r/reddit.com • u/angrymonkey • Jan 16 '11
Feature suggestion: "Repost" flag
It seems like reposts are getting pretty rampant here. Now, clearly lots of people haven't seen the originals, because the reposts get lots of upvotes. That's fine, but I'd love to have a way to optionally hide content that has already been posted, and-- ideally-- which I have personally already clicked and/or voted on.
I'd like to see it like this: "Flag as repost" is a link underneath each submission, along with "share/save/hide/report". When you click it, a new dialog comes up, where you enter the URL of the original reddit post. If someone's already done this, then you'll see the original reddit URL already there, which you can add an (up/down?) vote to, or suggest a different original link.
With this information, reddit could see when I've already viewed/voted on the original content, and hide the repost automatically. PLUS, this new metadata would be interesting in itself, and could help reddit.com improve its "buoyancy" algorithms.
And in the spirit of this idea, here's a post where someone else proposes something similar. This author's idea is different, though, because he seems to propose revoking karma, which I think would be very counterproductive.
What do you think, reddit? Could collecting this metadata improve the reddit experience?
EDIT: People seem to think I am proposing that reposts be hidden from everyone. This is not the core of my idea. It should be possible to hide posts for each individual user, based on what they have already seen.
EDIT: I have drafted an official proposal for review
2
u/Omnitographer Jan 16 '11
You're welcome :)
Seriously though, the reason what you want can't exist, is because reddit is A) constantly growing, and B) not all of us can spend every waking moment of our lives on reddit; due to these factors, not ever post is a repost to every person.
3
u/angrymonkey Jan 16 '11 edited Jan 16 '11
http://i.imgur.com/rarzL.jpg [image of hide button]
It's not always obvious that something is a repost until I've clicked on it. It would be nice to be spared from seeing the same stuff over and over again; I get tired of it, and it makes reddit somewhat less rewarding. 2) The hide button, when used for this purpose, requires constant manual intervention and maintenance. I just want all the recycled content out of my way from the beginning.
not every post is a repost to every person.
Exactly. That's why I'm proposing a system that could hide just the stuff I've already seen, from me only (if I choose to keep the hiding feature turned on). Someone else would see all those reposts as fresh. (And those people might prefer to follow the repost link back to the original poster to give them some upvote credit).
2
u/Omnitographer Jan 16 '11
So your saying that the system would have to know about every repost ever made and track that in perpetuity, along with tracking every link every person has ever seen? I'm sure that won't increase the server load :p
0
u/angrymonkey Jan 16 '11
every repost ever made
Easy to find this information; users will provide it. The storage required for this would be a pointer (64 bits) to another existing post in the database. A trivial amount of data.
tracking every link every person has ever seen
Clicked on. Reddit may do this already; I don't know for sure. If they don't, and started storing this information, there would be a lot of new data which could reveal interesting things about user behavior, which could again improve their algorithms. This is also not that much extra info-- if every user up or downvoted everything they click on (as I'm sure some do), then you'd have the same amount of data to store. I don't think it would require that much extra overhead to log clicks.
If this is unfeasible, then simply counting an up/downvoted story as viewed would be good enough. And it would encourage people to vote more.
0
u/Omnitographer Jan 16 '11
I don't think anyone wants reddit keeping a complete history of all their activities.
2
u/angrymonkey Jan 16 '11
I don't see how it's any worse from all the other information we provide reddit. And it wouldn't be visible to other users. And you shouldn't assume that information isn't being collected already.
Also, do you use Google while signed in? Just askin'.
But yes, if people are spooked by it, it's a problem, whether it's rational to be spooked or not.
2
u/robeph Jan 16 '11
if people are spooked by any sort of "browsing history" on a site that is set up as this one, they should stop using it. That's irrational and retarded. now if they wanted my phone number and home address, I'd have issue with it.
5
u/Serei Jan 16 '11
...Reddit already keeps a complete history of all your upvotes and downvotes. If it didn't, you would be able to upvote/downvote things more than once, which would be bad.
