Photo management and the iPad - <AUTHOR> http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=5603.0

<comment><USER2> Extraordinarily well written analysis of the market opportunities for ProImage management applications on the iPad.

What I found particularly interesting, was how, in it's "Focus on the experience and functionality" approach, that it, in many ways, mirrored Steve Jobs concerns about Flash on the iPad.

<comment><USER3> Apparently we read two very different articles. I read an article that showcased how the iPad's restrictive OS policies make it impossible to offer users a good, working solution to their problems in this particular area.

"In summary, thank you again for considering Camera Bits as a solutions provider for your mobile photo workflow. We will do our best to address your needs as much as possible with regards to an app for the iPad, but for now we suggest that you plan on using alternate, more open mobile solutions for professional apps."

I don't know where you found "market opportunities on the iPad" and Jobs-on- flash in that.

<comment><USER4> Possible interpretation: It's ironic that the same sort of problems Jobs sites for Flash are evident when trying to edit photos on the iPad.

I need to do a comparison of my tc1100 with the iPad for this purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't comment on the specific flaws mentioned in this article, but it is a good anecdote to illustrate one of the general reasons that iDevice style platforms can't completely replace the old fashioned all-purpose home computer. Computers have acquired thousands of little niche uses like this and there's no way an iDevice could support them all without compromising its cherished simplicity. And I would speculate that a good chunk of the computer buying market belongs to at least one niche.

</comment><comment><USER6> iPhone developer here. There are plenty of ways to get around this.

* Wait another two days for OS4 to drop. I'm under NDA about OS4, but suffice it to say you can expect some api changes that will help.

* Just roll your own file handling; don't depend on the Photo database. The app can pull from a webserver, etc. and totally bypass the CCK. Check out www.eyefi.com - it's pretty easy to integrate with their products. Maybe a little pricey, but if you're market is pro photographers, they're not going to whine about a $150 wireless SD card. Plus, you have the "wow" factor of magical wireless photo import.

* Use one of your support credits. Apple has been known to waive restrictions for good apps in the past.

* Memory issues can be worked around, just do all your calculations on disk. It's slower, but it's not the end of the world. If you depend on Quartz or something, that might require a rewrite; not sure how the existing Mac software is implemented.

<comment><USER7> 5\. Create your own hardware for the dock connector, including a card reader and additional memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Author of Windows app suggests customers choose a Windows netbook over an iPad - film at 11.

FWIW, I don't buy the claim that it's impossible for applications to get hold of photo metadata - I happen to know someone who is working on an iPad photo application and they don't seem to be having this problem (as evidenced by <http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlitos/4669066513/> )

<comment><USER9> Camera Bits make both MacOSX and Windows versions of the Photo Mechanic, and even says so in the article. I thought the netbook bit was for people who're looking for lightweight solution, especially since there are many netbooks with built-in network capabilities?

Considering that Photo Mechanic is a fairly expensive piece of niche software for very specific use in the workflow of professional photographers, I thought the points they made were fairly valid. Maybe the EXIF copying can be worked around, but it still won't address the RAM size, no robust connection options for CF, no names for the pictures, and all the other little things that the article mentions that makes or breaks a software like that.

If you look in the flickr image you linked, I think the description basically makes the point made in the article - In the flickr description, the author describes 6 steps across 2 different apps to just take some pictures, upload it, and share it with friends. Camera Bits guys are saying that until that becomes a 3 step operation in a single app, it's a no-go in their specific niche market.

<comment><USER8> I pointed to that image only in relation to the EXIF metadata, since the original article suggested that this problem was the "straw that broke the camel's back" - i.e even if you were prepared to live with the 2-application workflow, even that was not possible. This appears to be false.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thank you. File management is the clearest way the iPad demonstrates that it is not a professionals tool, but a multimedia toy.

I'm hoping something is announced at WWDC that breaks the iTunes stranglehold on managing iPhone OS devices but I'm not holding my breath.

</comment><comment><USER11> _just like the thieves do to steal your photos and strip all of your metadata._

I stopped reading at this point. I normally use any possible opportunity to bash Apple... but this is called an API, not stealing. The only thing I hate more than Apple is bad programming and bad writing, and this one phrase captures both at the same time.

Yawn.</comment>


Facebook Is Preparing to Launch Facebook at Work - <AUTHOR> https://recode.net/2015/09/16/facebook-is-about-to-take-the-training-wheels-off-facebook-at-work/ <comment><USER2> But I already use facebook when I'm supposed to be working.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised Twitter has not made a move into the enterprise space.

I don't use Facebook, but Facebook at Work sounds interesting from what I've heard from Facebook employees using it. You can follow people, teams, and interest groups which would be useful for matrix organizations that have fluid or cross-functional teams.

</comment><comment><USER4> We have been using this at Hootsuite, and it's been a really smooth experience, especially when compared to Yammer.

