[META] Downvote Brigade and Rules

EagleEyeInTheSky · 1日前

I just want to say something myself about this because I've been silent so much the past few days. The reason I've been silent so much is partly because I've been dealing with my real life job but also because every moment I've spent on Reddit in the past 24 hours has been deleting threads, cutting off hateful discussions, and dealing with all of this mess that happened in one thread.

Just one thread absolutely exploded. That's crazy, and not all of the blame rests on SAS. Some of the blame rests on our own members. Some of the people involved will be receiving bans from me as soon as the mod queue cools off and I have the time to sit down and gather up exactly what happened.

We all have to remember something about this sub. This is a public sub. There are people on this sub who just read everything to find something emotional, dumb, or bigoted, and will jump all over it. They post it to SAS, SRS, and then all of their buddies come over and will jump all over this place trying to antagonize us and get an even bigger response. They are the textbook definition of a troll. And I hate how often this has to be said sometimes...

DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!

You will never win an Internet argument by posting something clever, or making ad hominem attacks, or getting the last laugh. 99% of the time you will only make things worse. They're trolls. They don't actually care about your argument. They only care about making you angry enough to say something stupid. That's the entire point of SAS. It's like arguing with a 2 year old. The 2 year old always wins.

If someone calls you stupid or bigoted, don't one up them. To bring up some examples from last night. Don't ever say "wow, I can't believe someone from "insert country here" would say that, considering "insert link completely unrelated to the topic being discussed" ."

If any of you try to play their game, you're very likely to end up saying something you'll regret, and we can't help you when your post gets archived and shared between other trolls who will now that you are easily roused and will come and try to get a bigger response out of you.

If someone on this sub tries to start an argument with you. The best thing to do is just report them and stop talking to them. This is Internet 101.

arickp · 1日前

EDIT: SAS = SRS confirmed

EDIT 2: I've spent way too much time investigating this. I have to get back to work. I'm letting /r/subredditcancer take this over, because this is about as serious as I want to take reddit. Here's the SRC thread

Obligatory: I have nothing against non-Americans, but SAS is a toxic shithole that's already been caught brigading once. I'm actually quite fond of Europeans, Canadians, Australians...all of 'em. However, I'm not alone in my disdain for SAS. Plenty of other users on SRD have been saying that they've been linked there for saying Italian pizza isn't objectively better than American pizza. They missed an obvious joke about Canada being the 51st state on SRD too. It's not just this subreddit.

To emphasize how serious this is, it's not just a couple comments here and there getting marked with the controversial marker. A user went from +5 to -55 after being linked to SAS. That's not time zone differences. Here's a recap. I warn you though, it's pretty bad, lots of NSFW language.

Now, with that said -- option 1 seems the best choice. SAS doesn't have to link to reddit, they can link to an archive or a screenshot. SRD allows linking to reddit, but they're extremely strict about popcorn pissing and have way more manpower to enforce it. Also, all that will do will just get the user banned from this subreddit. They can still follow the linked threads on a throwaway and comment/brigade here (it's important to note that it's not just vote totals, the users that show up here from SAS leave extremely toxic comments. They completely derail the discussions -- think of what it'd be like if a callout sub started showing up in /r/AskHistorians.

It's worth noting that it's about as easy to end up on SAS on this subreddit as it is to end up on SRS on a default sub. The difference is that SRS actually puts the current vote totals in their posts before they link them, so SRS (in general) isn't making comments go from +5 to -55. (For the record, I'm actually fine with SRS -- because they don't brigade.)

Option 2 isn't really going to do anything. Mobile clients usually don't adhere to NP domain rules, and RES lets you bypass it too. Also, you can just change the np to www, and I'm not going to put that past SAS users.

We're kind of already doing option 3 because there's a FAQ, and I've been reporting reposts.

Option 4, nah. We've already gotten a group of trolls a couple months ago, it's just going to happen again. However, it may be a good idea to have AutoModerator auto-remove throwaways -- e.g., min +10 comment karma before you can post. We're not a default sub, so this is pretty reasonable.

So, yeah. I'm sure a SAS'er will respond and say, "it's just all in good fun!" No. It's way past that point, sorry.

But again, I'm not saying to autoban SAS users like /r/blackladies does with KiA, but linking into this subreddit, yeah, ban.

also - proof that I've already contacted SAS mods about brigading in the thread OP is mentioning

DkPhoenix · 1日前

The CSS trick to disable downvoting by non-members is trivial to get around, but it's simple to add, doesn't affect subscribed members at all, and would deter some of the lazier brigaders. It certainly can't hurt to add that to the stylesheet.

