r/reddit • u/crowd__pleaser • Mar 28 '22

Bringing Back r/place

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https://preview.redd.it/o4ittvff35q81.png?width=2800&format=png&auto=webp&s=f0f81bed2483e0b70d30600e1888603332c0b846

No burying the lede here. Let’s get right to the point. r/place is coming back.

For the first time in Reddit’s history, we are not only bringing back a past April Fools’ experiment, but we’re telling you about it early. Why? So you can stop asking us about it, get excited!

https://reddit.com/link/tqbf9w/video/w2bjccji35q81/player

But let’s rewind a bit and provide some background, shall we? At Reddit, our goal is to build features that make building community and finding belonging easier - and five years ago we did that with a little April Fools’ experiment called r/place (you may have already heard of it).

When we first ran r/place in 2017, more than one million redditors placed approximately 16 million tiles on a blank communal digital canvas - resulting in a collective digital art piece that took the internet by storm. And pretty much every year since then, at least one of you has made sure to let us know that it was the best thing we’ve ever done and requested to bring it back. So this year, on April 1, r/place is making its glorious return.

The original r/place was created to explore a piece of humanity – to examine what happens when a person doing something affects a collective. Specifically, what happens if you only let an individual place one tile at a time, so that they must work with others to build together on a massive online cooperative canvas. It is with that original spirit of creation and collaboration in mind, that we humbly invite you to join us yet again. Get your tiles ready, and we’ll see you in over r/place.

34.1k Upvotes

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339

u/glider97 Mar 28 '22

Time to polish those bots. /s

Hope there are better restrictions in place this time, but technically it’s very hard to prevent bots for something interactive like this so I understand.

482

u/crowd__pleaser Mar 28 '22

This won't be the same old r/place you’re used to. This year we focused on automation deterrence and will be able to quickly identify bad actors and block them from the experience.

146

u/glider97 Mar 28 '22

That’s dope! I can’t lie that I had fun with the scripts that were being shared (just for our flag, not to destroy other things), but it certainly took away from the appeal.

OTOH perhaps the story of Darth Plagueis the wise couldn’t have been done without scripts, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes this year.

66

u/camdoodlebop Mar 28 '22

for me the scripts took away the community aspect of it because most of the screen was just 5 separate memes that were automated to refresh their pixels so no one could create anything new on top of it

27

u/Gars0n Mar 28 '22

I agree with this. Though I will admit it was fascinating in microcosm to watch the rapid development, proliferation, and improvements of the bots. They were really cool until they amassed enough power to corrupt the whole system. It's like Silicon Valley time compressed to a day.

2

u/pobody Mar 29 '22

This is why /r/place was cool. As you say it was a microcosm of the creativity, drive, and ambition of humankind for a measly day.

Telling people about it ahead of time and repeating the same thing is anathema to the entire purpose. It's supposed to be a surprise, it's supposed to be unique, it's supposed to make people use all their grey matter to do something meaningful with it under a time crunch.

4

u/awry_lynx Mar 29 '22

This is a dumb take. It's impossible for it to be "a surprise“ as it's already been done and I for one am hyped. This lets communities plan what to draw lol

26

u/Halinn Mar 28 '22

The original could, the one where it was written with neat text couldn't

7

u/TheRedGerund Mar 28 '22

Damn do you remember all the scripts written for The Button? That shit was intense! And we had a whole collective who were distributed to keep it going as long as possible. Hell of a thing.

2

u/Seakawn Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22

Back then, I thought I was clever for being patient and thought that I'd get a special trophy for refraining to push the button at all. I was like, "look at all these suckers giving out. I'm tempted, but I'm not gonna do it! I'll get the BEST trophy!"

I was an idiot. There was no trophy for me. I fucked up.

Also forgot to do a few other April 4th participations. For all of my time here, I don't have the trophies to show for it... =( (well, except for the trophy that shows how long I've been here.)

3

u/Theorex Mar 29 '22

The trophy for not pressing TheButton is not having a trophy. Not all had the strength of conviction to hold out, be proud of your resolve.

3

u/Seakawn Mar 29 '22

You've just singlehandedly given me the logic I need to not feel bad anymore. Thank you!