</comment><comment><USER5> wonder if this will flop like yammer. wonder how many firewalls will need to be updated to allow facebook links.

<comment><USER6> Has Yammer flopped?

I mean, I don't think it's great, and I pretty much avoid it. But people (or - more importantly? - companies) seem to use it..

<comment><USER7> > I mean, I don't think it's great, and I pretty much avoid it.

If you have that opinion after trying to use it, chances are that a lot of other people think the same.

My company also supposedly uses Yammer, yet no one really seems to use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> LinkedIn will be thrilled about this. Im glad someone is finally going to challenge the LinkedIn-space but Im bummed it's Facebook that is doing it.

<comment><USER9> It's an intra-company communication solution, a not professional network. I think you should compare it w/ slack/yammer/google apps/office suite.

What is linkedin-space?

<comment><USER8> I think they would expand it to be a network of work colleagues very quickly though. It will start like Yammer and slowly roll into inter-company/inter- industry networking tool. If I were LinkedIn, Id be worried.

<comment><USER10> That is pretty much how Facebook evolved initially as well—initially, there wasn't much interaction outside of your own college network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The last thing on earth I would use for business

</comment><comment> noir-york Any Facebook for Work users here who we can reach out to? We build a cloud- based security solution and would love to get access to FbW so that we can make any necessary updates in time for launch. Any help / intros really appreciated!

<comment><USER12> Facebook might be able to give you more info if you contact them directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slack (and on-premises open source variants like Rocket Chat and Mattermost) are much better for this kind of communication I think. I think chat will eat Facebook at Work, Yammer and all the other tools.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't know that Yammer has a problem with "training cost", it is after all, basically "Facebook but for work"..

</comment><comment><USER14> How does FB@Work compare to Yammer and Jive?

</comment><comment><USER12> What are some of the use cases?</comment>


A Competing HEVC Licensing Pool - <AUTHOR> http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/66047.html <comment><USER3> Just want to say, thank you Monty and Co for the work you all do at Xiph. Ogg, Vorbis, Theora, Speex, FLAC, Opus, Icecast, and Daala... it's a seriously impressive portfolio. It probably would not be a stretch to say that billions of people use these daily, often without even realizing it (which is often the best kind of tech).

And thank you to Red Hat, Mozilla and all the others who sponsor this work too. It really is incredibly important to have these open codecs, not only for their own sake, but for the significant pressure it puts on the MPEG cartel. As bad as they are, without stuff like Xiph I think they would be much, much worse.

<comment><USER4> > It probably would not be a stretch to say that billions of people use these > daily.

I think it is a stretch. There are _maybe_ 4 billion people that access the Internet currently and most of those have limited access. Only a fraction of those know about, much less use one of those technologies. To be in the billions, 50% of people accessing the Internet would have to use one of those technologies every day. I just don't believe that is the case.

BTW, this has nothing to say of the technologies themselves. It's great that they exist. The faster we can get rid of royalty the better IMO.

<comment><USER5> Wikipedia (6th largest website in the world) serves only unencumbered formats. Apple's Siri uses Speex. As does Flash. This stuff shows up in more places than you think, precisely because it allows innovation without asking permission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My new favorite metaphor : _Schroedinger 's Cash Box_

</comment><comment> TD-Linux As another point of reference, you can compare the licensors in the MPEG-LA H.264 patent pool:

[http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx](http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx)

with those in the MPEG-LA HEVC patent pool:

[http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/HEVC/Pages/Licensors.asp...](http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/HEVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm really excited about Daala, in ways that VP8 and VP9 never excited me—VP8 seemed like a damaged version of MPEG4. Although it looks like MPEG4 will be "good enough" for the web for a long time to come, it seems like HEVC development is weighed down by some perverse incentives.

See this post from "Diary Of An x264 Developer" in 2010: [http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/360](http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/360)

Meanwhile, Opus came along and outperformed HE-AAC, which makes me think that more good things are going to come from open standards.

<comment> TD-Linux If you haven't looked at in a while, you should try VP9 again. It is much faster, especially if you try the new 1.4.0 release candidate.

Also keep in mind that MPEG 4 includes two separate video codecs, ASP and AVC, with wildly different performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _Apparently all we have to do is stand back and let the dominant players > commit suicide while they dance around Schroedinger 's Cash Box_

Don't know how true this is with regards to MPEG, but I really enjoyed this quote

<comment><USER9> One thing that's easily mixed up: MPEG sets standards. MPEG-LA is a wholly different entity to organize cashing in on them.

<comment><USER10> MPEG's policies on creating standards are basically set up to enable the MPEG- LA and new patent pools like this one to make money, though. They have a policy of not caring about whether the technology is patented or not - <USER2> could be a small tweak that'd turn it from patent-infringing to patent-free and they'd ignore it - which means that all the members can and do cram as many of their patents into MPEG standards as they can find excuses for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can someone explain why this is terrible for the licensors? If they have patents that apply, can't they pretty much setup whatever ridiculous roadblocks and tolls they desire?