Any time you get linked to a meta sub (even the nice meta subs like /r/bestof) trolls appear and some brigading happens. It's worse even than hitting /r/all. But, sometimes you get interesting discussion from new people too. It's the way of Reddit. Option 4, rising above it, is the best in the end, but in the meantime, sometimes you may have to lock individual posts that are getting hit hard, and temporarily ban certain subjects. (Like, "No new sports threads for a week" until shit settles down.)

goeie-ouwe-henk · 1日前

I would opt for option 4. Let them brigade, they will loose interrest after the post falls down the list on their FrontPage.

TeddyDaBear · 1日前

Option 1
Just no. At best it should be mod discretion on whether it stays up or not, but a blanket ban on SAS associated topics or links doesn't help anyone. Aside from "free speech" implications, it would also remove posts from someone that says "I saw someone say this on SAS, is that true?"

Option 2
While potentially viable, there may be people who post or reply as one-offs and don't necessarily want to subscribe this sub to their front page. Making them incapable of voting (even if it did affect all mediums of access) means that their input will not count or not as much as someone else's. While I cannot say absolutely no to this one, I see problems on the opposite side of it that place an un-due unfairness on others who have done nothing wrong.

Option 3
To me this sub is about learning about differing views and cultures and the sharing of information. Banning discussions about charged topics (Seriously? Soccer is a charged topic? Grow up already!) flies directly in the face of it. Don't ban any topics, but be aware of them and lock the post if it cannot be kept civil.

Option 4
In all honesty, this is the best option. Let them have their run and move on. Nothing good ever comes out of both sides taking the low road.

scy1192 · 1日前

Option 4. We're Americans and won't be destroyed by some damn commie downvotes.

Also it's called soccer, from "Association Football". Deal with it.

dotbomber95 · 1日前

I would go with a combination of option 2 with locking threads linked to SAS and possibly not allowing new users to submit.

cardinals5 · 1日前

Hi again everyone.

So, first of all, thank you for the discussion and keeping it civil. Along those lines, thank you for being honest with the options I laid out. I didn't want to influence anyone which is why I left my opinions out.

Option 1 had some support for certain parts (mainly locking threads posted there) and some support for banning users who post content. I would say that I'd definitely consider locking threads to be a smart option.

Option 2 seemed to have some support but many did point out how admittedly easy it may be to get around. Is it worth it? I'm not sure. I may try it for a little while, I may not.

Option 3 is out, as I expected. I will at least update the FAQ for some questions. Maybe the FAQ should include when the question was last asked and we have a temporary ban on it? That might work. That's a tougher one to work around.

Option 4 is kind of what we're doing by default and a lot of people seemed to go that route.

I did get word from the mods of Shit Americans Say (specifically /u/Obraka, who has been good about this whole thing), who are going to add us to their "low hanging fruit" section for a little while. In the mean time, I'm going to hope the reddit admins at least respond to my message so the individual users can be held accountable.

/u/arickp, I want to thank you specifically for messaging us about the brigade. I probably wouldn't have seen it unless I checked the specific thread, which at the time I probably wasn't going to do.

Because we're a smaller sub, vote brigades do affect us more than the larger subs, and with that in mind I would like you guys to please report any possible brigades to us as soon as you can, since we can respond and try to do damage control.

tripwire7 · 1日前

Personally, I think the solution to the SAS brigading is to continue to insult soccer.

Kaiy0te · 1日前

I say go option four and maybe care a bit less. It's annoying, I get it, but these people need some kind of entertainment and they sure aren't going to get it from soccer.

fargin_bastiges · 1日前

Option 4, man. Don't feed the trolls, right? Don't let the terrorists win.

xxpussyslayer98 · 1日前

You have my sword

Ultimate_Failure · 1日前

Why not just check the referer URL, and if the user came from r/shit*, redirect them to some other random place?

stlhrt · 1日前

Votes go up. Votes go down. Who gives a shit? There literally isn't anything less important than reddit points. If a bunch of lonely weirdos want to waste their time voting on threads, there's not much anyone can do to stop them.

-WISCONSIN- · 1日前

Wait, what prompted this? Just random down voting. Lol I don't understand how people think that's effective. People ask questions, we answer.

It's not like just down voting anything is somehow going to change anything in that regard.

zheisey15 · 1日前

"Please Respect that by not voting"

Ok, I see how it is SAS.

CoCaptainJack · 1日前

My personal favorite solution, that may be difficult, is working with the SAS mods and auto-moderating submissions that link to this subreddit on their end. submitting links from this sub is breaking their rule 4 of "no small subreddits or low-hanging fruit" and a good amount of their content also breaks rule 11 of their sub "no baiting other subs"

This would effectively stop posts from gaining attention and getting large amounts of traffic to brigade with. Plus, we can stay away from banning subjects or going nuclear with banning users. Again this only works if the mods over there cooperate and agree to it, though. Would love some thoughts on this!