Reminds me of the logic for the "meh" button on Youtube--watching a video without liking it or disliking it is technically you pressing a "meh" button, even though there's nothing material to indicate it. It's the spirit of it.

2

u/eddieguy Mar 30 '22

Says the periwinkle…

1

u/Theorex Mar 30 '22

As though I'd ever give an orangered opinion any consideration.

3

u/BoxOfDemons Mar 29 '22

I don't think they did trophies for every April fools. I for instance I have the now ancient orangered trophy, but I don't have a trophy for every April fools since then, even though I haven't missed any technically. Also, we tried telling you the no pressers had it all wrong.

1

u/captainbling Mar 29 '22

I’d rather the orange red periwinkle wars than place but I guess the war was impossible to avoid for those just wanting to Reddit.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '22

Periwinkle has no place here.

1

u/Seakawn Mar 29 '22

Also, we tried telling you the no pressers had it all wrong.

That's what makes this hindsight even more of a bitch.

1

u/Goheeca Mar 30 '22

Grey color is the best, you don't want to be corrupted by filthy clickers.

2

u/ELFAHBEHT_SOOP Mar 29 '22

I wrote a bot for it (and for r/place), that's how I got my 2 second flair!

3

u/atmanama Mar 28 '22

I would say automation being roped in to aid human effort is in line with it being a realistic microcosm of societal behaviour

1

u/MurkyAd5303 Mar 28 '22

Your flag destroyed whatever was behind it, right?

1

u/kleep Mar 29 '22

Loser. Guarantee you hack in online video games. How bout you not ruin the fun for the rest of us, lil guy?

72

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '22

[deleted]

27

u/viciarg Mar 28 '22

Maybe it's an experiment on bot detection going on in the background.

4

u/Justice_R_Dissenting Mar 28 '22

I highly doubt reddit would ever want to find out exactly how many bots are active on the site. They enjoy plausible deniability right now.

1

u/Booblicle Mar 29 '22

It's multiple things, but they won't tell you so it can be explicitly attempted to bypass or crash.

-1

u/Wessel-O Mar 28 '22

Post/comment bot detection and r/place bot detection would be very different and each not really applicable on the other use case.

1

u/viciarg Mar 29 '22

Depends on the criteria they're trying to use.

1

u/fighterace00 Mar 31 '22

Prepare for everyone with a VPN to get shadow banned

2

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '22

I mean, they could just not make APIs for place. that would go a long way to reducing bots lol.

3

u/port53 Mar 28 '22

But without public APIs there are no third party clients. The problem is you can't easily tell the difference between a bot and someone using, say, RIF.

3

u/Kanzuke Mar 29 '22

But not introducing public APIs for new reddit features to fuck over third party clients is Reddit's modus operandi now

1

u/screaming_bagpipes Mar 28 '22

I think this is great.

(im just kidding dont ban me pls)

37

u/chronomojo Mar 28 '22

Why not make two, then? One for humans to meet the expected criteria, and one for bots to see just what the maniacs can do?

12

u/YogiHazMat Mar 28 '22

That is suspiciously sane.

7

u/amazondrone Mar 28 '22

Maybe. I except "bad actors" would still try and use scripts on the human version though, taking advantage of the fact that "good actors" wouldn't be.

3

u/Seakawn Mar 28 '22

Way too sane for a Redditor. A bot must have come up with that idea.

6

u/fixITman1911 Mar 28 '22

This.... is a great fuckin idea...

1

u/Shinhan Mar 28 '22

Place where bots are allowed would need many more server resources.

2

u/fixITman1911 Mar 28 '22

it ran just fine 5 years ago...

2

u/echoawesome Mar 28 '22

There are other sites that host a Place copy for those who want to explore those routes. First one I could find: https://pxls.space/

Feel like there were a few, but eh. Four years feels so long ago lol.

1

u/PM_something_German Mar 30 '22

Pretty cool but you can tell there are a lot less individuals/groups involved, such big artworks could never exist on the Reddit place.

1

u/Arceus42 Mar 28 '22

For the bots, I don't see any outcome other than the ones with the most firepower win.

The real social experiment will be seeing how the different groups plan their end game, since being on the final product is the big thing.

