Changes to Reddit Privacy settings detested by userbase, 27% upvoted

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[–]enefi 11 insightful - 5 fun11 insightful - 4 fun12 insightful - 5 fun -  (4 children)

I love how most upvoted comment is negative, from a guy who plans on implementing an addon to reverse reddit's bs and also he got banned from the sub :D

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 6 fun10 insightful - 5 fun11 insightful - 6 fun -  (3 children)

hhhahaa getting banned from /r/changelog is the ultimate

[–]SaidOverRed 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Honestly, I kinda wonder if they ban people basically randomly. Like, maybe the rules are just there for show to give cover to someone who says something they disagree with.

Like a super-downvote button, but again, completely independent of rules.

[–]Galthran 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

They definitively ban subs that don't break the rules.

[–]SaidOverRed 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah that part's known. But I have an additional suspicion. I think global admins watch subs they don't like and ban good users who are obeying all the rules. (this doesn't apply to 'normal' subs that the reddit admins like)

Why? Because then those well-behaved users get mad and the original sub and sow anger at it. I've been running some rather ... odd tests on Reddit and it's the only explanation I have as to why various subs of my randomly ban me even when I'm feeding their echo chamber and not causing trouble.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

And all that data they're collecting is going straight to Beijing.

[–]Airbus320 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

😡

[–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (7 children)

Hey /u/d3rr,

I have some SaidIt admin questions for you.

On SaidIt defense:

1) Is it possible for an account to be banned and restored, perhaps placed in a temporary hold? (ie. restore /u/diogenesjunior or temp ban asstrolls until M7 can assess them)

2) Does it seem rational that /u/magnora7 find someone who is on the morning schedule of UK/Europe to be the first line of defense against these asstrolls that post at 5-7am EST IIRC according to /u/Enza IIRC - or is this a bad idea?

On dreaming of next-gen forums:

3) Do you know a lot about database management, wikis, database arrays with potentially billions of fields (ie. votes &or metatags), etc?

4) What are your favourite coding languages, what's used in SaidIt, and should any languages be avoided?

5) Regardless of your faves and this platform, what would you suspect to be the best coding languages of now and/or the future? (I may research on gits sooner or later.)

On both:

6) Would it be possible to create a friend network within SaidIt? I have a list of friends, some might even be asstrolls by accident, but it shouldn't be many. This group earns a certain status. If you, M7, Jesus, Tom, Enza, etc all have their friends and "credit" them a pattern would emerge of non-asstrolls. If the asstrolls friend their own asstrolls sockpuppets they can better be discovered. If users have no friends and/or are not friended they have a limbo status.

7) Just as there's a /s/Friends, perhaps better than block would be /s/Asstrolls (or a better word)?

8) ALL of this categorization would be infinitely simpler if there were metatags, some with special attributes (ie. insightful, fun, friend, asstroll, spam, politics, DecentralizeAllThings, parent of, child of, etc.) - for potentially everything. (I'm imagining a forum built on feeds, wikis, and MetaVote™ metatags with attributes.) Is this still a question if I add a question mark at the end?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

Hello hello.

1) yep sure, admins can ban and unban. sub moderators can ban from their subs for X hours too

2) I can't speak for him, but he would probably enjoy having some more help around here

3) I know a fair amount about DBs, but at a high enough volume, it's "big data" and a whole different skill set. There's a known solution for every data problem.

4) I like PHP because it built the web and they aren't bitches and it looks pretty clean. It doesn't really matter though. Just avoid new languages which do not have robust ecosystems around them. No one wants to build something with conservative boring tech, but there are numerous reasons why this is the right move.

5) python, C#, ruby, PHP, javascript are all fine choices. I'd recommend javascript because you can use it and learn it with frontend or backend projects

6) Sure

7) Possible

8) I'm very aware of your categorization and tagging concerns. Whatever this is sounds complicated. Yes.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Thanks for the breakdown.

1+2) It's strange that I haven't heard much about being "temp-banned" in any sort of usage here. Whether for security, punishment (time out), etc.

"This account has been banned." or whatever the message would be could have alternatives such as:

  • This account has been banned pending review.
  • This account has been banned for 2 days.*
  • This account has been banned for 2 weeks.*
  • This account has been banned forever.

* Auto-timers may be required.

3) I kind of figured all of that. And from past M7D3 discussions it's apparent RedSaidIt's database is based on only 2 counts. (I'm punny.) Would you consider SaidIt "big data" or at least big-data-capable or do you mean like Google-big?

5) I thought java, though common, has security issues? I forgot to ask one more thing. I'm thinking of employing a lot of expando-like activity in order to hide all the clutter but have it all right there at the tip of your cursor or finger. 15 years ago it was easy enough to do in the extinct Flash (worst animation package though).

6) With this friend-network, the 5 tiers outlined here could indicate users' "status". Like a stop light, red yellow green seem obvious enough (plus orange and blue), and could colour an entire comment or post (ie. uncensored yet red-banned), outline it, or just be a checkmark beside their name. I despise "status" and asstrolls more so as they force us to do this.

7+8) IMO /s/Asstrolls is better than block, which as is IMO is bad for SaidIt. Believe it or not, I think block would be a great feature for SaidIt and/or the next-gen forum - but only with additional features. I know building a new forum would be a hell of a lot of work, but I think so would animating and refining all of this properly - all with open feedback and development from our community (and more beyond?), along with other promotional and campaign efforts. All in order to inspire a team to build it. Worst case scenario, Banned From The Ranch might hire me.

