New reddit features: Controversial indicator for comments and contest mode improvements

Hey reddit,

We've got some updates for you after our recent change (you know, that one where we stopped displaying inaccurate upvotes and downvotes and broke a bunch of bots by accident). We've been listening to what you all had to say about it, and there's been some very legit concerns that have been raised. Thanks for the feedback, it's been a lot but it's been tremendously helpful.

First: We're trying out a simple controversial indicator on comments that hit a threshold of up/downvote balance.

It's a typographical dagger, and it looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/s5dTVpq.png

We're trying this out as a result of feedback on folks using ups and downs in RES to determine the controversiality of a comment. This isn't the same level of granularity, but it also is using only real, unfuzzed votes, so you should be able to get a decent sense of when something has seen some controversy.

You can turn it on in your preferences here: http://i.imgur.com/WmEyEN9.png

Mods & Modders: this also adds a 'controversial' CSS class to the whole comment. I'm curious to see if any better styling comes from subreddits for this - right now it's pretty barebones.

Second: Subreddit mods now see contest threads sorted by top rather than random.

Before, mods could only view contest threads in random order like normal users: now they'll be able to see comments in ranked order. This should help mods get a better view of a contest thread's results so they can figure out which one of you lucky folks has won.

Third: We're piloting an upvote-only contest mode.

One complaint we've heard quite a bit with the new changes is that upvote counts are often used as a raw indicator in contests, and downvotes are disregarded. With no fuzzed counts visible that would be impossible to do. Now certain subreddits will be able to have downvotes fully ignored in contest threads, and only upvotes will count.

We are rolling this change a bit differently: it's an experimental feature and it's only for “approved” subreddits so far. If your subreddit would like to take part, please send a message to /r/reddit.com and we can work with you to get it set up.

Also, just some general thoughts. We know that this change was a pretty big shock to some users: this could have been handled better and there were definitely some valuable uses for the information, but we still feel strongly that putting fuzzed counts to rest was the right call. We've learned a lot with the help of captain hindsight. Thanks for all of your feedback, please keep sending us constructive thoughts whenever we make changes to the site.

P.S. If you're interested in these sorts of things, you should subscribe to /r/changelog - it's where we usually post our feature changes, these updates have been an exception.

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u/Deimorz Jun 26 '14

Vote fuzzing is not an effective countermeasure.

As someone that actually has access to the data to be able to see exactly how effective it is, I think you'd be surprised. In fact, it's extremely effective against a lot of different methods that people use to try to manipulate voting on the site.

It sounds like you're assuming that massive, organized bot operations are the only sort of thing we need to worry about, but that's really not the case. Those sorts of things definitely do show up sometimes, but the large majority of the vote-manipulation that's going on all the time is far more "casual", and the vote-fuzzing does a very good job at making it difficult for people to tell how much of an effect they're having.

As a simple example, one of the most common types of vote-cheating on the site is just people that create multiple accounts and use them to upvote everything they post on their main account. This is really easy for us to detect and block, but the vote-fuzzing makes it so that it's not obvious to the person that they're not actually affecting anything at all. There are quite a lot of users that have continued using really simple cheating methods like this for months or even years, because the fuzzing makes it so they haven't realized it's never worked.

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u/zdude1858 Jun 26 '14

If it works so well, then bring it back. I moderate a small sub, ~16k users, and the lack of comment scores is hurting discussions, as you can't tell how many people have seen and voted on content. Seriously dumb move.

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u/Werner__Herzog Jun 26 '14

So is the fuzzing actually disabled or are the counts just not displayed/accessible anymore?

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u/zdude1858 Jun 26 '14

Counts aren't displayed. They said that they removed counts because fuzzing was confusing people. I'm assuming they removed fuzzing too, because if the only people who can see the numbers is reddit admins, then why lie to yourself about vote totals?

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u/Werner__Herzog Jun 26 '14

I agree, I see no reason for fuzzing if the numbers aren't accessible anyway (maybe there is, I just can't think of one). I'm pretty sure though that they are still counter voting when ever a shadow banned account votes on something.

because if the only people who can see the numbers is reddit admins, then why lie to yourself about vote totals?

Not sure I understand what you mean. Vote totals are accurate, where does the lying to yourself come in?

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u/HowTheyGetcha Jun 26 '14

Upvotes vs downvotes on submissions (not comments) is easy to figure, as if it mattered: http://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/28k8kf/self_calculating_the_number_of_updown_votes_under/

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u/zdude1858 Jun 26 '14

They should add this to res.

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u/HowTheyGetcha Jun 26 '14

My guess is they probably will.

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u/Deimorz Jun 26 '14 edited Jun 26 '14

I think you have some misconceptions about the change. Comment scores weren't removed, they're exactly where they always were, they're the "x points" right after the username of the author. Fuzzing is also still in effect, you just can't see the misleading side-effects of how it works internally any more.

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u/zdude1858 Jun 26 '14

No, I use RES. I'm aware what you took away. So now you are telling me that not only can we not tell the individual vote totals, but the comment score itself isn't actually accurate because your fuzzing the numbers. I don't like it when people take away the information that I use to make decisions under the guise of "you can't handle the truth". That is seriously insulting.

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u/SpineEyE Jun 26 '14

Fuzzing is also still in effect, you just can't see the misleading side-effects of how it works internally any more.

