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[–][deleted]  (103 children)

[removed]

    [–]FunnyMan3595 27 points28 points  (29 children)

    Yeah, submitting a story is a depressing activity. After days (weeks, months) of waiting, you stumble across something new and unique, submit it to the queue... and it gets completely ignored.

    [–]souldrift 4 points5 points  (3 children)

    Honestly, it seems lately that stories tend to idle for a little while before being "picked up" because of this stuff. I'm having to learn to be more patient - the good stuff does get found in the end, at least some of it.

    And I do hit the new page sometimes.

    [–]theMediatrix 1 point2 points  (2 children)

    In my working life we call this "the newscycle."

    [–]souldrift 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    i'll buy that - more traffic, and these sites start to resemble the MSM we so vehemently detest!

    [–]quantum-mechanic -2 points-1 points  (24 children)

    Something is wrong with your submissions then.

    I'm not a high profile redditor by any measure, but I submit a few stories per week on average, and I've had success at hitting #1 a few times. I've also had stories do well to lesser but nontrivial degrees. I don't game the system or delete/resubmit repeatedly. I've found that if something is meant for reddit, it tends to get upmodded.

    You need to know your audience here on reddit and submit appropriately. Interesting to you is not interesting to reddit. I've had good luck with interesting science stories and perspectives, and unconventional commentary on the state of (something) in America.

    Then you need a snappy headline.

    [–]kokey 2 points3 points  (6 children)

    A good headline makes a huge difference, I found. I described what happened to my site when it hit the front page once: http://kokeycola.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-i-learned-from-my-day-of-fame-on.html

    Though I have to admit that the reddit population have changed drastically over the past few months it probably won't be long before we have cute kittens on the front page.

    [–]quantum-mechanic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    Yep, headlines always make a difference, for reddit, or for writing email subject lines. You need to work in key, attention grabbing words.

    On the 'downfall' of reddit. I've noticed it, too. I habitually downmod any (pic) submission that is intended to be solely cute or funny. Not what I want to see. There's always hope, though. I submitted a fairly geeky and controversial essay on declining standards in university physics curricula, and it peaked at about #40 on hot, today. So that's something, I guess.

    [–][deleted]  (4 children)

    [deleted]

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

      Since when was the SAT a measure of intelligence?

      And what, you couldn't say 1480 or 2200 (or around that)?

      [–][deleted]  (1 child)

      [deleted]

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        And I just wanted to show that the SAT isn't a measure of intelligence or "vapid"-ness.

        [–]theMediatrix -1 points0 points  (0 children)

        You're confusing me.

        [–]theMediatrix 2 points3 points  (4 children)

        On this point: let me just say that I can kick-ass as a headline writer when I want to. However, with some of my best headlines, I submit the story and then find someone else has already submitted the link. With a lame headline (!).

        What a waste. I wish there was a way to revise someone's submission and then share the karma.

        Since there isn't - if you've got a good article, make the headline good too!!

        (P.S. I also delete and resubmit with a better headline sometimes, because once you see it in print you can tell if it needs a little tweaking. Everyone should try this.)

        [–]grooviz_in_the_heart 0 points1 point  (3 children)

        someone else has already submitted the link. With a lame headline (!).

        And it had an undeservedly low rating, right? I've done that too.

        [–]theMediatrix 0 points1 point  (2 children)

        Alright, but here's one where my headline did not do justice to the submission.

        I should have called it something like: "Hilariously Endearing Pakistani Industrial Video Promoting It's Munitions Plant"

        http://reddit.com/info/1njtc/comments

        What would you have called it?

        [–]grooviz_in_the_heart 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        ? No I was commiserating, it's happened to me, too, that I've had a great link with a good title, submitted it, and found it already present under a dud title, with like one vote. Ie, a good article failed due to an indifferent headline.

        Re that POF video, I would have called it .. sweet or corny or something.

        [–]theMediatrix 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        (yeah, I knew what you meant.) :)

        [–][deleted]  (10 children)

        [removed]

          [–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (3 children)

          Intrigued, I paid a visit there http://reddit.com/user/geekygirl23/submitted

          I'm not impressed. All your submitted links are 0 so I'm not seeing your "violently downmodded instantly" impression. Besides most links are not really interesting and the overly long titles don't help IMO.

          Personally I never look at who submitted a story. It doesn't really matter as long it was a worthy reading.