Or are the open source codecs truly patent-free, as in they don't accidentally step on something that could be "infringing" legally?

<comment><USER12> The whole point of paying the MPEG-LA protection racket is that you don't get sued over patents. If there's another patent pool that claims to have their own patents embodied by one or more of the major proprietary codecs, that protection racket starts to look more like the sham it is. Someone can _always_ come out of the woodwork and claim you're infringing one of their patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> All of the new codecs the author proposed as alternatives have the same issue: companies who took no part in creating the codec may someday decide that the codec infringes their patents and make everyone using the codec pay for a license.

<comment><USER14> Abstractly, sure - all software is vulnerable that way. However, specifically, if you create a new codec that is heavily based on previous ones, you are clearly more at risk, than if you create a more original codec using novel methods. The latter is safer.

<comment><USER15> Doesn't it make sense that a codec that's heavily patented would be more likely to have all of the patents known, rather than one that hasn't been looked at, and is likely to accidentally infringe one of the patents in the minefield that exists?

<comment><USER14> I don't think so. The more novel something is, the higher the chance that no one thought of it, and so could not patent it.

If something is patented, that means people know of it, and will try to patent similar things or parts of it that haven't been patented yet, making it riskier.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailydot.com/debug/reddit-moderators-quit/ <comment><USER3> I am a freshman moderator of /r/portland.

I had thought working as a moderator would be a great way to help grow the subreddit's base. Offer more useful real world interaction points and basically have a big impact on Portland.

Instead what I've found is that 99% of the time the moderators are dealing with bad actors and that has to be the primary focus to keep the sub from falling apart.

It isn't just dealing with trolls or stepping into stopping out of control discussions.

It is actively performing anti-ban-evasion against people who are targeting the sub for disruption and then going after moderators that get in the way of these attempts.

There is at least one active case number with the Portland Police Department of a person that has both attempted to doxx our moderators and has gone to the home of a moderator and vandalized property repeatedly.

In this example, the person will not stop and creates new accounts every day.

While there are things Reddit can be doing to help, (such as improving tools to counter ban-evasion,) I think this problem is bigger than Reddit and focuses on lack of enforcement for digital actions that would qualify as genuine crimes of harassment if translated into the physical realm.

<comment><USER4> Hacker News suffers from the same problem. We have folks like dang (God bless him) manually dealing with assholes. Seems like we could solve these problems with technology, but here we are two decades into the 21st century and we still have humans cleaning the pools.

I'd be interested to know if actual forum moderators think that we could solve the bad actor problem with algorithms...

<comment><USER5> Hello, bad actor here.

I only use Hacker News and Reddit. And I always manage to get banned every few months, so I guess I'm a "bad actor".

Usually I start off OK. I can rank up 1000 points on HN or 20k karma on Reddit quickly because some of the discussions are interesting and non-inflammatory and I have interesting things to say.

But then some topics veer into domains that make me angry (hello politics), or I find a comment inappropriate or unfair, or mod behavior hypocritical. And I share that in a post that gets flagged or downvoted, and I get banned.

It is hard to detect because I think anyone has potential to become a bad actor in the eyes of a mod. There is no such thing as an unbiased mod. They will rub some people the wrong way with their comments or actions.

Some personality type's are just not compatible with what mods want to see in their well-tended gardens. I've never stalked or hounded anyone, and I've disagreed with dang's assessment of my posts once or twice, (FYI DanG is a paid mod, not a volunteer, which is probably why he's so calm about it, even though he get's riled too: read the New Yorker article about him) but this appears to be a problem techies cannot solve. Why do I say this? Because it's been going on since the 80's with Usenet. Almost 40 years of trolls, and tech hasn't solved it, but it has created some systems that have worked to keep the weeds out of the gardens. But gardens still need weeding.

<comment><USER6> I've long argued that the downvote is terrible for civil discourse, I've had to tread carefully and be warned many times when I comment on it - <USER2> writing in-depth constructive criticism and not simply whining.

It's strange to me that especially on a technology forum discussing the negatives or pitfalls of certain mechanisms is being suppressed, censored - just like with politics, as politics is inherently intertwined with everything including non-action.

<comment><USER7> The upvote/downvote thing was way, way worse when vote counts were shown per- post. That went away years ago and I think the current system seems to work pretty well when viewed through a macro lens. (In the sense of "is this a good community overall?" and "would it likely be worse if the up/down voting were entirely removed?")

I'm on another forum that opted for an up/down vote system and showed counts per-post much like news.yc used to. It created so much drama and anxiety that people were openly antagonistic towards each other over what amounted to fake- internet-points.