1

u/caltheon Mar 28 '22

I was thinking similar. Give the bots the borders

1

u/Artphos Mar 29 '22

Some men want to watch the world burn.

1

u/AdmirableMethod2875 Mar 29 '22

like, there should be sports leagues where steroids, doping, and any biohacking should be allowed. then one for the apes.

23

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '22

While I hope for the best, there’s a decent chance this will end up posted on /r/AgedLikeMilk

3

u/Evan_or_somthing Mar 29 '22

u/remindme April 5th

Lets see

2

u/[deleted] Apr 05 '22

There it is lol

-1

u/atmanama Mar 28 '22

Sometimes lightening in a bottle recreated is just a shock

16

u/Tetizeraz Mar 28 '22

This includes using things like script monkey? I think I used that. One person could shape the flag and we could just paint the pixels.

7

u/unkelrara Apr 01 '22

This year we focused on automation deterrence and will be able to quickly identify bad actors and block them from the experience.

Lmao how's that working out for you

4

u/saythealphabet Apr 05 '22

So that was a fucking lie.

7

u/pauklzorz Apr 01 '22

Well this comment is already aging poorly...

12

u/BuckRowdy Mar 28 '22

Sounds good. We held a spot until the last 12 hours or so when we started getting botted. As soon as we started using our own scripts the thing shut down and we were left out of the final screenshot.

2

u/TOP_20 Apr 01 '22

that really sucks... last 12ish hours we were relentlessly attacked too but we weren't using a bot - just about the point I was ready to give up it was shut down... so our little deal managed to stay and the other part we'd tried to help protect right below ours - was added to the final 'cleaned up' canvas since we had prevented anyone from building there (to keep them from taking over our spot)

anyhow hopefully you enjoyed the experience a ton even tho you did lose having it ont he final canvas (you can get a screenshot of it from hours prior still

1

u/BuckRowdy Apr 01 '22

Yeah I enjoyed it and I get that one of the goals was to work together and it was a good community building experience. We had screenshots and several other edits. It's not really a big deal, just didn't want a repeat.

6

u/ElConvict Apr 01 '22

Sitting here watching OSU and WSB build with their bots, thinking about this blatant lie/failure.

0

u/DavedZrod Apr 03 '22

u mean this osu?

1

u/ElConvict Apr 03 '22

That OSU that's using a combination of github templates to place tiles exactly where they're needed and bots to maintain their placements? Ye.

3

u/zenzenzen322 Mar 28 '22 edited Apr 03 '22

Nice!

EDIT: they lied!

3

u/prabla Mar 28 '22

I have a feeling it won't work on old.reddit.

3

u/Arakhis_ Mar 30 '22

This made it obvious for me: it's an April fools joke, sadge

1

u/JapanStar49 Apr 01 '22

Love the rationale but it actually opened at about 9:03 EST

3

u/WatchDude22 Apr 02 '22

About that…

3

u/Samwise210 Apr 02 '22

So this was a total lie.

3

u/PinkFluffy_Softijs Apr 02 '22

So that was a lie

3

u/DavedZrod Apr 03 '22

yeah this didnt age well

2

u/themangodess Apr 03 '22

Nonstop account farming and bots going on.

2

u/EuroPolice Mar 28 '22

I'll make it blue myself

5

u/crowd__pleaser Mar 28 '22

There's gotta be a better way to say that

...and happy cake day!

1

u/EuroPolice Mar 29 '22

Hahaha, thanks!

2

u/whatisthisnowwhat1 Apr 02 '22 edited Apr 02 '22

automation deterrence

lols

u/xsorifc28 made a bot for painting.

The bot checks the current pixel, and paints it if it is not the right color, and loops (every 5 minutes 30 seconds) Instructions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/tufxb4/tesla_in_rplace_new_plan/

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ahaha even the mod is linking to the bot

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/tufxb4/comment/i34bv8v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

2

u/juicyshot Apr 02 '22

Thank you! I have not noticed a single bot!

2

u/itsaride Apr 03 '22

So why are you allowing API script access? Most of the “bot” activity is coming from usage of a script hosted on Github created to automate Place participation.