* Banned From The Ranch is an animation studio that does high-tech interfaces for Hollywood. IIRC, they worked at ILM and were caught in George Lucas' office with feet on his desk and/or smoking weed, or something. He was/wasn't amused but they were banned from his ranch for a year. They started their own company instead.

I'm not sure if I expounded on aspects of the powerful potential of custom building a categorization system (ie. part of MetaVote™). Imagine top ranked categorized forum content that is automatically linked/fed/shared/noted under related articles on WikiSpooks with other cooperative sites, other functions, and such. Obviously this "smart" sharing in itself is a huge project.

It almost makes my brain explode. It's so huge and ambitious, and maybe I'm crazy for dreaming - but maybe if I were to make it presentable, with glossy appeal, and opened it up for development, and if TPTB don't squash it or me somehow, there's a real though realistically slim chance it could take off. I almost feel like Ernest Achbar, my protagonist in Bittersweet Seeds, but before the events of my fictional story even starts.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

3) SaidIt/reddit open source is big data capable (in the right hands) because it uses the Cassanda DB, which is easily scalable to multiple machines. Most all of these other reddit clones use a more traditional Postgres or MySQL database which do not scale easily to multiple machines. Social media is write heavy and scaling writes is way less straightforward than scaling reads. But none of this shit matters until your site starts to get about as big as SaidIt at its peak, or Voat. Until then not worrying about scaling at all on purpose might even be the smart thing to do. "Premature optimization is the root of all evil".

5) I thought java, though common, has security issues?

Java and javascript are apples and oranges, but neither has security flaws. Javascript and security is talked about a lot because it's sitting here running in your browser and all of those interfaces are constantly evolving. Java is backend only enterprise-grade insanity, Oracle's baby.

6) With this friend-network, the 5 tiers outlined here could indicate users' "status". Like a stop light, red yellow green seem obvious enough (plus orange and blue)

That reddit browser extension RES does something like that. You can tag everyone with custom labels and shit. I support you marking people as Asstrolls.

Imagine top ranked categorized forum content that is automatically linked/fed/shared/noted under related articles on WikiSpooks with other cooperative sites, other functions, and such. Obviously this "smart" sharing in itself is a huge project.

It sounds cool, but also that it would need to be curated, so pick the most meaningful connections, otherwise you just link to 1000 posts and only 4 of them are really worthwhile.

there's a real though realistically slim chance it could take off

If there's one thing I've learned in my years of technology, it's that if you build it, they won't come. I've seen dozens of nice social sites come and go on /r/redditalternatives some of them with thousands of hours put in. (cue building a quick minimum viable product/proof of concept first to see if anyone cares)

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

3) Right, the Cassandra complex (crying caution but no one believes and will suffer). Good info, thanks! How much would distribution via decentralization and/or openly available backups help/hinder? (ie. WikiSpooks backups are completely downloadable.)

5) TIL. Thanks.

6) That RES sounds neat. Can others see your labels too? Before they are labeled "asstrolls" they'll need to "earn" it and distinguish themselves from the fray of active users, rare users, and new users.

Obviously this "smart" sharing in itself is a huge project. It sounds cool, but also that it would need to be curated, so pick the most meaningful connections, otherwise you just link to 1000 posts and only 4 of them are really worthwhile.

I want both. Mediawikis have tabs/fields for entry (article, talk page, history, etc.) so why not have a list of thousands for researchers. Imagine every Epstein post on SaidIt listed on WikiSpooks in a dedicated "research" field, for lack of a better term. This sharing process could include the rankings on the forum as well as manually adjusted rankings on the wiki, along with other sorting options like post date, article date, source, etc. The standouts would standout on the wiki too. A sort could select the highest ranking, and importantly, the highest ranked in a period. ie. with SaidIt growth comes more votes, but something with 20 votes today doesn't compare with 20 votes 2 years ago. I could go on dreaming but I'm boring myself.

If there's one thing I've learned in my years of technology, it's that if you build it, they won't come. I've seen dozens of nice social sites come and go on /r/redditalternatives some of them with thousands of hours put in.

A fair warning that makes me sad for them and humanity, of which I'm a part. I often wonder if I had actually bothered to research for a truth-seeker forum what I would have found. I meant to, after I had a first draft to share. Instead I stumbled on SaidIt via TinFoilHat that I don't even watch anymore, and have been addicted to SaidIt for ~2.5 years.

(cue building a quick minimum viable product/proof of concept first to see if anyone cares)

That's what I'd hope an animation might provide - an animation that can be updated as new improvement ideas come in.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

How much would distribution via decentralization and/or openly available backups help/hinder?

This hinders the DB because you are asking accessing it more, but then again a decentralized approach means that your site doesn't need to be huge, and probably shouldn't be. I do love the publicly available download thing. Everyone should do it.

Can others see your labels too?

Nope, it's all private to you, and even that browser, because it is all just local data. RES does have an export thing though so you can switch browsers or PCs or just backup your settings/data.

The standouts would standout on the wiki too

You're right, all doable, I withdraw my concern.

I often wonder if I had actually bothered to research for a truth-seeker forum what I would have found.

I think there's a few decent forums still. Traditional forums, not reddit clones*. I see abovetopsecret being linked to here and there.

and have been addicted to SaidIt for ~2.5 years

truth bombs set us free! i'm addicted too.

That's what I'd hope an animation might provide - an animation that can be updated as new improvement ideas come in.

Yes, even just visually drawing the UI on paper helps me sometimes. Sometimes half of the concept is hidden behind the UI, but all 'users' really care about is what's there in the UI.

[–]Airbus320 1 insightful - 4 fun1 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

Are you u/snow?

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 4 fun1 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Are you /u/TryingToBeFunnyButNotDoingVeryWellAtIt?