
You can now filter /r/all
WE'VE COME FULL CIRCLE
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u/ellimist Nov 30 '16
Well it's opt-out now, which is better than opt-in, in my opinion. More exposure to new things.
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u/drschlock Nov 30 '16
Implementing the filter for /r/all is a reasonable solution.
If moderators want to ban anyone who dissents with their community, fine. As a user, I should have the same ability to ban your posts from my view.
If I'm not allowed to post my opinion on your community, then don't force me to see yours on /r/all.
Of course the downside is the further creation of echo-chambers and disconnected communities. Sometimes two-way or zero-way roads are better than one-way roads.
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u/blindcolumn Nov 30 '16
Is there any way to temporarily disable filters, other than logging out or opening a private window? Sometimes I like to see what /r/all looks like without my filters in place.
Edit: I figured out a hacky way to do it. Just go to /r/all-null.
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u/IPostStupidThings Nov 30 '16
you can also use that trick to manually filter subreddits
e.g.
/r/all-announcements filters out announcements
/r/all-announcements-funny filters out announcements and funny
/r/all-announcements-funny-pics filters out announcements, funny, and pics
etc
it just works because there's nothing on /r/null
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u/holyhotclits Dec 01 '16
Hellllll yes. They ruined Reddit for everyone but their own community and if this is what it took to get Reddit back, I'm happy about it. Thanks, chief.
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u/TK_FourTwoOne Nov 30 '16
The United States is more divided than ever
You people realize there was a period in our history when the United States was literally divided, right?
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u/pro_omnibus Nov 30 '16
So a) this is fucking hilarious.
And b) I had managed to avoid clicking on anything linked to /r/The_Donald for the last 6 months. Clicking on /u/spez's apology actually got me to visit that subreddit. Skimming it for 30 seconds has made me feel really sad.
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u/Slacker5001 Dec 01 '16
I didn't even know /r/The_Donald was a thing as I stick mainly to my own front page and a few subreddits I like. Went there to see if it was really as bad as people were making it out to be and... yeah it didn't seem like the greatest community.
Obviously they are upset right now so that plays into it, but still. It rubbed me the wrong way. And not even in a "I'm definitely a crazy liberal" sense.
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Dec 01 '16 edited Dec 01 '16
I skimmed over the sub today, it's worse now than it was during the election. Now there are no discussions about politics at all, just posts about drinking liberal tears and worshipping "god emperor trump", which they're calling him now. /u/spez's post has whipped them into a frenzy today, that's for sure.
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u/brooklynkurtz99 Dec 01 '16
Holy shit thanks spez now I can finally filter r/politics out of r/all.
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Dec 01 '16
I am sorry to those that I created work and stress for, particularly over the holidays
hmmmmmm, CEO does something loudly decried by an annoying minority and causes other people to clean it up over a 4 day weekend
scott adams? are you listening? i think you've got a week's worth of dilbert strips out of this.
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u/omgitsfletch Dec 01 '16
I don't find it unreasonable that a large majority of Redditors don't want to see T_D on the front page, or at least not with the staggering frequency that it occurs with right now. And at least not when their own subreddit rules go against the entire spirit of Reddit as a whole. You aren't supposed to downvote someone just because you disagree with them, but disagree in their sub, and not only are you mass downvoted, you are BANNED, permanently.
When people collectively decide they don't want to see posts on the main page from a community that doesn't allow dissenting opinions, that doesn't make the tards in T_D victims, it makes them assholes; mad that nobody wants to encourage their childish behavior any longer.
We need a site wide Reddit rule, ASAP. From the following:
A community that is private, whether so strict in the fact they literally only allow members they approve (like some subs already) or whether more loosely in the fact that they only allow a single type of opinion, under threat of ban (as /r/the_donald operates currently).
A community, that based on the number of subscribers it has, the amount of activity, and the sheer number of upvotes as compared to downvotes on a post, has a tendency to reach the "megaphone" of the frontpage & /r/all frequently.
PICK ONE.
Nobody is saying you can't have your private community, cordoned off from the masses. But what we (at least I, and I'm sure quite a lot of other Redditors) are saying is if you want said private community, you don't get to blast your posts and opinions to the front page all the time. It needs to be severely curtailed at a minimum, if not completely eliminated. If you want to have the global reach of the front page, you adopt the policy of fostering differing opinions. If you want to be an echo chamber, your echo chamber doesn't get a megaphone to blast everyone else.