The solution the admins came up with over there was "keep the counts shown publicly" but also "make public the specific votes that were up/down on any given post" (with an anonymization of all historical downvotes before the policy change, but not afterwards). Within days, the community adapted and it was a huge net benefit, IMO.

<comment><USER6> What benefits do downvotes provide over just an upvote sorting the best content to the top and ability to report a link or comment for some greater infraction than difference of understanding?

<comment><USER7> Downvoting for being blatantly inaccurate or blatantly anti-community seems a worthwhile community-sourced signal for the posts of bad actors (whether temporary or permanently bad actors). This should absolutely factor into the sorting and eventual hiding of sufficiently negative posts.

For people who think of themselves as good actors, I will reflect on posts that attract downvotes and try to figure out if I should have been more constructive on a given post. (I don't "care" about the score per-se, but I do care about the community that I'm part of and if people are telling me that I'm being an asshole on a given post, I should reflect on that, decide if I agree with them, and if I do, to change next time. (Often, I think my content was fine and someone just disagreed and used a downvote to express that. That's not how I use downvotes, but if they do, so be it...))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts.

We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting _that_ goal, we quickly realized it was pretty meaningless for /r/relationship_advice because of the nature of the questions we were getting. The only sub like ours is /r/relationships, and we each differentiated from each other by having different rules and content creation controls.

As best as we know, Gallowboob enjoys the place and is pretty decent at modding, so we're pretty happy to have him. Most mods burn out quickly because of how dark the questions get as well as because of how meaninglessly violent people become when their posts are modded.

\---

Separate comment on an item in the story:

> Allam believes his time on the site has made him a more "paranoid" person > and led him to develop "borderline PTSD."

Moderating Reddit's larger subreddits is _absolutely_ capable of resulting in PTSD-like symptoms. I've been dealing with some on and off after a post some years ago where somebody who requested advice followed through with the best course of action only to find that his wife killed their kids soon after. And Reddit has absolutely no support system for things like this.

<comment><USER9> Why do you free work for a for-profit social network, especially if you say yourself that the work negatively impacts your mental health and that the community you are moderating is toxic?

What are you getting out of this?

<comment><USER10> > Why do you free work for a for-profit social network

They don't. They do the work for a community they're part of. The social network hosts that community, and tries to make a profit doing so.

I organise a meetup that's held in a pub (well, not at the moment). People coming to the meetup spend money on the pub's beer and pizza. Am i doing free work for a for-profit public house?

<comment><USER11> Yes you are. Social organizers, advertisers, trend setters, ect frequently get free product, kickbacks or some money for their 'work'. That's the work you have done.

It's not your intent to do work and it's probably not the pub owners desire to pay for meetup organizers, but regardless of your and the pub owner's intent, work has happened.

<comment><USER12> Ok, so in addition to the community getting value out of it, the pub benefitted _too_ , that's just called win-win. Why does the pub have to lose in this situation for you to be ok with the result?

<comment><USER13> They didn't really claim the inverse, just that any form of community organizing inside a private for-profit business profits the business, making it free work for them.

It's one thing to organize a bake sale in a public park, but when you choose one pub over other competitors, and they profit from it, you're doing work for the pub for free.

This is why experienced community managers works with businesses to get prices for the event discounted, or set up an agreement for profits to go towards the event.

<comment><USER12> I don't disagree that incidentally involving a business in a community's activities benefits ('does work for') the business. But that doesn't mean that the business absorbs all the value a priori and the community no longer gets any value.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear, this point is not directed at friendlybus, but to the general sentiment upthread (e.g. ramphastidae) that seems to assume that because reddit is benefiting from the existence of the community therefore the community cannot benefit from the existence of reddit. The underlying reason why is because individuals benefit from the community.

<comment><USER13> Nobody is saying that a for-profit business absorbs _all_ the value. Is your premise that if the community gains value from an action, then that action is justified no matter who else profits from it?

<comment><USER12> My premise is that if a community and individuals in it benefit from organizing themselves, then it's reasonable for the business that the community chose to host their interactions to have some amount of profit.

Also I would question if reddit actually makes much profit from individual communities like r/relationshipadvice, especially compared to the pub scenario which I find generally acceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article doesn't actually address any of the questions (eg how does he have all this time?). Note that it's on the public record that Gallowboob has worked for social media marketing companies, eg [https://www.forbes.com/sites/fernandoalfonso/2016/06/01/cash...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/fernandoalfonso/2016/06/01/cashing- in-karma-how-a-former-landscape-architect-turned-his-reddit-fame-into-a- career/)

> The Upvoted story never materialized; Reddit administrators were still > digging out from under a deluge of drama including revelations about online > harassment from its former CEO Yishan Wong and the sudden departure of > current CEO Ellen Pao. With no job, Allam spent the next six months crafting > the following cover letter and applying to jobs. In February, Ohanian's > advice paid off. Allam, better known on Reddit as gallowboob, had landed a > full-time executive gig with the United Kingdom-based media company UNILAD. > He got the job thanks to his Reddit prowess. > > ...Allam is a social media > executive at UNILAD, an online media organization that "amassed a Facebook > following of over 12 million fans, 30 million monthly unique visitors to the > website and over 1 billion video views a month," states the company on its > site.