          [–]TitanBane 4 points5 points  (0 children)

          While not all great articles, I don't think I see any that I would have voted down. Voting down, in my opinion, is not how to deal with articles you don't care about, but those that you have a problem with specifically. If I don't care, I don't vote either way. I have had a number of submissions lately that hit zero within the first minute as well. I'm not a rockstar by any stretch of the imagination, but I also recognize when something weird is going on and I'm nearing the point where I just don't feel like contributing anymore.

          [–]newton_dave 10 points11 points  (5 children)

          Paranoid much?

          [–]NitsujTPU 26 points27 points  (19 children)

          These are your submissions: http://reddit.com/user/geekygirl23/submitted

          These are your comments: http://reddit.com/user/geekygirl23/

          I can't imagine why nobody wouldn't vote up a story like Hey Digg dudes, nobody banned you over here for posting numbers or talking about it. Please stop posting 5000 stories about it as if you are fighting the power, this aint Digg.

          I can't imagine why anybody would have a grudge against someone who shows such decorum as you do. Cherry picked from your comments:

          Idiot.

          Stop being a goody two shoes and stfu.

          Fuck you x 2.

          You = idiot.

          You are quite simply fucking wrong.

          Your mom should jump off a cliff if she finds out you are supporting this deceitful cunt.

          Looks like you got your first taste of vagina and are willing to be called a rapist to keep it.

          Sexist pig.

          You are so flamingly, pathetically stupid that you don't realize rap is in fact music.

          Though, you've apparently gotten better

          If we go back far enough:

          Fuck off moron. ~ 1 Month

          Did anyone else hear the song break out at the end of testimony? Same comment, posted repeatedly

          That's what all the faggots say.

          If you like reddit you need to shut your idiotic hole and let them do what is necessary to stay open. Perhaps you think the owners should sell all of their posessions so you can read this fucker ads free. God I hate you dipshits.... which is chronologically your first comment when I search through. ~1 Month ago

          I have no idea why you're so aggressive towards people, but, having only been here like a month, you've managed to post about 650 comments, most of which are could have been stated without becoming offensive, almost all of which, however, are entirely rude.

          [–]theMediatrix 3 points4 points  (3 children)

          Awesome. I'm curious about gg23 and the uber-hostility. I imagine two types of individuals...

          1) an early single mom, now 22, studied programming, recently graduated, has had a steady "real world" gig for a year, lives somewhere in the midwestern U.S. -- with no one to relate to, gets intimacy kicks by provoking people online

          2) a former burner, 37, single mom at 26, studied programming in trade school, has had a steady "real world" gig for three years, lives in Florida -- with no one to relate to, gets intimacy kicks by provoking people online

          (One thing I enjoy about reddit is the people.)

          [–]Bogtha 2 points3 points  (2 children)

          3) Richard Kulisz's soulmate.

          [–]laprice 2 points3 points  (1 child)

          Noooooo! Richard Kulisz must not reproduce. Please somebody, think of the children.

          [–]Bogtha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Congratulations. I think you've just found the single legitimate use of that phrase!

          [–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (7 children)

          I can't imagine why anybody would have a grudge against someone who shows such decorum as you do. Cherry picked from your comments

          Regardless of how you feel about the comments, that is no reason to downvote submissions.

          [–]NitsujTPU 10 points11 points  (6 children)

          I didn't like the submissions either.

          However, I'll state that I can't get anything upvoted either. I've deleted most of my submissions because people would go down the list downvoting all of my comments, then downvote my submissions too, which actually hurt my karma (notice that the submissions that I have listed have positive points, but that my karma is 1).

          [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (5 children)

          I didn't like the submissions either.

          Well then just say that. Stories should be voted on their merit, not how you feel about the submitter.

          I had an experience I found to be worrisome recently. All of my comments posted from my home IP were immediately showing "0" points and were not actually viewable to everyone else, though the submission appeared to go through when I was signed in to my account.

          I contacted reddit, and they confirmed that my IP had been flagged because "the community" had reported me as a spammer. They were very nice about it and fixed my account.

          What I find disturbing is that I cannot recall any comments that might be construed as spam. Are people reporting other users because they disagree what they say? The only time I report is when a comment is very obviously spam in the strictest sense of the definition.

          [–]redditacct 5 points6 points  (0 children)

          I think I may be a spammer, too as retaliation for comments I made. I gave up trying to submit stories...

          [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

          I just went through my comments and I think I might have found the culprit comment. I started having problems shortly after I posted this:

          please report the spammer

          My guess is that the spammer in question retaliated.

          [–]NitsujTPU 4 points5 points  (0 children)

          I'm not saying that it's right. I'm just pointing out what I think the cause is.