1
u/robeph Jan 16 '11
If you add something like you're suggesting it will be abused and things will be "reposts" even if they're the original. If it relies on the URL being the same as the other submission (which means it can only be posted in a differing subreddit) then your complaint is invalid anyhow, if not, the abuse will come before its usefulness.
We have the "other discussions" tab at the top of the page which leads to the comment sections of the other subreddit's posts of the same URL.
Don't assume people will correctly use something they have free choice of doing so with if it lends to abuse. Look at the up/down mod system here that we have. I can safely say less than 1% of reddit uses them as reddit's founders had hoped (as per reddiquette), most downvotes are either seemingly random with no basis or due to hive-disagreement with whatever you type, vary few are related to relevance and discussion. Sorry, but I vote absolutely NO for your suggestion here.
also, reposts aren't becoming "a problem" they've ALWAYS existed, in the 3 or 4 years I've been coming to reddit it has always been that way.
-2
u/TrollyG-Yo Jan 16 '11
Oh no, you lost 5-10 seconds waiting for a link to open and reading/viewing the contents?
1
1
u/Buckwheat469 Jan 16 '11
The hide button is the "hide porn" button for me. Although the Reddit admins have ignored my comments about preventing Google from indexing the hide pages (or have they? The links don't show in Google but the page is still public). A hidden page should not be public, but a saved post should be able to be viewed by others.
http://www.reddit.com/r/bugs/comments/e3j99/hidden_links_should_not_be_visible_to_the_world/
1
u/robeph Jan 16 '11
So they'd think unkindly of you for hiding links with no basis as to why you've hidden a link. This makes no sense. I think you'd be more concerned your votes were public rather than the crap you hid. Just turn the option off if you don't like it. People are so paranoid it is approaching full on retard.
7
u/Itkovan Jan 16 '11
Seems like a great idea. Doesn't violate reddiquette in that reposts are still perfectly valid, but let's those of us who have seen "Family planning: use rear entrance" and it's ilk for the thirtieth time.
I would go a bit further to keep reddit's interface simple and minimize server load increase: make "Flag as repost" visibility an option under Preferences. That way only those who give two shits about it increase server load and deal with it in general. I'd love it, and do think it would improve the reddit experience.
Don't forget to submit it to r/suggestions!
2
u/robeph Jan 16 '11
Better idea, browse the "NEW" tab like a lot of us and downvote the stuff you've seen 100 times early before it makes it to the front page.
Remember every upvote for something duplicate, means someone likely hadn't seen it and enjoyed it; you're just one of the many, the many choose.
1
Jan 16 '11
The reposting problems stems more from the same content being submitted rather than the same URL. For instance, an AP story that is published on 100 different news sites. The worst is whenever Sara Palin opens her mouth. When she does, you know that links to 1000 different blog posts about it will be submitted. I think the ratio is on the order of 20 submissions for every word she utters.
3
u/angrymonkey Jan 16 '11 edited Jan 16 '11
Exactly. That's why the system asks users to point out when sara-palin-reddit-post A is really just a copy of sara-palin-reddit-post B. You click on A's "repost" button, and enter the url for post B. Get it?
1
u/robeph Jan 16 '11
I get that post b would be a link to mylazysunday 99% of the time. If you think that this wouldn't be heavily trolled, you're greatly mistaken. Keep it simple.
2
u/Maybe_not Jan 16 '11
I think he means, the url for the REDDIT thread. A simple filter makes it so that you can only submit reddit threads, and not your trolling links which leads to other websites.
1
2
2
2
u/electricsheepdog Jan 16 '11
You can select "don't show links after i've liked/disliked them" in the reddit preferences.
You can uncheck "show me links I've recently viewed"
Since the rising / falling rate of content on reddit tends to happen at a higher frequency than most productive people would want to check the site, there will always be content that you miss. If people didn't repost some stuff, many would never see it.
1
Jan 16 '11
There's another feature I'd really love to see on reddit: the fact-check box. I'm not sure how I'd want it to work exactly, but I think it would be great if there was a box debunking a certain submission right under the title. Perhaps a nominated comment would be moved to the box and (because everybody loves karma so much) all the upvotes the thread gets would then instead go to the comment creator. References would be a must!