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u/yentity Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
While I would really appreciate the ability to filter out /r/The_Donald out, It also enables users to further extend their echo chambers. This is part of the reason we are seeing such divisiveness on the web and I have a feeling that this tool will be used to filter out everything people don't agree with even if it is based on truth.
EDIT: Another cool feature about reddit has been the top comments always provide context to / debunk misleading posts. If there was a way to filter this out easily, there is a potential for further explosion of uncontested misleading and false claims.
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u/gillyboatbruff Nov 30 '16
Anybody who disagrees with them gets banned anyway. They are already a complete echo chamber.
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Nov 30 '16
I agree, but /r/t_d isn't a forum for discussion, it's a circlejerk of name-calling and shitposts that I am just so damn tired of seeing everyday. I'd rather see /r/politics become more bipartisan so good discussion could happen there.
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u/countfizix Nov 30 '16
The debunking of misleading claims only works when the subreddit is not moderated through constant deletion of dissent.
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u/Endulos Nov 30 '16
PS: As a bonus, I have enabled filtering for r/all for all users.
Holy fucking shit finally.
I can finally filter out the stupid fucking porn subs, and the political subs.
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u/CLEARLYREBEL Nov 30 '16
Does the new sticky post rule only effect the_donald? Or does it apply to all sub-reddits?
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u/Musicmans Nov 30 '16
The butthurt on The_Donald will be swift and now largely unseen. This is fine with me.
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u/subbookkeepper Dec 05 '16
So from what I can surmise your not against bigotry and trolling, you just want to be the one doing it.
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u/Lynx_Rufus Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
This is astoundingly reasonable and level-headed.
Personally, I feel that /r/The_Donald is collectively guilty of the stuff that's gotten entire subs banned in the past, but it continues to be coddled with special treatment. That being said, I'm glad the admins are at least doing something about the issue.
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Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
it continues to be coddled with special treatment.
Gotta keep those little alt-right sjws from being triggered. I swear these people are worse than tumblr. Good riddance.
edit: Look at the replies for a perfect example of a herd of these bitches freaking out over a two line comment. lol.
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u/beernerd Nov 30 '16
I don't disagree, but I can't say I blame the admins for wanting to handle something so toxic with very thick gloves.
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u/tuptain Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
I think The Donald would be a fine subreddit if dissent was allowed. The thing about Reddit is that the title is almost always bullshit and you go to the comments to figure out why. That isn't possible in The Donald sub, you either join the circlejerk or you're removed. Other subs have their biases too and you'll be downvoted but strict banning for disagreement doesn't happen anywhere else on Reddit afaik, definitely not a sub that is as frequently front paged as The Donald.
If you want to fix the issue, start off by removing their ability to ban anyone and everyone so actual discussions can take place.
EDIT: Honestly this shouldn't be just focused on The Donald, I think Reddit should rethink allowing mods to ban people from their subs at all. There will still need to be a ban function in place but it should probably be at the admin level, not the mod level.
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u/dampierp Nov 30 '16
I've actually been wondering this recently. If nobody filtered out T_D and nobody was banned for posting dissenting opinions, what would that place look like? I'm legitimately curious because there is absolutely no way every single Trump supporter agrees with every single thing he has done.
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u/splattypus Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
If it makes you feel any better, I never had much trust in Reddit. Reddit is an aggregator of content and communities at best, generic social media in application, and host to some awful people and substance at worst.
It was stupid and naive to think that you owed anyone unmitigated free speech or a platform for any ideas at any point on the spectrum. Reddit is a private company with many interests or obligations, entirely entitled to act towards its users as it sees fit and necessary.
I think it was dumb of you to do what you did, but I also think it was hilarious and in all likelihood would have behaved the same way given the same tools and opportunity. The difference is you get paid a lot of money to not do that, and I don't. But ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I definitely appreciate a hardline stance against disruptive users and communities. I've advocated it for a while. Now obviously you can't cave to every instance of social pressure, or nothing stops people from organizing a bullying campaign to push out contradictory opinions or viewpoints, but when you have hard evidence of communities* or users being disrupting the functionality of the site (not just hearsay or rumors), you're entirely entitled to act as you see fit.