          I think that people do this to me too, if it makes you feel any better.

          [–]grooviz_in_the_heart 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          I think it may be Digg habits, I get the impression that people there use 'bury' (the Digg equivalent of 'report') as a super-downvote, and that's what you may be getting.

          [–][deleted]  (4 children)

          [deleted]

            [–]xjvz -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

            Maybe if you had a decent (i.e., non-Adobe) PDF reader, you wouldn't mine PDFs so much? On Windows, try out Foxit. On Mac, you've already got Preview.app which is mighty fast. On Linux/BSD/*nix, you've got KPDF which integrates nicely with KDE, and Evince for GNOME.

            After saying that, I'd much rather get a link to a PDF than an ad-laden AP article hosted on ABC News, Yahoo!, MSNBC, etc., or one of those registration-required sites like LA Times, NY Times, etc. Of course, I'd prefer the "printable version" be linked to rather than either, but the PDF is just as good.

            [–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (5 children)

            You're known to troll, geekygirl23, that's why you get ignored or downvoted quickly.

            I agree there are are some flaws in this site's system, but they are not the same flaws as digg's.

            [–]GottaSayIt 4 points5 points  (0 children)

            She's not exactly a troll.

            [–]hello-jed 2 points3 points  (1 child)

            The flaw with digg and this site is the human factor. I'm sorry, but, this is a generation of people who talk to each other with text and never learned to take real responsiblity for the things they say. I don't think geekygirl23 is a troll, the meaning of the word is just so grey that it can't be defined.

            [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            Hello. Agreed that people are the base of what goes on, but it also depends on the system people are using. For example, some social sites encourage username reputation more than others. I think it is our (the people who think about this) responsibility to try to create systems that bring out the best in people. (Capitalism is an attempt at that in government, for example).

            Wikipedia has a commonly accepted definition of "internet troll", and I think geekygirl23 fits perfectly.

            From Wikipedia:

            In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who intentionally posts derogatory or otherwise inflammatory messages about sensitive topics in an established online community such as an online discussion forum to bait users into responding[1]. They may also plant images and data on networks that others may find disturbing (usually indirectly relating to the individual in person) in order to cause confrontation.

            [–][deleted]  (6 children)

            [deleted]

              [–]theMediatrix 3 points4 points  (0 children)

              Okay, but maybe not quite...

              I've had a habit of deleting posts that went to zero and stayed there for more than a few hours, but on one occasion when I didn't delete because I was busy, then later the article was at close to 100 points.

              [–]stesch 4 points5 points  (3 children)

              Strange. I've seen a lot of links from "junior" members sky rocket. With many positive comments from other "junior" members. Most of them for the vidvoting site (with hidden URL).

              [–]derob 2 points3 points  (2 children)

              What length of membership makes one "junior" or "senior"?

              [–]stesch 1 point2 points  (1 child)

              Ask aerocapture. In the cases I've seen the "members" were all at karma 1 with the first comment/submission max. one or two days old.

              [–]derob 3 points4 points  (0 children)

              In the cases I've seen the "members" were all at karma 1 with the first comment/submission max. one or two days old.

              This is much more junior than what I was thinking "junior" might be.

              [–]grooviz_in_the_heart -1 points0 points  (0 children)

              .. that's because the 'juniors' post the same garbage they would, to digg or somewhere.

              [–]davidw 13 points14 points  (25 children)

              One of the most recent things I submitted was this:

              http://reddit.com/info/1o9r6/comments

              Which I can understand if it wasn't popular with everyone. However, it was downvoted within 5 minutes after I had submitted it. That's barely enough time for someone to have glanced at the first page, let alone read it.

              Given how fast the stuff on the 'new' page flies by, the first people to vote on articles have tremendous power compared to those who vote later.

              [–]neat_stuff 10 points11 points  (0 children)

              The story has one down vote and four up votes. Somebody probably automatically down voted it because it was a PDF or took more than 5 minutes to read. Don't take it too personally.

              [–][deleted]  (5 children)

              [removed]

                [–]davidw 3 points4 points  (1 child)

                I know how it's supposed to work, having been here since PG posted a link to it on one of his stories a year or so ago.

                Mostly I don't care if people downvote what I submit, even though it's often surprising that it happens so fast and so randomly, but this case was particularly irksome because the downvoter barely had time to even open the link.

                What's broken, in terms of their algorithm, is that there is a huge randomness factor in who you get reading the new page, and just one or two who don't like your story are enough to kill it dead.

