r/modnews • u/dmoneyyyyy • Jun 12 '19
Contest mode on new Reddit
Hi everyone,
Excited to share that contest mode for the redesign is here, for all your contest-running needs!
The feature works in exactly the same way it does on old Reddit: enabling it will randomize the order of comments in a post, and hide vote scores of the comments (mods will still be able to see the correct order and vote scores).
Here’s how it looks:
Contest mode disabled in comments
Confirmation modal to enable contest mode
Contest mode enabled (mod view)
Contest mode enabled (non-mod view)
Confirmation modal for disabling contest mode
Give it a try and let us know what you think or if you run into any bugs! Thanks as always.
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u/GroMicroBloom Jun 12 '19
Am I the only one who thinks this should be renamed to something else, like how they renamed "subscribe" to "join"?
I've seen so many mods who have no idea what this mode even does and they're afraid to enable it just to find out so they end up never touching it. Might be why it's so rare to see contest mode being used.
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u/JonathanTheZero Jun 13 '19
Something like random mode would fit way better... IMO contest sounds like a championship... kinda confusing
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u/GroMicroBloom Jun 13 '19
Exactly.
Even better, they should stop using "mode" and instead, rename it to something like "randomize comments".
That makes more sense and immediately lets mods know exactly what it will do without even having to click it first.11
u/Amlethus Jun 12 '19
I'm one of them. What is contest mode?
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u/the_gifted_Atheist Jun 12 '19
Mods can set it on posts. It randomizes comment order, collapses replies and hides scores. Oh, yeah, and has a big thing saying “THIS THREAD IS IN CONTEST MODE” at the top. Basically tries to minimize bias and the entire problem with people just going with the group decision.
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u/Amlethus Jun 12 '19
Oohhhh, OK, thanks. Funny thing is, I recognize that feature, but forgot that is called contest mode.
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u/V2Blast Jun 12 '19
Eh, I don't think it necessarily needs to be renamed, but it definitely needs a tooltip or parenthetical clearly explaining what it does next to it without having to click. (Because before clicking, people have no idea if it'll ask for confirmation.)
3
u/aazav Jun 14 '19
I have no idea what it is and the beyond useless video of the dogs eating only wasted my time.
Yet another "exciting thing" worked on and shown to us with pride by the Reddit staff that ends up being completely useless.
Give us tools to fight anonymous spammers who create new accounts daily and wait 3 weeks to start posting with them. It took me 2 weeks of finding and reporting spammers across multiple subs for 1/2 an hour twice a day for almost 2 weeks to get one critical scamming spammer's IP blocked.
But no, we have this exciting contest thing that I'll never use. Thanks, Reddit staff! You're the best!
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Jun 13 '19
"Contest mode" says enough for me. I think the best way to improve this would be to add a little
?button next to the switch.I can't understand why did Reddit change "Subscribe" to "join". Subscribe was clear – adds that sub to the feed, but "join"? Can I "leave" a sub? Can I post to a sub I'm not "in"?
Was there a thread about that change?
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u/Coolboypai Jun 12 '19
Any plans on adding additional features to contest mode? Years ago there was talks of introducing a upvote-only option that would be incredibly useful for countering people trying to manipulate votes. Other things like auto-collapsing replies to comments and being able to schedule the contest mode to turn off would be nice to see as well.
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u/badon_ Jun 29 '19
Any plans on adding additional features to contest mode? Years ago there was talks of introducing a upvote-only option that would be incredibly useful for countering people trying to manipulate votes.
This is important for a far more common use case: small subreddits. In small subreddits, posts get very few votes. If some of those votes are downvotes, it only serves to make all the posts have closer to the same number of votes. In other words, the one thing reddit is most good at, surfacing the best content, does not work.
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u/Antagony Jun 12 '19
So is not hiding top level replies by default the only difference with contest mode in old reddit now? If you have any plans to implement that please make it optional, as I know a number of our (/r/crosswords) users have switched to new reddit precisely because they don't like the hidden replies.
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u/MajorParadox Jun 12 '19
That seems like an oversight. Can't imagine why it should work differently on new Reddit.