If we, as the consumer and user don't appreciate it, we can deal with it or take a hike. It would suck, but you can't please all the people all the time.
I appreciate the ability for us to filter subs* from all (been doing it with one extension or another for a while), as well as for subs to opt out of /r/all. I would even support the ability for admins to revoke a subs status to appear on /r/all based on behavior (or content, in extenuating circumstances) further than is apparent now.
Anyways, cheers /u/spez and admin team.
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u/crappycap Nov 30 '16
Good sentiment/attitude, agreed completely. I knew from reading right away that you're an old user that has been around and a quick check confirmed that.
Not trying to bag on the younger/newer users, but sometimes people take reddit too gdamn seriously.
While its a massive site with real influences - there's a real echo chamber at select communities and people too easily react disproportionately. (Take r/The_Donald and r/politics as an example). It's not that the United States Presidential election have no real consequences, but whenever you read into a selective community - it can seem like the world is freaking ending.
President Bush gets re-elected. The select communities scream in agony.
President Obama gets re-elected. The select communities scream in disbelief.
President-elect Trump gets elected. The world is ending, apparently.
But no. At the end of the day the real world awaits.
I still have to freaking take my daughter to school. My Steam backlog is still as long as ever.
Those of us in the Western world and in the middle+ class are extremely fortunate. If you have time to shitpost on reddit, there's a good chance your life isn't so bad after all.
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u/ThatAstronautGuy Nov 30 '16
Thank you for adding in the filtering feature natively! That is a great feature addition !
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Dec 01 '16
Fairly new to reddit....But if people feel harassed or antagonized why don't they just report/block/ignore/literally just stop reading stuff they find offensive? People are equally as toxic as they are cry babies. I have full faith in the reddit report and blocking system that I know if there is an issue I can handle it on my end and move on with my life. If you dont like the way a community behaves dont sub to it. I dont like r/the_donald so my adult response would be just plain not going to that sub and or ignoring things coming from it. Its literally that easy and reddit makes it that easy. Maybe there is much more to it than that but y'all certainly didnt ruin my Thanksgiving and I will continue to use reddit daily.
Thanks Reddit!
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u/Indenturedsavant Nov 30 '16
It's interesting to see the difference in the dialogue here vs that in /r/the_donald where they are ban happy against dissenters. Anyways, /u/spez is anything being done to combat the vote manipulation occurring in /r/the_donald such as the scripts
And using css to remove the downvote button. I have no doubt that they think they are victims and that this justifies their actions but how does this not go against the site rules? Also /r/the_donald is the most visible offenders here but this is likely happening to a lesser extent with other subs as well.
Thanks for the apology but I agree that it is fun to troll the trollers especially in a case like this where they can't handle what they try to dish out. Hopefully one day they will see the irony in their completes about overreacting SJWs and safe spaces.
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u/philipwhiuk Nov 30 '16
And using css to remove the downvote button. I have no doubt that they think they are victims and that this justifies their actions but how does this not go against the site rules?
Lots of subreddits do this.
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u/Jess_than_three Nov 30 '16
Hi /u/spez,
Moving into the future, what criteria will be used to determine whether a subreddit is toxic enough to be quarantined or banned? What level of evidence will be expected from users making such a case?
Leaving aside "troublesome users", what kind of consequences can be expected for subreddits whose users are demonstrably engaged in botting in order to hit the top of /r/all? At the very least, might it be reasonable to manually exclude submissions from such communities from feeds like /r/all?
Finally, on an unrelated note...
At one time, a policy was introduced which stated that no sexualized photos of people would be allowed on reddit without subjects' consent. On paper, this sounded like a great way to get rid of the remaining "creepshots" subreddits, as well as who knows how much revenge porn, etc. (Which is a good thing, right? Surely it's non-controversial that nobody should have their their nude photos shared online to an audience of millions of strangers - and potentially non-strangers: friends, family members, coworkers, classmates, hiring managers...? - without their consent and typically without even their knowledge.) But in practice the site remains a venue for any amount of that stuff, including things where the lack of consent is pretty obvious (as well as at least a few still present "creepshots"-style subreddits). It ultimately ended up, given that it was announced in the wake of /r/creepshots being shut down, appearing to be nothing more than a shield for the admins to hide behind any time a woman found out that she was both unlucky enough to have her photos spread around and lucky enough to A) find out at all and B) be enough of a celebrity to put pressure on the website. Is there any plan to actually enforce this policy in a meaningful way, or does it just exist to protect those who can afford expensive attorneys?