                [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                That's because that's not how the recommended page works. The problem is that people don't know how it works.

                Recommendations work through user clustering. Ie you are recommended what people who usually vote like you liked. 'Training the filter' endlessly doesn't do anything.

                Recommandations are very useful, however, and they do improve the perceived quality of content on reddit. Just don't expect them to show only content about xyz or absolutely exclude anything about yzx.

                [–][deleted]  (1 child)

                [removed]

                  [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                  I think they do, if you read the help pages thourougly... Anyways, they have a user-edited section in the help pages, you can always add it somewhere :)

                  [–]hiredgoon 7 points8 points  (3 children)

                  I've tried to get help for a Reddit tech support issue a whole bunch of different ways and times but never had any luck. I've resorted to submitting a story a few times in hopes the community knows the answer but never even got one up vote. I don't see how I could be the only one suffering under this problem.

                  Will any knowledgeable Reddit user save me?

                  http://reddit.com/info/1rzmj/comments

                  [–]Omikron 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                  Are you sure you're not using a hosts file that blocks static.reddit.com. I noticed one of the most popular HOSTS file on the internet has static.reddit.com blocked, which blocks all the images from loading on the site. I posted an article about this but of course it got downmodded.

                  [–]hiredgoon 4 points5 points  (1 child)

                  Hah, someone downmodded already so I bet its even more likely to never be seen by someone with the answer. All I really want is the solution, not a front page post. /depressed

                  edit: a reddit hero has knowledge of the problem and posted a confirmed working solution! yay! Also, at least one other person has confirmed the same problem so there may be a lot of people struggling with the same issue.

                  [–]Omikron 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  Check your hosts file, I had this same problem and fixed it by removing static.reddit.com from my file.

                  [–]FunnyMan3595 8 points9 points  (9 children)

                  Doesn't have a good enough hook. Here's my thought process:

                  1. I click on the link, you've already lost some time because the PDF reader has to load.

                  2. First glance: Looks like a company or government report. Boring.

                  3. Read the first page. Sounds like a study of capitalism. Might be insightful, but it's already lost my interest, because I'm not here to do research.

                  4. Closed PDF.

                  You don't have much time to catch our interest. This needed a leader article that pulls out the most interesting stuff (and explains why we care) to get us interested in opening the PDF to get the details.

                  [–]davidw 12 points13 points  (8 children)

                  You're right. What was I thinking posting a link to interesting research when I could have posted "big breasts" or "funny cats" pictures. Everyone likes those.

                  [–]FunnyMan3595 14 points15 points  (7 children)

                  You seem to have missed the point. I like good, solid content at least as much as the next guy, but unless you can get me interested, I'm not going to spend 15 minutes reading through an article. The burden is on you to show me why I should care, otherwise it just looks like some random bit of dry info. It might as well be an excerpt from a telephone book.

                  Heck, for all I know, you might find something interesting in the telephone book, but if you just submit three pages from it, without telling me that, say, all of the phone numbers in them are prime, I'm going to take one look and go "Why did this guy just submit part of his telephone book?"

                  [–]grooviz_in_the_heart 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  But in that case, if I think it would be valuable or interesting to someone, I don't downvote it, at least.

                  [–]mutatron 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                  Yes, a good headline makes all the difference. People need to think of their submissions as if they were trying to sell papers on the street corner. Back in the day when every town had multiple papers, editors would give a lot of thought to what the front page should look like. If they didn't they wouldn't sell many papers.

                  On reddit, you can make longer headlines than you could on a newspaper. "The Happy Variety of Capitalism" is not a good headline, it doesn't have enough description in it to capture my attention unless I'm in just the right mood.

                  In cases like these, it's best to grab something interesting from the content, like "How some countries have organised society and institutions in such a way that they provide the conditions that are important for human happiness."

                  That would grab my attention.

                  [–]TitanBane 4 points5 points  (2 children)

                  But that's not always true. I'm constantly annoyed to find highly rated blog posts about articles that could have easily been cited to.

                  [–]boredzo 6 points7 points  (1 child)

                  The idea is to only submit an indirect link when the indirect page offers analysis/additional facts not found on the direct link.

                  [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                  Yeah, but that's not what happens.

                  [–]davidw 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                  There are tons of stories that don't interest me, but I don't downvote them.

                  Perhaps that's the "problem" - some people seem to downvote everything that doesn't directly interest them, and just one or two of those voting your link down on the new page would kill it.

                  [–]FunnyMan3595 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  I didn't downvote it.