1
u/robeph Jan 16 '11
This would be very subreddit specific, I mean why build something into the system that is irrelevant to most subreddits?
1
u/gronkkk Jan 16 '11
Good idea! Let me repost this with a more sensationalist title, because I have to do that!
1
u/Yargyarg Jan 16 '11 edited Jan 16 '11
Here's an idea, if you think this is such a great idea and your life is sooooo impacted by reposts, and also seeing as reddit publishes their code and allows for those who choose to do so to aid in its development, why don't you write the necessary code to do this and submit that instead of asking Reddit, a webpage that you don't pay for, to cater to your every whim at their expense?
I'll even help you out by pointing you here: http://code.reddit.com/
1
u/Psychopauser Jan 16 '11
Aren't post complaining about repost actually a repost?
Someone should do a philosoraptor :P
1
u/ironfroggy_ Jan 16 '11
What you forget is that being a "repost" is not an absolute flag for any post, but something relative to each viewer. What is a repost to you is new to someone else, and what is a repost to me might be new to you. A feature like this is simply not possible to actually work in any reliable manner.
2
u/Maybe_not Jan 16 '11
A simple tag that says it's a repost, just like theres tags that says it's NSFW. I think the OP means, that it won't get hidden for anyone, but you can choose to go the original post.
I think this is a really good idea, because then you can go back to the original post, and read the comments there if theres anything interesting regarding a subject.
1
1
u/arsewhisperer Jan 16 '11
I'm not good at the irony game, but is it ironic that this has been suggested many times?
1
u/gan12ohman Jan 17 '11
I suggested this a long time ago but it didn't actually get that much attention from the community. I hope yours goes through. Good luck!
-1
u/CakeEater Jan 16 '11
Is it really that much of a hassel for you to come across a repost?
"Oh damn...I just saw something that I saw before...oh well...time to move on!"
5
u/gronkkk Jan 16 '11
I fucking hate it when I see a reddit filled with the same topic, four times. Sometimes you have it for different subjects too, so instead of 10 headlines you really see only three different subjects.
1
u/robeph Jan 16 '11
Yeah, welcome to direct feed social media since it existed. Something big pops off chances are EVERYONE is going to be talking about it and submitting it. Watch twitter feeds, they're not much different than reddit. If you get about 1 million twitter feeds running, on a normal day, its a bunch of random stuff. Something in the world happens that everyone discusses suddenly its almost completely about that.
TL;DR. That's how people work, reddit is people.
-1
u/timeshifter_ Jan 16 '11
Idea suggestion: no. Just because you have seen something before, doesn't mean I have. If you have seen it before, laugh again and move on with life. It's not that big of a problem.
1
0
u/hans1193 Jan 16 '11
Everything on this site is a repost of a repost of a repost, you're suggesting allocating an awful lot of screen real-estate to a tag that basically every post is going to have.
0
u/MemeWatcher Jan 16 '11
People would be able to work around this if they wanted to.
Links to reposted content could be obscured by using another host or, for example, resubmitting to imgur and getting a different URL.
Content itself (e.g. a picture) can be made 'different' in the eyes of a automated hashing algorithm by slightly changing the file (e.g. cropping the pic, adding noise, changing file format)
I suppose user-submitted metadata could work, but then you have to trust the users to get it right and use it sensibly (33 votes say this is a repost, 66 supporters of the submitter say otherwise... uh oh!), and besides, resubmitted content is okay according to the Reddiquette.
Personally, though I have no problem with reposts (as long as it doesn't happen too much) I quite like your idea, I'm just trying to give constructive feedback.
0
u/ironfroggy_ Jan 16 '11
You know, complaining about reposts are pretty much the most annoying of all reposts. I've heard it before, can i hear a new complaint now?
20
u/apullin Jan 16 '11
You are probably going to get kicked off reddit for suggesting this. I'm on your side, sure, but it's really contrary to the central ethos here.
Shit, that reminds me I should repost that video of the baby having his cochlear implant turned on for the first time ...