Thanks!
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u/tastyratz Nov 30 '16
Honestly, I am going to say that my basic interpretation if your post is "sorry, not sorry" or "sorry I got caught".
I heard the news as news and on /r/sysadmin talking about executive access but didn't see what was done.
I don't know if they deserved it, I've never really read /r/the_donald or seen it in my daily experience until now, and I don't know much about what it's about.
I moderate on some small forums (MUCH smaller than this) and have for years. Editing troll comments and trying to out troll the trolls in their own posts for a site with the stature of Reddit? You're blaming a subreddit for your behavior with the equivalent of "but they started it".
I'm glad to see steps taken to prevent this in the future but Reddit needs to remember to walk the line between community standards and speech censorship, especially when shaped around political agenda. Seeing this influence from ANY side at the management level is not a good thing for the core user base. For that, you should be GENUINELY sorry... not just for the fallout.
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u/Holdin_McGroin Nov 30 '16
This, i get the impression that he's only annoyed he got caught.
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u/got_milk4 Nov 30 '16
I will never risk your trust like this again, and we are updating our internal controls to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.
Can you elaborate on said internal controls? Will the result of these changes forbid you from having the ability to silently edit comments?
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u/MisterWoodhouse Nov 30 '16
It's because I had access to everything as an engineer, which we are limiting going forward.
That was his answer from another comment chain.
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u/invaderzz Nov 30 '16
Does this mean we can finally filter the hundreds of NSFW subreddits off of r/all permanently? Really nice feature!
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u/zaikanekochan Nov 30 '16 edited Nov 30 '16
Is it possible to filter out all NSFW subs? Don't get me wrong, skin flicks are proof that God exists and wants us to be happy, but there is just SO. MUCH. PORN. It's hard to bring someone onto the site only to have half of their page to be filled with distention and cumsluts.
Edit: filter from r/all, that is.
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u/Lunaristics Nov 30 '16 edited Dec 01 '16
The_Donald was driving me up the wall. I had to hide every thread. Thank god it won't appear on /all/ any more.
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Dec 01 '16
Just ban r/The_Donald and get it over with. They'll rant and rave and then go over to Voat. No loss.
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Dec 01 '16
I have a simple request. Show us how many people opted out of seeing r/the_donald after a week. I bet the number is YUGE
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u/Dante_The_OG_Demon Dec 01 '16
Their entire sub is cancerous and toxic. Nobody in their right mind would care if it was banned.
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Nov 30 '16
r/The_Donald is the best thing that's ever happened to reddit. Because a simple filter for r/all has been needed all along. Now I can finally filter out all the bullshit toxicity from all the political subs without addons or apps to make it happen.
Thanks r/The_Donald!
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u/2112xanadu Nov 30 '16
While I understand the expediency of doing so, singling out communities based on their politics and not applying rules evenly across the board is the type of thing that will quickly lead to a schism. I don't expect T_D and those of a similar bent will stick around in the same numbers after this unilateral harrassment--sounds great, right? Maybe, but some of us come to reddit to see a broad spectrum of ideas, and if a split does occur then that diversity is forever lost. Democratic, community-based moderation was the "big idea" that made Reddit what it is, and tinkering with that in such a dramatic way could prove to be the beginning of the end. Hope I'm wrong.
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u/nineteen_eightyfour Nov 30 '16
I would love to get some hard data on how many people immediately went and unsubbed from T_D on all. I know I did.
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u/Thatchers-Gold Nov 30 '16
THANK YOU for the filter option! Filtering all the porn and the_donald from All was such a pain in the ass, even with shitty RES
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u/Shazbanger Dec 01 '16
Well thank fuck for that, I dont care if you cunts wanna circlejerk over your mate Trump, just give me the option to nope the fuck out of it completely. Cheers mate.
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u/NinjaHDD Dec 01 '16
Watch, you'll have to deport /r/The_Donald at some point, they are hardheaded and there is no chance in hell they will follow the rules.