<comment><USER15> The article is also borderline misleading, as initially I thought their real names had been posted. All that was posted was a list of which users are common moderators of large subreddits. If they are getting abuse to their accounts, the problem is the abuse, not the list.

<comment><USER16> Agree - "Outed" implies he was doxxed, but per link in the article his name was known in 2016

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I downloaded Reddit Enhancement Suite and it has a feature that marks the cumulative amount of upvotes you've given a user when you see a post of theirs. It is absolutely eye-opening just how much content is posted by the same few dozens of usernames. GallowBoob is the most infamous but to focus on him would be a mistake. It's pretty clear to me that the vast majority of content on Reddit is heavily manipulated and artificial.

<comment><USER18> Or... maybe they just post good content?

You yourself said the extension marks the cumulative amount of upvotes _you 've_ given a user. So, unless you yourself are engaged in this conspiracy to inflate GallowBoob's upvotes, then all this is evidence of is that GallowBoob seems uniquely skilled at finding and posting viral content.

<comment><USER19> He also is paid to post on reddit.

He also submits posts dozens of times, deleting them if they don't gain traction quickly.

People don't dislike gallowboob and others because the content is necessarily bad... it's just inorganic and lame. I want to see content from other regular users, not power posters working for firms.

<comment><USER20> He has also been repeatedly caught abusing his moderator status to gain more karma. This works by suppressing, or outright deleting, posts made by other users before they can gain traction, and then immediately reposting their content with his own account. And he is by far not the only power mod who is using this tactic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reddit just hasn't scaled well, and it looks like the operators of Reddit have no interest in scaling it properly.

Case in point: the moderation system. Now, if you're passionate about some niche topic, and create a sub for it and become the moderator, then fine; you rock. Things work well for you and your subscribers.

But if you're a sub of a large interest area (say, the country of India). How do you moderate there? How do you accept the diversity of thoughts and opinions, many of which run contrary to your own, but are perfectly valid in a diverse society?

Currently, /r/india has a bunch of moderators with a severe political stance (I won't go into specifics here, but I've been banned from it several times). They will warn you and ultimately ban you if you don't toe their "moderation" line. So on the one hand you have the "in" group of people threatening violence and harassing people; and on the other, you have the complement set of people getting banned for using words like "naive" (happened to me). There current moderation system (whoever started the reddit, and whoever they blessed, get to be moderators; sortof like a monarchy and a feudal system) is horribly out of date in today's world.

Here's how I would fix it: every year, have an election of moderators. People get votes proportional to their karma (or upvotes or some function thereof, which could heavily penalize bad posting behavior) earned since the last election. And the top N vote getters get to be moderators for a year.

<comment><USER22> > Reddit just hasn't scaled well, and it looks like the operators of Reddit > have no interest in scaling it properly.

Has anyone scaled online moderation well? Facebook, Twitter, Stack Overflow, etc. all struggle with moderating their communities.

<comment><USER23> People blame FB for social media woes, but I feel that FB is different from the other social networks in that it's the world you fully curate and manage. If FB is giving you grief, that's people on your green list giving you grief. If you need FB to come in to manage that, then you're basically saying you can't even handle the agency involved in freedom of association.

<comment><USER24> I half agree with you. If the "grief" that Facebook is giving you is from you not liking the posts you're seeing, then yeah, unfriend some people and move on.

Censoring private chats (among plenty of other sketch practices) is something entirely different though. I never foresee myself wanting to send "joebiden.info" to a friend on Messenger, but the fact that Facebook has decided I'm not allowed to seems problematic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Reddit's top user in the sense that he reposts to farm karma and moderates over 1000 subreddits. He is an opportunist seeking power. Generally, he is disliked by a large portion of reddit. Spamming reddit at that scale to become self appointed "top user" has a major impact on the site, and it's for the worse when it dilutes the content on a site. Unsurprisingly, there are several accusations of him selling his influence to other companies.

<comment><USER26> > Generally, he is disliked by a large portion of reddit.

Huh? 98.1% of users don't post [0]. The user mentioned in the article has the most points of anyone, meaning their posts have the most votes. That doesn't indicate dislike. Quite the opposite, actually.

Was there a poll about this user to gauge sentiment?

[0][https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/b5f9wi/let...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/b5f9wi/lets_hear_it_for_the_lurkers_the_vast_majority_of/)

<comment><USER27> That's an incredibly naive perspective on media to take.

If national news stations get high ratings does that mean people necessarily _like_ the people generating or publishing the content? Is it impossible for a medium to generate interest and attention while actively attempting to exploit or manipulate its viewers?

