Read First Elite posts on Reddit and vote-canvassing

[Andrew Sayers]

I did a quick bit of analysis this morning, and less than 0.5% of comments in this forum mention reddit at all, including those talking about David Braben's excellent Ask Me Anything session back during the Kickstarter. I don't have numbers for /r/Games, but I'd imagine interest in ED over there is similarly low.

As Slawkenbergius says, it sounds like the intersection between the two communities has grown so small the noise drowns out any remaining signal.

At this point, saying on reddit "the ED community is like this" or saying here "the reddit mods are like that" just deepens the divide between the two communities. I read most of the posts on this forum and vote cheating wasn't even a blip on my radar before yesterday, so hearing about hundreds of people coordinating to vote cheat and creating dozens of alt accounts sounds more like a third party launching a joe job attack than anything to do with either community. How else would people scraping round for up-votes have avoided their biggest potential source?

Banning those that masquerade as ED fans sounds like a good solution to the current problem, but beyond that I can only suggest that people active in both places look for opportunities to show the good side of reddit over here, and the good side of our community over there. For example, maybe link to this thread from the thread with all the hubbub and ask for a more direct comment?

 

[Slawkenbergius]

Reddit's a fine site, and I do seem to end up there on occasion. Mostly reading AMAs (I created an account for the Braben AMA), and threads that have been picked out in articles by bloggers, etc. But I don't sign or upvote ever, and only really check the EliteDangerous sub-reddit when mention is made over here. In general, the place is just too much of a constant stream of info for me to want to follow what's going on three.

 

[Philip Coutts]

I went to Reddit during the Kickstarter and never went back. Clunky interface, over zealous mods and I really just didn't get it. It looked like ceefax to me and I'm not convinced that it really helped in anyway during the Kickstarter. That said, if you are going to use it then respect their rules, as I say it wasn't for me.

 

[Juniper]

I also went to Reddit during the Kickstarter, asked my question of David Braben, got a response, didn't go back. No intention to either.

As I'm led to believe, Reddit is where the "kidz" hang out, and if you want to get noticed in the gaming world it's apparently the place to be. But I didn't get it.

It just looked and felt amateurish to me. Once the game is released, people will start posting about it on Reddit as everywhere else I'm sure. And the problem will go away.

 

[Darren Grey]

Whilst some positive action is required to regain the trust of the mod team there, it seems a bit late in the day, the mod team have their reasons, and will stick to them, rightly or wrongly.

The mods have shown a willingness to engage and discuss, so I don't think it's quite so hopeless as all that. Several have said they like the look of Elite: Dangerous too, and wish there could be more discussion of it without the vote manipulation.

It is likely just 1 or 2 people instigating this, perhaps through Twitter or Facebook posts. And it's obviously well-intended, just as the original flooding of Reddit during the Kickstarter was well-intentioned. This thread is just to highlight the backlash this sort of over-eager behaviour can produce so people don't get caught up in it.

As I'm led to believe, Reddit is where the "kidz" hang out, and if you want to get noticed in the gaming world it's apparently the place to be. But I didn't get it.

I imagine the average age on Reddit is about 30-35, and it has a variety of subreddits that cater to different niches. There's a number of Elite fans on there too. It's really great for finding people of similar interests in small communities.

Amazing how many forumites here seem to believe the rest of the internet is populated purely by teenagers :-/ Don't be so quick to judge the unknown!

 

[Josh Atack]

Reddit is a brilliant site, I particularly enjoy 'ask historians' and 'ask science'. I find the place to be engaging, thoughtful and interesting, I've found much of the level of discourse on the subreddits I chose to follow is considered and mature.

I personally think we would to avoid any action that sees E threads filtered from any gaming discussions.

 

[Kroy]

just as the original flooding of Reddit during the Kickstarter was well-intentioned.

Andrew Sayers "bit of analysis" should not be underestimated. His methods are valid and reliable. If the mods over there are willing to discuss this seriously and sensibly, then they should consider that there was some serious stitching up done, and that they have been over judicious in their actions.

I'm a regular reddit user and have been for years, and I stay away from the main gaming threads generally, reddits tend to gain a critical mass and the quality dives down with them.

 

[Andrew Sayers]

It is likely just 1 or 2 people instigating this, perhaps through Twitter or Facebook posts.

Although I agree over-enthusiasm is a problem that needs to be addressed, recent moderator comments seem to explicitly contradict the argument that's all it is:

10 active fans upvoting ED stuff once is fine, hundreds of people coordinating to vote cheat and creating dozens of alt accounts to vote cheat and spam links is not acceptable.

Even if "hundreds of people" is a wild exaggeration, that would mean at least as many people are vote-rigging reddit as regularly posting in this forum. I don't see how a group that overlaps at all with the mainstream ED community could carry on at that level for a whole year without a single post saying "hey follow this Twitter stream for links to up-vote". Also, after your friend spent six months asking you to create alt accounts to promote some game on a website, surely you'd start to think there was something fishy going on?

I agree with Josh it's a good idea to educate people about how to use reddit, but the foul play angle needs to be examined too.

 

[ianw]

No nothing about Reddit though have heard of it.

Would it be technically feasible to implement a voting system where alt/new accounts or accounts with no history on a subject can't votes on that subject?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

No nothing about Reddit though have heard of it.

Would it be technically feasible to implement a voting system where alt/new accounts or accounts with no history on a subject can't votes on that subject?

You can create lot of mechanisms to prevent it and allow posts not to be banned. This is not however not in /r/Games mods hands tbh, they don't develop software for reddit web site, company owning site does.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

In defence of reddit, majority of subreddits are very nice places to be. They remind be of early Slashdot (when it wasn't overrun by Libertarians and grumpy middle age IT geeks). I personally enjoy being in /r/EliteDangerous to discuss news. That's maybe /r/Games feels so jarring with it's quite zealous moderation (I don't know how justified it is of course, but they claim that too many game companies and fans use it as promotional tool).