Lortekonto · 1日前

I often wonder how big a problem SAS is on this forum, because honestly I think I have seen more post about how big a problem SAS is than I have actuelly seen SAS posts. Of course this might come down to good moderation and time difference. For example I was able to miss the soccer/football brigade even though I visited that thread a few times.

Well I think option 4 is the way to go, maybe also option 2. People might be able to work around it, but I believe lots of people would be to lazy for it.

Option 3 would kind of ruin the idea behind this subreddit and option 1 would just make the sub a more tempting target.

thabonch · 1日前

Option 1
On point 1, links to SAS should be removed. Not sure about plain text references. Maybe don't automate that and leave it up to reporting/mod discretion. I like point 2 a lot. If they don't post links here, there should be fewer brigades. I'm not in favor of point 3. I don't think we should stop our discussion just because something was posted there.

Option 2
I'm completely in favor of this.

Option 3
I don't like the idea of banning certain topics. Maybe we could have a stickied "Post all X questions here" thread that changes every month or so. Then the same person won't be able to downvote the same question/answer combos multiple times, and most of our sub would see it and (hopefully) upvote.

Option 4
Yeah, we'll have to do this anyway. But it would be nice for the mods to have some tools/a procedure in place for the future.

3kindsofsalt · 1日前

Where is this thread? I only watch soccer!

Jock_fortune_sandals · 1日前

Senray · 1日前

Option 4

narp7 · 1日前

Can we go with option 2?

Option 1: This is just a "zero tolerance" policy, which never work well. We may as well judge on a case by case by case basis.

Option 2, this will help a little bit without actually hurting this sub's community at all. It's basically improved option 4.

Option 3: Really? Can we not ban certain topics? It doesn't matter what the topic is. If they're looking to brigade us, banning discussion of soccer is shooting ourselves in the knee without accomplishing anything.

Option 4: Option 2 is basically the same but also prevents some downvotes.

In summary, let's do option 2.

BaltimoreNewbie · 1日前

I'd vote for option 2

bioemerl · 1日前

Report it to the admins and ride it out.

jdgalt · 8時間前

I suggest just the last two bullet points of option 1.

You could also disable all downvotes, as they've done in r/purplepilldebate. Though that's probably just as easy to defeat technically as option 2, it's better than nothing.

TheG-What · 1日前

Option 1. No discussion to be had. You break the rules you get banned. We don't brigade their shit what's the problem?

Edit in response to my mysterious downvoters: explain to me why breaking a reddit-wide rule isn't viable cause for a ban? Or are your jimmies just rustled because you're from the aforementioned brigade? I'm legitimately curious.

Existential_Owl · 1日前

If soccer is the issue, then I don't see a problem with putting up an FAQ and making it an off-limits topic.

With that said, the best solution is almost always Option 4. Let the kids tire themselves out, report (and ban) any egregious offenders, and don't let it drag us down. We're the ones on the moral high ground here, and letting the bullies force a reaction from us just gives them more incentive to continue.

This, of course, makes the mods' job a little tougher. Perhaps a small increase to the mod team? Invite some of the trusted regulars here to help out a little more, bring them in with only the basic permissions, and maybe they can help lighten some of the load off of you guys.

Just a thought.

thatawesomedude · 1日前

Let's build a (fire)wall! And make SAS pay for it!

But in all seriousness, I'm in favor of option 2, and maybe bullets 2 and 3 from option 1. I feel like discussion of SAS should certainly be allowed (granted it does open the door pretty wide for brigading, but hey, free speech, right?). Is there any way to simply dissable voting all together for a specific thread? If so, maybe have automod enable that as soon as a thread gets linked to SAS?

speedisavirus · 1日前

Using the CSS,

There is literally a checkbox to disable subreddit styles.

Ban Certain Discussions

Defeats purpose of sub.

The users doing this will probably get bored soon enough

No they won't.

Option 1 is the only one that addresses the problem.

xxpussyslayer98 · 1日前

I have waged war against that sub for the better part of the year. I infiltrated them last year and gathered intel on many of their members. If we all report them to reddit admins then maybe the sub might get taken down. I've seen posts go from +100 to the -

The more upvoted the linked comment is, the heavier the brigade.

AskAnAmerican

Rules

Flair

AskA_____ Subreddits

調停者

Option 1: Blanket Ban

Option 2: Disable Voting for Non-Subscribers

Option 3: Ban Certain Discussions

Option 4: Ride it Out

Option 5: Something Else?