Most users do not notice the poster at all when upvoting a thread. Notice the top level thread [0] here talking about Reddit Enhancement Suite and the epiphany that comes with monitoring which accounts one is passively upvoting.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=23258721&goto=item%3Fi...](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=23258721&goto=item%3Fid%3D23258425%2323258721)

<comment><USER26> >If national news stations get high ratings does that mean people necessarily like the people generating or publishing the content?

I think national news stations are not an apt comparison, since they have faces. This user, for all intents and purposes, exists only in text and non- personal image posts. For that reason -- the lack of "personal connection" that voice and face provide -- upvotes are reasonable proxy for "like" and "approval".

I contend that people don't "dislike" this user specifically, but actually "dislike" the idea that the content they are consuming comes not from many original minds, but a few minds copying the same content over and over. As I pointed out in my original comment, _this is the entire platform!_ What people dislike is not the user, but the entire system.

In that regard, it is possible for a medium to generate interest and attention while actively attempting to exploit or manipulate its viewers, because that's what Reddit does. It's a classic attention merchant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> While this whole situation is a mess and nowhere near black and white I'm sure, painting Allam in particular as a victim is leaving out a lot of detail.

He is not only known for being a reddit power user, he's also infamous for abusing his mod powers, and being provocative and elitist towards people calling him out, mocking, trolling or banning them. He took over and wiped out a sub that tracked his abuse of mod powers. On the big subs he's controlling people got banned frequently for calling him out, long before this more recent drama. These whole theatrics have been going on for years. I've been targeted by him in the past, sadly I can't dig it up because reddit's comment history only goes back so far.

<comment><USER29> Additionally, much of that "precious" karma he has is from gaming reddit. He will (re)post something and if it doesn't gain traction in a short amount of time, he'll delete it and repost it. He does this over and over until the post takes off. In the past, it would be fun to watch his profile and see posts jump from "posted 30 min ago" to "posted just now" over and over again.

<comment><USER28> Case in point. I was digging around a bit after my initial comment and found this post[1]

It's crazy how little I found about well known stuff. When trolling and provoking he also deletes his own comments once they get downvoted too much, and I could hardly find anything that documents it, even though it's far from a secret

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Against_Astroturfing/comments/ans1h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Against_Astroturfing/comments/ans1hf/daily_submission_history_for_one_selfdescribed/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So, I don't get it.

Why does it matter if a few volunteer mods manage a ton of subs?

Isn't it hard to do? So they have a hard job? And it's volunteer?

And .. what? I don't understand the outrage directed at mods I guess.

Note: I'm a light Reddit user. I follow a handful of subs. And I can't name a single mod of any of them. Maybe this is more meaningful for people who spend more time on the site and are more involved in their particular subs? What, they just bash heads with mods sometimes?

<comment><USER17> As a moderator you have the power to control what people see - subscribers and visitors alike. To me, it's easy to see how moderators with an agenda can curate content to match their views. It also wouldn't surprise me if some moderators are compensated - under the radar - by influencers and marketers.

<comment><USER31> When I first started on Reddit like 10 years ago, it leaned pretty libertarian (pro Ron Paul, pro free speech, etc.). I noticed over time that it leaned farther and farther left, and I wondered what had happened to all the previous users. Then there came a conspiracy theory that a handful of users had gamed the moderation system to take control of the tone of the site overall - _especially_ the one that's the topic of TFA. There seems to be more and more evidence that the conspiracy theorists were right all along.

<comment><USER32> I started on Reddit about a decade ago also.

Early reddit was a lot more like current HN. You're right you'd see more pro Ron Paul and libertarian stuff. Then the site went mainstream.

Users on the internet are more liberal than the general pop. Add that to the fact that Reddit up/downvote system does a terrible job of allowing unpopular/controversial views to reach the top.

Those same Ron Paul fans are all in r/conservative or r/The_donald, or other conservative subs now. There are way more now than there ever were.

You don't really need a conspiracy theory when the very nature of the site and the internet explain what happened really effectively.

<comment><USER33> > _Those same Ron Paul fans are all in r /conservative or r/The_donald, or > other conservative subs now. There are way more now than there ever were._

Is this true? I hold quite a few libertarian beliefs and those conservative subs don't seem any more inviting than their left wing counterparts. It's so much about partisanship that it's off-putting to me.

<comment><USER34> The conservative subreddits have definitely experienced a tonal shift since Trump's candidacy. I would pop by occasionally for news/discussions and the change is extremely noticeable to even infrequent users like me.

Smaller political subs are probably your best bet. things like /r/moderatepolitics or /r/tuesday

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Reddit has turned into a cesspool. I'm sure the majority of users are great, honest and open minded, but you can't keep the internet outside the walled garden forever. And it only takes a handful of bad actors to ruin it for everyone.