If you are interested in discussing games news, then /r/Games can be quite refreshing place. Just remember rules - don't ask for votes and don't engage in one topic only.

 

[benji]

Does it not seem likely to anyone that it's really a handful of people that don't like ED (for whatever reason) that are doing the vote manipulation, in order to get the ED related posts removed.
I don't use Reddit, so perhaps I'm misunderstanding what's actually happening. But that was my first thought. It seems highly unlikely that anyone from this community is doing the VM.

 

[Juniper]

I imagine the average age on Reddit is about 30-35, and it has a variety of subreddits that cater to different niches. There's a number of Elite fans on there too. It's really great for finding people of similar interests in small communities.

Amazing how many forumites here seem to believe the rest of the internet is populated purely by teenagers :-/ Don't be so quick to judge the unknown!

Fair enough, I sit corrected. Still don't like it though.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Does it not seem likely to anyone that it's really a handful of people that don't like ED (for whatever reason) that are doing the vote manipulation, in order to get the ED related posts removed.
I don't use Reddit, so perhaps I'm misunderstanding what's actually happening. But that was my first thought. It seems highly unlikely that anyone from this community is doing the VM.

There's always such possibility, and that's why some of ED community members argued with mods that this system is very prone to abuse this way. Some of them still seem to be convinced that it is done by consensus from community.

 

[Darren Grey]

Does it not seem likely to anyone that it's really a handful of people that don't like ED (for whatever reason) that are doing the vote manipulation, in order to get the ED related posts removed.

I find it far more likely that some well-intentioned Elite fans are doing it than some really weird trolls. Quite frankly vote-canvassing happens in all parts of reddit, for all games, so it would be odd if no Elite fans were involved. Here's a screenie of some of the comments by a single backer on the Elite Kickstarter, for example:

http://i.imgur.com/r94iu.png

It may not be so blatant now, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And yes, the mods are being over-zealous, but that just means we have to be extra-vigilant to get on their good side again.

Even if there were trolls trying to trigger this then this thread should be a reminder for fans not to be caught out by it and to report it when it's seen. We can do more about this problem than just moan about the reddit mods.

 

[Andrew Sayers]

I find it far more likely that some well-intentioned Elite fans are doing it than some really weird trolls.

I'd really recommend reading the comments in full. Here's a quote from another mod:

Not a single community--not SRS, not SRSS, not BestOf, not SRD, not tumblr, not Xbox One, not any other small indie company that didn't know the rules of reddit, not any blogger trying to promote their site, not anyone who actually tried to VM on purpose--has ever committed the blatant about of vote cheating and flagrant rule violations as E:D's community.

I take Piemonkey at his word, which means accepting a level of sophistication we simply aren't capable of. If we were fooled during the kickstarter by some guy saying reddit was just another site trading votes for views, how would we have suddenly got better at cheating than everyone else in the world? Without an existing presence on reddit, I don't think it would help for me to go over there making noise. But it sounds like there is a process for banning redditors they know to be sullying ED's good name, so surely the next logical step is to politely ask them to do so?

 

[Darren Grey]

I think he's talking about volume more than sophistication. And in particular volume of people going in and voting on things without normally being part of reddit or being active in that subreddit. Which I can readily believe - I think Elite: Dangerous has one of the largest proportion of non-gamers in any large game fanbase. So many people here have barely touched new games in the last 10 years. And as you can see from this thread most people don't have reddit accounts, or only got them during the Kickstarter.

So for a reddit mod it will look especially egregious to have a large number of votes on exclusively ED topics from accounts with little to no activity. Which is precisely what has happened with well-meaning Elite fans leaping on these topics.

I have read the comments in full by the way, and commented myself. Which is why I'm trying to do something about it. The mods can't be argued with, though they seem overall reasonable, so alerting Elite fans to the issue seems the only solution.

I don't get why conspiracy theories seem to pop up so often on these forums. Regular human stupidity is much more believable, and a little easier to address.

 

[Juniper]

It may not be so blatant now, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And yes, the mods are being over-zealous, but that just means we have to be extra-vigilant to get on their good side again.

Maybe. Another option...might be...to just ignore the whole thing. Maybe there's a reason why not many people here have active Reddit accounts, and Andrew's stats show so little mention of the site..... just a thought.

E: D will be huge no matter what. And if Reddit mods want to stifle the fan involvement on their highly polished & professional looking social networking site, well... I'm sure they know what they're doing.

 

[Darren Grey]

Maybe. Another option...might be...to just ignore the whole thing.

That's perfectly valid too I'm sure Elite will do just fine regardless. Indeed, I wish more people were less insecure about its success!

 

[Kroy]

And if Reddit mods want to stifle the fan involvement on their highly polished & professional looking social networking site, well... I'm sure they know what they're doing.

I find myself torn - the bile spouted by the SUBreddit mods is horrendous and should never have been published in a publicly accessible location. They haven't done themselves any favours.

On the other hand, and despite being a redditor for many years, I never once visited /r/games. Nor will I start now.

However, to defend reddit as an entity, there are only a couple dozen employees in reddit. The "mods" are volunteers and fans, no different from anyone bar "staff" on this FD forum. There is a huge amount of great stuff on reddit, and to write it off entirely because of the action of a few is just as sad as the actions of the /r/games mods are doing to E: D.

Reddit is fully representative of the web - it has a slight North American bias, but when you know where to go and how to find the good stuff, it really is worthy of your attention.