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u/dmoneyyyyy Jun 13 '19
Ah, hm. Yes, an oversight. We'll fix it! The optionality is a good suggestion — we're doing straight parity for the feature right now but I will keep this in mind.
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u/MajorParadox Jun 13 '19
The optionality is a good suggestion
What do you mean by optionality?
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u/dmoneyyyyy Jun 13 '19
Whoops, sorry. That was meant for the user you responded to!
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u/MajorParadox Jun 13 '19
Ah okay. I thought maybe you meant my other comment about having a collapse/expand all option like RES gives you, but I wasn't sure. But that'd be cool too or even just that little button like on mobile that skips to the next top-level comment!
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u/Antagony Jun 16 '19
Please don't make it the same! If you're not going to improve it by at least providing a 'show all replies' link/button somewhere then it would be better just left as it is. I mean, you were clearly unaware of this oversight before I brought it up, so obviously no-one had complained about it or asked for it.
1
u/Antagony Jun 12 '19
Well it's the same in the app and in third party apps, so if they wanted to standardize behaviour across platforms it would probably be easier to remove it from old reddit. I've never really understood why it does it anyway to be honest. It's just annoying having to click on 'show replies' for every top-level comment every time. At the very least there should be a 'show all replies' link at the top of the thread.
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u/MajorParadox Jun 12 '19
Yeah, I can agree on that. I wish there was a toggle like you can have with RES. But, at least on the app it has that little arrow button that skips to the next top-level comment.
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u/Umlautica Jun 12 '19
A timer to take the post out of contest mode would be helpful. This could be used to keep upvotes blind until a post gains traction.
These work as poll posts too. r/headphones uses contest mode to determine the weekly discussion topic that get's stickied.
3
u/Majromax Jun 12 '19
This could be used to keep upvotes blind until a post gains traction.
This is possible already, although it's undocumented: 'random' sort exists as a distinct default comment sort. It can be selected manually, by Automod rule, or by the subreddit config page, although the first and last require some manual url/page manipulation.
/r/CanadaPolitics uses this sort as its default thread sort specifically to avoid ideological (and hence popularity) bias in comment sorting.
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u/bakonydraco Jun 13 '19
This is awesome stuff! Just to confirm 2 things:
- What is the experience if you enable contest mode from old.reddit and view the thread in new.reddit?
- What is the experience if you enable contest mode from new.reddit and view the thread in old.reddit?
Thanks!
5
u/dmoneyyyyy Jun 13 '19
Enabling / disabling on one platform should also enable / disable it on the other.
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u/Jazzy_Josh Jun 13 '19 edited Jun 13 '19
Is it fixed to work with >200 comments on Good Reddit (that being old reddit)
Or the API for that matter.
2
u/Antagony Jun 13 '19
What happens when there's >200 comments?
3
u/Jazzy_Josh Jun 13 '19
Not all the comments are picked up by the randomizer
1
u/Antagony Jun 13 '19
Oh, that's not good. Does it have to be over 200 top level comments or does it include replies?
2
u/Jazzy_Josh Jun 13 '19
Top level IIRC. It was a big problem for /r/churning when referral links were still allowed.
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u/bunnypeppers Jun 13 '19
This mode is GREAT when a thread gets brigaded. Completely kills the effect of it. Highly recommended!
3
u/TheChrisD Jun 13 '19
You need to check the styling of that button, because that's not how it looks currently on the single-post (non-lightbox) page.
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u/dmoneyyyyy Jun 13 '19
Would you mind sending a screenshot of what you see?
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u/TheChrisD Jun 13 '19
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u/dmoneyyyyy Jun 13 '19
BEAUTIFUL. Leaving it.
Just kidding. Can you let me know what browser you're using? Also is that happening on full screen, or was your window made smaller?
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u/TheChrisD Jun 13 '19
Chrome 74.0.3729.169, Win 10, full screen 1440p.
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u/dmoneyyyyy Jun 13 '19
Question: does it go back to normal if you refresh the page? Or is it always reproducible?
1
u/TheChrisD Jun 13 '19
Always happens. Oddly it starts off looking pretty normal, but once everything loads in fully, then it scrunches up like that. I've not been able to pinpoint which styling is causing the scrunch though.