As frustrated as I've found myself on Reddit, to the point I've all but quit using it save for some video game stuff, I still can't imagine how mods can be bothered to put up with bad actors, trolls, whiners, and fools. Everyone checks out at some point —- and as a normal user, I can and I feel no compunction about letting the conversation devolve, but when you rely on volunteers to do the policing, it's going to happen more often and with harsh consequences. And you can see on many subs that absent strong moderation, discussion on anything remotely contentious devolves into an ugly free for all. Even if the thread is locked or certain comments get deleted, it's too little too late, and the damage has been done to civil discourse.

This article has me thinking more broadly about the internet and the future of online communities. Large platforms can't thoroughly patrol every nook and cranny without unreasonable amounts of employees. And yet it's never been more important to have fair and timely moderation on serious issues. Machine learning might have a role to play here, but it'll require some sort of human oversight to provide a "starter" or some context within which a system can determine what can be censored. What else is left? Unmasking everyone isn't going to happen for good reason. The internet is in dire need of a police force, and volunteerism isn't sufficient.

</comment><comment><USER36> I understand why mods of smaller subreddits do it. They are passionate people looking for a community. The volunteer efforts they put into it help them and the community.

I do not understand why mods work for free on the huge subreddits. Abuse, spam and more would make the position horrible.

Reddit needs to start paying folks to do this job.

</comment><comment><USER22> People love the idea of decentralized control, but that is not how people willing to make the effort are allocated. We see this on Reddit, on Facebook, and we see this in open source.

On Reddit (I am not a mod but friends are) mods burn out quickly. Many people have never seen the horrible behavior that goes on in the background.

Same thing on Facebook. I moderate a small 800 person group, one which is private and has mostly pre-screened people. We burned through so many mods over the years and the worst things we encounter are insult wars as nobody is going to post porn or graphic violence with their real life account.

In open source, the heavy lifting on a lot of projects is done by just 1-2 people. Sure the project might have 30 contributors, but it is those 1 or 2 who dedicate their evening when a major bug is found to fixing it.

In all these cases, the work is mostly done by whoever is willing to do it. Over time, people who find the work stressful quit and those who don't end up taking on an enormous amount.

<comment><USER33> The issue is that we know reddit moderators play politics. Subs are taken over or subverted. Having control over a sub can give you an opportunity to control what people see and read. If you then find out that a small group of moderators moderates a large number of the big subs then it makes the decentralized control into centralized control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I stopped being an active user of Reddit about 5 years ago.

I felt that it wasn't a forum that was conductive to interesting discussion.

But also, I know it's a cliche to talk about the eternal September effect, but somehow it feels like the discourse in the site is even more stupid today.

At least to me it seems like it's just useful as a problem and answer site you Google on.

But now it seems like to some of users they feel like the website is the definer and trendsetter of western culture.

Instead of a website where people post memes and shit post.

Like what am I reading? That there's a shadowy cabal of moderators?

Who cares if they're running the big subreddits?

Even who cares if they're being paid by companies to post things.

Reddit is website that does little moderation themselves (except when it gets them in the news) and rely on volunteers to actually manage the site.

What do expect? That people are going to spend 10s or hours a week for the joy of community? So they can make Reddit's employees and shareholders money?

When it comes to Facebook people say "if you're not paying for it, you're the product"

But it's the same for Reddit. But this time it's the users which are taking advantage?

Oh no.

But perhaps I don't understand the seriousness of Reddit.

<comment><USER38> I think most people take issue with the fact that reddit, one of the most trafficked websites in the world, has some of their biggest subs controlled by a few people. You can easily use this power to shape/influence public opinion of a large number of users.

<comment><USER39> More worrying to me is the great effects that botnets can have on reddit post. If you can get a post off and running early, it will appear on hot and then get to the front page, and grow exponentially. I mean, the internet research agency is no big secret and this sort of work is their bread and butter 1.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I was a moderator on /r/blackpeopletwitter and the amount of racist and outright vitriol we received was fucking insane. There are people out there who really have it out for BPT and we banned dozens of users daily who were legit there to only drop the n word with a hard r and make jokes about monkeys or something.

I deleted my reddit account in a panic after someone sent me a DM saying they knew where I lived and I saw a guy wondering around my apartment complex with his phone out like he was recording. I never want to be highly visible on reddit again.

<comment><USER41> I feel the safest way to use Reddit is to create a new account for every subreddit/community/subculture that is in any way tied to real life, and absolutely minimize the amount of information you give out in each one by keeping it relevant to that particular topic.

If you have some niche gaming/entertainment/etc interests, use an account specifically for those without ever delving into personal details.

Have a separate account for BPT, where again, you minimize sharing personal details.

If you have a hobby that has more real life interaction (for instance is location based, or is small and you use personally identifiable information), use a separate account and minimize sharing anything not related to the topics.