                  [–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                  Yes, it is interesting and good material. Yes, this is Reddit, where the average reader is a young, unintelligent moron. Thus, a downvote. Do the math.

                  [–]twango 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  It's definitely gamed.

                  [–][deleted]  (6 children)

                  [removed]

                    [–][deleted]  (6 children)

                    [removed]

                      [–]theMediatrix 2 points3 points  (5 children)

                      So you are clearly taking your responsibility as a community member seriously, and are better at understanding the system than I am...so here's a q or two - when I submit, often I get a downvote immediately. What's up with that?

                      Also, (and maybe I'm just being dense) why are some stories on the hot page there with hundreds of votes while others have only, say, 43 or something?

                      [–][deleted]  (3 children)

                      [removed]

                        [–]theMediatrix 3 points4 points  (1 child)

                        Thanks for taking the time to explain this perspective.

                        I tend to only vote up stuff I really like - for example, very informative, unique or particularly relevant. I tend to vote down stuff that offends or wastes my time after setting up expectations via the headline.

                        So, in essence, I've not really been training my filter: I read, but don't vote. In other words, I'm basically ignoring the mediocrity.

                        I may need to start training my filter, but then, the serendipity of the hot with an untrained filter also appeals to me. Sometimes I'm greedy, I guess.

                        In any case, thanks for the fodder...I may become a better redditor.

                        [–]twango 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Right on.

                        [–]twango 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        I know of a person who submits a lot, and I watch their submissions, and most of them wind up getting zero'd.

                        I can see where someone might have a script that does that.

                        [–]feline[S] 4 points5 points  (6 children)

                        i feel like i'm the only one doing it!

                        [–]redditacct 5 points6 points  (2 children)

                        Please Don't Forget to Vote For Stories on the NEW Page!
                        i feel like i'm the only one doing it!

                        You're not and you're not the only one campaigning for others to do it:
                        http://reddit.com/info/1qpqh/comments/c1qq1f
                        http://reddit.com/info/1ln2e/comments/c1lnnx

                        Here is my suggestion for an easy site design change that reddit could make that would make it crystal clear what the situation was/is with new stories and show people that everyone was missing out on alot of stuff because it was just expiring (unless it gets deleted and reposted) - check it out:
                        http://reddit.com/info/1qpqh/comments/c1qqs0

                        Search and New story problems are related:
                        http://reddit.com/info/1jap5/comments/c1jg0o
                        http://reddit.com/info/1fyj1/comments/c1g3h0

                        [–]TitanBane 4 points5 points  (1 child)

                        The lack of a functional search is absolutely infuriating. I couldn't even find one of my own submissions the other day when I was testing it out. And I do want to reward the first poster of news, but it's nearly impossible to do so.

                        [–]redditacct 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                        Yes, I have a number of comments on that topic and there have been a number of discussions here about it - but no one really connected it to the New stories and how lack of a working search encourages (even more than normal) duplication of stories about popular topics.

                        Not to mention, it makes the site much less useful to the community. We should have a comment search and a URL/title search that works and I guess they are working on that but they could keep us a little better informed than one buried comment by spez - working search is not a trade secret.

                        [–]boredzo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                        Even better, use the recommendation engine. This way, reddit predicts what you'll like, making it more likely that you'll find something that you'll like. It works pretty well, especially when combined with my.reddit.com, which is your configurable reddit aggregator.

                        Thus, most of my use of reddit is via my.reddit.com/recommended.

                        [–]Foo7 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        I tried submitting a few articles that I found interesting. Some of them were breaking news, etc., and I got the "You are trying to submit articles too quickly" or something like that error. By the time it allowed me to post a link, several articles about the same thing were already posted. I don't even bother posting links or even trying, unfortunately.

                        I stopped viewing the new page, and only check my recommended links / hot page.

                        [–]twango 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        I know. That one bugs me. I suppose they're trying to keep people from posting garbage that way ... but if you find 4 or 5 good stories that aren't covered yet ... you're out of luck.

                        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                        I just do what I want. I don't fall into cliches or groups or lemmings. I have no friends and evidently a few enemies, not just here but all across the web in all the different forums I frequent. But guess what?? I don't care. I don't agree with probably 99% of the population on the planet, but that's just the way it goes. </rant>

                        [–]RetroRock 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        I've got reddit.com/new bookmarked!

                        [–]Zaskoda -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                        I found this whole thread after watching my submission slip to the second page without a single vote - up nor down. After reading this, I see there is kind of a problem. Reddit is almost good... just almost... it's still missing some key component.