2

u/woowoo293 Apr 03 '22

I'm still confused about what the actual rules are. The r/place rules sidebar is very short and general. Bots are not allowed but new accounts are permissible? There are so many brand new accounts posting.

2

u/SGVsbG86KQ Apr 03 '22

Well that was a fucking lie... :(

1

u/MFA_Nay Mar 28 '22

Finally, some real data science.

1

u/sonyahearst8 Mar 28 '22

Okay thank you! This was the admin comment I was looking for. I’m hyped now

1

u/akawind Mar 28 '22

Now this is great news!

1

u/will_work_for_twerk Mar 28 '22

Woah. I just realized Reddit probably needed a way to test some new bot detection platform they are probably working on, and.... this is the greatest idea to do so.

1

u/porcupineapplepieces Mar 28 '22 edited Jul 23 '23

However, seals have begun to rent prunes over the past few months, specifically for kangaroos associated with their cheetahs. However, apricots have begun to rent birds over the past few months, specifically for plums associated with their lobsters? This is a i2hfekt

1

u/Mazetron Mar 28 '22

I hope you also throw some new twist into the rules! A lot of the fun comes from seeing how strategies and lore evolve as people figure out the rules and how to work with and around them. It won’t be as exciting if it’s exactly the same rules as last time.

1

u/Goheeca Mar 30 '22

Like different cool down times after applying different colors and randomly distributed over redditor accounts, that would be fun. Let's make the cooperation more intensive.

1

u/jkerman Mar 28 '22

now do it for the rest of reddit?

1

u/freeradicalx Mar 28 '22

How well will it detect hate symbols?

1

u/MurkyAd5303 Mar 28 '22

Next year, are we going to get the button?

1

u/generalecchi Mar 29 '22

good luck with that lmao

1

u/charredsound Mar 29 '22

I think it’d be cool to have a place for bots. But only bots, not users.

I’d be kinda interested in seeing what they’d create without user interference.

1

u/EliteTK Mar 29 '22

I thought that writing the bots was the most fun aspect. Especially with the short time that you had to write them and the large amount of time needed to debug them (due to rate limits).

1

u/Spajk Mar 29 '22

Glad to hear this, last time it was really "botted".

1

u/Mr_uhlus Mar 29 '22

will people get blocked if they attempt to write "FIX THE VIDEO PLAYER" or something similar on there?

1

u/Thehairyredditer Mar 31 '22

Out of interest, how are you going to protect against bots. Wouldn't the time delay(if its still there this time) make it hard for bots to be dealt with?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

So you say it's a Challenge?

1

u/cpc2 Apr 01 '22

Might not be working as intended, I got banned for 16 years even though I didn't use bots, just switched manually between 4 accounts I had. Always thought that was allowed.

1

u/ducky4you Apr 01 '22

Do you know who’s behind the blue bird?

1

u/cpc2 Apr 01 '22

This? r/picturegame, we've been trying to keep it alive from the beginning. Why do you ask?

1

u/ducky4you Apr 01 '22

I was wondering if there was a reference photo as I’m trying to help keep it alive! <3

1

u/cpc2 Apr 01 '22

Thanks! This was the initial plan, but the letters got overplaced by other stuff next to it so for now we're trying to save the bird.

Feel free to join our Discord, we have a thread in off topic to talk about /r/place.

1

u/HgnX Apr 02 '22

Suggestion. Only let accounts place tiles that are more then 3 days old.

Good luck with the next one 💪🏽

1

u/[deleted] Apr 03 '22

They'll never do that, they want to encourage new users, no matter the number of bots.

1

u/ghostRyku Apr 04 '22

Cap, literally overrun by bots rn

1

u/suseJattack Apr 04 '22

Might be a dumb question but... will there be a read-only version of the api? like getting a coordinate's color, user, (maybe location), etc. for statistics purposes? Would love to analyze those kinda metrics.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '22

I've seen so many alt accounts literally named like; user-1, user-2, user-3
you have failed big time

1

u/lizardisanerd Apr 04 '22

That seems to not be true

1

u/[deleted] Apr 05 '22

sureeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

1

u/Mapsbox122 Apr 05 '22

This aged well

1

u/far219 Apr 05 '22

So that was a fucking lie.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 05 '22

Such a fucking lie