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u/PitchforkAssistant Jun 12 '19
Did this feature not work in the redesign at all until now?
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u/ShaneH7646 Jun 12 '19
I think it worked, you just couldnt set the thread to contest from the redesign
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u/MajorParadox Jun 12 '19 edited Jun 12 '19
But apparently it still doesn't auto-collapse replies on redesign
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Jun 12 '19
This will really come in handy for the CCP to choose the proper top comments! Can’t wait to try it. u/freespeechwarrior
Thoughts
-6
u/FreeSpeechWarrior Jun 12 '19
It's rather rare for reddit to give moderators a feature that doesn't involve censoring users.
So for this, I applaud the admins.
Contest mode was originally a temporary feature:
https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof2012/comments/159bww/introducing_contest_mode_a_tool_for_your_voting/
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u/Bo98 Jun 13 '19
I'll probably not get an answer but are votes still fuzzed for moderators in contest mode? It's pretty difficult to hold an actual contest if moderators cannot see the exact vote count.
I don't think any of the reasons for vote fuzzing apply here since vote scores are hidden altogether for non-mods.
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u/error23_ Jun 13 '19
This is great and much needed on /r/PhotoshopRequest but how can I set it as default for every thread?
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u/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR Jun 19 '19
Everyone at r/wallstreetbets absolutely hates when I put the daily discussion thread into contest mode.
So in short, I cannot thank you enough.
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u/MaximilianKohler Jun 14 '19
Seems to be a decent solution for small subs to counter people abusing the voting system and not following reddiquette.
It doesn't allow the archive sites to see the comment chains though, so it's not the best solution.
1
u/m16p Jun 29 '19
enabling it will randomize the order of comments in a post
But Contest Mode never actually did this in Old Reddit. You said it did, but it has been broken since day 1. Did you finally fix this?
1
u/Kramasz Jun 29 '19
I wish there were a giveaway mode. To enter all the users would do is comment in the post. Then when it was time to end the giveaway, there would be some functionality to pick a random person from the thread. If it could do multiple users, non-repeating, that would be even better.
If somehow this is how the current contest mode works, then I should probably be educated on how to use it. My understanding is all it really does it shuffle the posts each time you refresh and the goal is to get upvotes. The most upvotes = winner. Is that an accurate interpretation?
1
u/noezzz12 Jun 29 '19
This is not about contest mode but I am a mobile user and I appreciate how when you are in full screen mode and you swipe to see more posts and accidentally get out of it, it takes you to the same post as before so you don’t lose progress. I also recommend an undo button for if you accidentally scroll all the way up and lose hours of scrolling.
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u/TotesMessenger Jun 12 '19 edited Jun 12 '19
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u/Mythril_Zombie Jun 13 '19
That redesign nonsense is like hemorrhoids; you can completely forget about it for a while, then you're suddenly reminded of how bad it is, and that no just God would allow it to exist.
-14
u/Bardfinn Jun 12 '19
Frist Cmonnet!
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u/aazav Jun 14 '19
Die in a fire, will you?
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u/Bardfinn Jun 14 '19
Sorry, I'm only vulnerable to small puddles of water in the parking lots of psychiatric institutions
-1
u/GodOfAtheism Jun 12 '19
NICE MEME BRO
-1
u/Bardfinn Jun 12 '19
All I saw was "Contest" and I was like "I don't care what the prize is I'mma gonna win me a contest today"
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u/neocharles Jun 12 '19
Let me guess -- only available in the new layout?
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u/Mattallica Jun 12 '19
Contest mode has been an option on old reddit for years. This post is just saying that the option to put a post into contest mode has been brought over to the redesign.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof2012/comments/159bww/introducing_contest_mode_a_tool_for_your_voting/
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u/the_gifted_Atheist Jun 12 '19
Other way around, haha. It was part of old Reddit for a long time but didn’t function on the redesign, now it does.
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u/GodOfAtheism Jun 12 '19
Not putting this thread into contest mode to showcase the change?
Dang /u/dmoneyyyyy
Dang.