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u/kindofboredd Dec 01 '16
holy crap...it felt like a cult or something when i went to the donald page
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u/fkofron Dec 01 '16
Finally a filter for the iOS apps, spez you are my favorite person right now. Thanks for the explanation and the great help
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u/critically_damped Dec 01 '16
If you had done this two months ago, we probably wouldn't have a fascist as president of the US.
Fuck you for waiting so long, /u/spez.
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u/atrich Dec 01 '16
I'm getting here late, but maybe someone will see this anyhow.
There were a lot of legitimate concerns people raised about the ability of site owners to edit comment content, especially when postings can be cited as evidence, quoted as the person, there are such things as verified celebrity accounts, etc. It's actually a lot of power for anyone, from /u/spez on down to database engineers, to have.
Have you considered any form of cryptographically verifiable posts, such that edits made by people other than the user - even those with total control over the database - would be obviously forged? Some combination of hashing and public/private key cryptography? (I'm no security expert, I just know there are cryptographic schemes that can be used to verify the integrity and provenance of messages.)
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u/TriggeringSJWs Dec 01 '16
I honestly thought I might find some common ground with that community by meeting them on their level.
So had the community got a good chuckle about it, then these new filters and algorithms wouldn't be in place? You make no fucking sense. You got caught and issued some BS apologies and then implemented more censorship. You're a joke.
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u/Archer_90 Dec 01 '16
They can dish it but can't take it. The irony of all of this. They tell liberals they need a "safe place" and bash them for political correctness. The moment you troll them. They immediately bitch and moan. Sounds like they need a safe place.
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Dec 01 '16
So you're sorry for editing posts on the_donald, and as an apology you're censoring the_donald.
Solid logic there.
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Dec 02 '16
Please answer me this /u/spez and not let it get buried in the comments. I need to know, while I realize that /r/The_Donald is a shithole and is very hateful, are they actually breaking any rules?
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u/PoodlePirate Nov 30 '16
Hi Mr. Admin. Thank you for giving us this filter so I block all the political spam.
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u/meepsmops Nov 30 '16
I'd love to see actual discussion in T_D. Instead, the mods ban anyone who gives off a whiff of dissent. Can that sub's "rules" be altered so that actual dialogue is encouraged (i.e., not permabanning people who challenge their "safe space)? I think that would help mute the trolls -- if regular people were able to comment without fear of being nuked.
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u/Krytan Nov 30 '16
Why can't you have these discussions in r/worldnews or r/news or r/politics?
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Nov 30 '16
Filtering /all is early xmas, goodbye the_donald I hope he does a good job!
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
I used emacs for about 15 years before switching to 2 years ago. I still use vim. No good reason why. I love them both.
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u/Werner__Herzog Nov 30 '16
More than anything, I want emacs users to heal, and I want vim users to heal, and although many of you have asked us to burn emacs users with fire, it is with this spirit of healing that I have resisted doing so.
- u/spez
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u/RolandWind Nov 30 '16
On the flipside, I've been using vim for 15 years, mostly because I can't figure out how to exit.
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u/PM_ME_OLD_PM2_5_DATA Nov 30 '16
This is actually the most interesting thing I've seen on reddit today. Most people that I know a) stick with the first text editor they learned, and b) have strong feelings about why their choice is the best. Never known somebody who switched and was okay with both.
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u/Drunken_Economist Nov 30 '16
Either way, get one of those dorky foot pedals for your meta and escape keys. It's +2 hacking
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u/Fagsquamntch Nov 30 '16
lol wtf does being a CEO have to do with it it's a personal choice that lets everyone know if you're intelligent or an emacs user
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u/spez Nov 30 '16
Because most communities use it for good. For example, sports communities for game threads and TV communities for episodes.
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u/holyteach Nov 30 '16
if we do not see the situation improve, we will continue to take privileges from communities whose users continually cross the line
I think he's saying that other subs will face that as well if they exploit it.
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u/Last_Jedi Nov 30 '16
Why not all subreddits? If this behaviour is toxic why not block it completely? Other subs could exploit it.
Realistically there is no other sub that is consistently stickying posts to get users to vote them to /r/all. /r/the_donald is the only sub using it in a toxic manner, which they have done every day for months now, so now, to quote /u/yishan:
We tried to let you govern yourselves and you failed, so now The Man is going to set some Rules. Admittedly, I can't say I'm terribly upset.
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u/reseph Nov 30 '16
Is this going to last forever? plz spez