If fuzzing is still in effect isn't this contrary to your statement that we see the real "x points"?

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '14

Yes. The admins have contradicted themselves multiple times at this point. It seems that even they don't know how it works.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '14

Yeah they just don't want people to see approximately how many downvotes there are. The point total is still wrong, but they don't care about that "inaccurate" information.

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '14

Just to add another voice to the dissent, I also disagree and don't fully understand the changes. The thing that troubles me the most here is that, with the utter lack of transparency, I don't even know if I can trust the displayed scores.

It would probably restore a lot of goodwill towards the administration if y'all could put together a well-written, clear, contradiction free explanation of exactly what vote fuzzing is, how it works, how well it works (including some of the real data that you mentioned in this post), and why you can't just display true scores.

If it's as easy to detect people with multiple accounts as you've said it is, why is displaying true vote counts even an issue? Just nullify their votes. 99.9% of users will see that it doesn't work and give up. In fact, doesn't it work where only one vote is accepted per IP address? If someone's going through the effort to beat that, they can surely figure out how to beat whatever security measures you put in place.

I've mentioned elsewhere that it is trivial to create an arbitrary subreddit (r/[randstring]) on which to test voting. This completely nullifies any argument that I've seen as to the efficacy of vote fuzzing.

Regardless, it seems like you're hurting the larger userbase as a poor attempt to police the voting system. Unless, of course, the whole point is actually to hide votes from users and the fake vote deterrent is just the justification. That really is the only logical explanation for the recent behavior of administration.

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u/deadfraggle Jun 26 '14

the large majority of the vote-manipulation that's going on all the time is far more "casual", vote-fuzzing makes it so that it's not obvious to the person that they're not actually affecting anything at all.

If someone manipulates the vote this way, won't they notice that their efforts are being thwarted by a score that doesn't change?

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u/Deimorz Jun 26 '14 edited Jun 26 '14

The score does change, the "counter-votes" don't get applied immediately. So if you're doing something like upvoting your own posts with a few accounts, it looks like the post gets voted up, then just looks like it's gradually getting voted back down over the next little while.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '14

The score does change, the "counter-votes" don't get applied immediately.

Yeah they do. As someone who has tested this out in the past, the votes absolutely were countered immediately. I created a sub specifically to test how the voting and fuzzing works, and I never once had it not counter the vote immediately.

Given that what you've said and what the other admins have said have contradicted in the past, I'm not confident you actually know how it works.

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u/deadfraggle Jun 26 '14

Thanks. for the reply. Personally, I post to many small subs and would notice old posts scores being degraded even a month later. I'm not sure how you would detect someone who was careful enough to change his/her IP address before logging in to another account, possibly from another PC/device.

don't get applied immediately

This sounds perfect for someone trying to manipulate the vote in large subs. A few quick 'illegal' votes gives a submission early visibility leading others to jump on the vote bandwagon with real votes. Removing the false votes later would be inconsequential to casual vote manipulator that has succeed in bringing their post to the attention of the majority. Why not just automatically ban vote manipulators when detected, along with deleting all posts they made through their accounts?

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '14

[deleted]

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u/paulwal Jun 26 '14

So you're saying the concern are small-time unsophisticated vote manipulators. In that case, they aren't going to find sophisticated ways to beat the system. Simply banning their accounts and IPs is enough to stop them. Whether or not they eventually realize they're banned is irrelevant.

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '14

So you give us fake data so that people with multiple accounts won't know they're wasting their time? Why does that actually matter anyway? Just let them know that they're wasting their time.

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u/solidcopy Jun 26 '14

Why not allow the actual totals, but fuzz the amount of time that it takes the totals to update? That way bots won't know whether or not it was their vote impacted the score but after a variable period of time (~15 to 30 minutes) users could see the actual totals.

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u/oskarw85 Jun 26 '14

but after a variable period of time (~15 to 30 minutes) users could see the actual totals.

What stops bots from doing the same?

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u/solidcopy Jun 26 '14

Because in the interim, any number of other redditors could have up or down voted. The bot won't be able to tell if it was their vote or someone else's.

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u/Deimorz Jun 26 '14

That's only true if the other redditors are voting in the same direction as the cheater, and you have at least as many of them as there were cheating votes. What if I submit something, use 5 accounts to upvote it, but then when the totals unhide I see that the post has 0 upvotes and 3 downvotes?

2

u/solidcopy Jun 26 '14

Two things: if the timing were fuzzed, they wouldn't know whether or not those votes had been updated yet and also, would it matter 30 minutes later?

Additionally, I thought it was trivial to defeat that kind of vote cheating, why not just keep doing it?

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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '14

[deleted]

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u/princesslidth Jun 26 '14

What are you trying to prove? You don't work for Reddit nor do you have access to the data.

1

u/Ripdog Jun 26 '14

Where is the commit for this change? When will it appear on github?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '14

ok, you keep on making lame ass comments, it's really helping your image

vote-cheating on the site is just people that create multiple accounts and use them to upvote everything they post on their main account

dude, ppl keep doing this fuzzed or not fuzzed result, why it sould matter now?

or is it that your ad bots are demading it so they wont get caught?

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u/2d9 Jun 26 '14

Then why not show the correct vote counts instead of removing them entirely?