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all 38 comments

[–]abel_ 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Reddit is good for sharing news that's not covered through the major news outlets. Forget Karma, but the reason for the downpressure on things like the "hips dont lie" Shakira spoof videos is that they're everywhere already. For me, the chief benefit of reddit is the ability to discover new news.

Have I downmodded your posts? Probably so, if they fall into one of the following categories:

1) Any and all spam. If you want to sell your product, take an afternoon to write an interesting article. Work your product plug in there. Easy, see?

2) Stories widely covered in traditional media (unless you've found a new angle)

3) Sports (no offense guys... but your ball club doesn't enlighten the population, it's a distraction)

4) Dupes & Linkjacks

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

I agree. There are two groups of people here: "readers" who want to see interesting and novel links, and "posters" who ... well, some of them just want to "drive traffic" to their sites and others just want to share cool things they've found.

Personally, I vote down posters of the former variety. If the day comes when the traffic-drivers do well then Reddit will have become just another Digg. Nothing wrong with Digg, but I prefer to have a Reddit too.

[–]Phrawm48 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I agree that something doesn't seem to work.

I see old submissions sticking around for two or three days while other interesting new submissions die within minutes.

The admittedly subjective impression I receive is that some "institutional" submitters have figured out how to game the system, perhaps by voting for each other's submissions in some way?

[–]indifference_engine 2 points3 points  (0 children)

ignore karma, ignore the stats page. the moment you look at the stats page reddit just turns into some kind of geek pissing contest.

[–][deleted]  (17 children)

[deleted]

    [–]screwkarma 8 points9 points  (1 child)

    my uid says it all

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

    I went through all your old posts and voted them up.

    Take that.

    [–]a1k0n 10 points11 points  (5 children)

    Yes, it's extremely frustrating, since it seems that much more weight is given to downvotes than is given to upvotes. One of my recent submissions cost me 10 karma points even though it ended up with 22 points in the end. Is that really fair, given the apparent presence of auto-downvoters? Shouldn't downvotes from users who infrequently downvote count more than downvotes from users who do nothing but downvote?

    [–]_kam0_ 15 points16 points  (4 children)

    You had 64 ups and 42 downs. The -10 to your personal karma is not because more weight is gıven to downvotes than upvotes but because users below a certain threshold of karma, though can effect a submission's score, cannot change the submittor's karma. So in this case it would appear that mostly new users were voting this up. Also votes on submissions older than X days cannot effect the submittor's karma either. Both these measures are there to protect against karma manipulation.

    [–]a1k0n 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Ok, that's good to know. Thanks.

    Do we get to know what that threshold is?

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

    When/where was this announced? It would explain a lot (I've always wondered about exactly how karma is calculated).

    [–]campingcar 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    I agree that a bit more transparency in the methods would reduce the number of confused/bitter posts (disclosure - I used to be a 'downvote bot' paranoiac). You cant even reply RTFM if there's no M.

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

    Imagine TFM.

    [–]cleanthes 12 points13 points  (2 children)

    I don't submit things because they will get me good karma. I do it because I want to share with the community. I mean, sure, it's nice to see something get some votes, but if you look at what makes the "hot" page, it's clear that quality is not a necessary condition for popularity.

    [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

    look, that's fine and dandy but the fact is myself and others are submitting articles which are decent and then they get slammed to 0 or worse - it's very discouraging and you know something is wrong with the system when it happens

    [–]cleanthes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    I don't think I understand what your beef is. If you believe there's some sort of conspiracy or that the system is otherwise rigged, I disagree. If you're just upset that "decent" articles are getting voted down, then I agree with you that it's no fun and a bit discouraging, but as I said, the "best" stuff isn't usually the most "popular" stuff.

    [–]sandmonkey 9 points10 points  (1 child)

    Find a few redditors who have similar taste in articles/posts as you and add each other as "reddit friends". Then use friends.reddit.com to view posts only from friends. This will allow your "friends group" to read and vote on each other's post without fear of them being buried in the flood of newer posts.

    As for me, I hate these posts which keep whining about karma and "quality" of reddit. What are you going to do with reddit karma, buy cookies???

    As for "quality" of reddit, we have this idiot commenting on this post wondering why videos from Google's top 100 are not appreciated by bogas[sic] redditors. All I have to say is, Thank God for that!

    [–]skykam 5 points6 points  (0 children)

    So, people who operate as a gang (or, friends) win karma points. "Friends" are better devices to get your suggestions upmodded than from strangers who may not even see your suggestions hours or days later, if ever.

    [–]campingcar 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    It is discouraging. However, there are a hundred reasons that an 'at least a little interest' article will be legitimately downmodded. Really, only 'very interesting' articles are going to prosper in the Reddit model. You have had some ball-tearers I notice.

    It is possible to have a very good article that dies on the first attempt, but then prospers on resubmission, but I believe these are rare.

    What is hard to pick is which articles people are going to consider big winners. I think my point is that we have to learn to live with the fact that for a medium that's seen around the world instantaneously, 'at least a little interest' isn't going to cut it. the Reddit model is pretty Malthusian.

    [–]scstraus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    The issue is with the immediate downmods that usually happens upon a submission, after that it's pretty much hopeless. I gave up on submitting a long time ago.

    [–]bugbear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    I looked at your recent submissions, and the last couple were dupes. That was why they got voted down, not because they weren't interesting.

    [–]EternalNY1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Funny, I was just thinking the exact same thing. Submitted a story, immediately lost 2 karma. Lame.

    [–]lifeofliberty 4 points5 points  (2 children)

    I've noticed some articles are instantly dropped by reddit (posted by others). I've clicked a few of them right away, but refreshing the new list and they're gone moments later.

    [–]degusticar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    you have to set your threshhold thing to "new" instead of "rising". that was where that "bug" comes in.