Obviously if reddit gets hacked/info is leaked good luck, but controlling available information about yourself seems increasingly mandatory to protect yourself from the crazies if you want to participate in online discussions.

<comment><USER40> My solution was just to not use reddit interactively anymore. I used the site for about 10 years before I got tired of wasting afternoons browsing or arguing past other users. Stuff I want to discuss usually gets linked in a discord channel and I talk about it with my friends.

When I browse now I just skim a few subreddits I like and refrain from interacting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just five months ago users were getting _permanently suspended from Reddit_ for mildly criticizing GallowBoob.

You can see it here: [https://old.reddit.com/r/AgainstKarmaWhores/comments/eb146l/...](https://old.reddit.com/r/AgainstKarmaWhores/comments/eb146l/gallowboob_removed_a_mod_from_rfreecompliments/)

I doubt that he would walk away from the website even though a number of users would be happier.

There are hundreds of fantastic moderators on Reddit that genuinely help people and there are also a few people who want to feel powerful by manipulating others.

<comment><USER33> He's probably just going to make a new account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> There are subs dedicated to calling out his bs. One sub has figured out how he games reddit in his favor for karma and front page placement.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, I can't think of any one single action that would make Reddit a better site overall than him leaving it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Moderating a medium to large sub is a thankless task.

I moderated a sub with 100,000 subscribers for a couple of years.

Most of the work was removing obviously bad content. There was a user who would make a new account every few weeks, post various comments to make it legit, and then start posting legitimate comments with links to hardcore pornography disguised as normal links. Users once rebelled because I removed 100% illegal content.

Users and mods on the subreddit started to get hit with SLAPP lawsuits at one point. I was always very careful to hide my real identity but that was the final straw. I stepped down from modding shortly after.

Modding is a near impossible task and as a subreddit gets bigger it gets exponentially harder.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think the biggest problem with reddit is that the simplest subreddit name is going to attract the largest audience, and if you don't like the moderators or community there, then there's nothing you can do about it. There's only one /r/politics, and if you don't like it then you'll have to move to, say, /r/notpolitics, which is going to have less visibility and a smaller community simply because of its name. What would help would be, for lack of a better term, "namespaced" subreddits. There wouldn't be a /r/politics, there'd be a /r/namespace1/politics and a /r/namespace2/politics, and there'd effectively be no problem with visibility: if someone's looking for a subreddit to discuss politics, then there isn't a default, and you'll have to explicitly choose which community and moderation style you want. The best way to implement this would be a federated reddit, with each server being it's own namespace. If you don't like federated-reddit1.com/r/politics, then move to federated- reddit2.com/r/politics. There'd be a problem with bubbles, but that wouldn't be any worse than what already exists.

</comment><comment><USER46> It seems to me like the main purpose of moderation is to make sure posts conform to the theme of the subreddit... to keep things on topic. Almost everything else can be taken care of by the downvotes of the community members.

A subreddit is like a community where every citizen has a gun. They can police themselves by downvoting each other... the only thing mods need to do is make sure the theme of the community stays on track.

I'm the sole mod of a subreddit with over 600k subscribers and I basically do nothing. My case is admittedly special because the subreddit is a weird kind of "game" with very specific, well-defined rules about how to reply to posts (and a bot that deletes replies that violate this rule), but in general I feel like people don't have enough faith in the ability of a community to handle itself. Occasionally I've had to ban people who are spamming /new with disturbing content, and I did end up setting some useful automoderator rules, but otherwise I find that the community runs itself.

I've gotten a few messages from people over the years saying they're unsubscribing because they wanted me to take a more involved role in moderating the content posted to the subreddit, removing posts they thought were "low quality". That's fair, but I don't think it should be up to me what counts as "low quality"... I'm just one person. The beauty of a community is watching it develop organically from the actions of thousands of people, not molding it into some shape you happen to prefer. It's like an organism, and it has a mechanism to achieve homeostasis: upvotes and downvotes.

<comment><USER42> AskOuija? I appreciate your take on moderation. I think what happened on WorldPolitics with IAmanAnonymousCoward shows that at least a small bit of work is needed to keep things on topic, but overall I think free speech and self-moderation is better.

What seems unacceptable for moderators to do, which seems to happen a lot, is banning users from multiple subreddits due to comments or behavior in a different subreddit. That's really a power trip and it sounds like something that a lot of moderators on 'the list' have done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Vaguely reminiscent of MrBabyMan and Digg.

</comment><comment><USER48> I was outraged when I first saw that list and how a few mods control everything, but this totally sheds some new light on the situation. The internet can be really shitty sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm sorry but I don't know what to make of this. Of course harassment is terrible, but what the hell is going on?

Last week a reddit thread discussing this list was linked on HN, someone linked to a site where you could see deleted comments. There were a _lot_. But it was mainly people asking very reasonable questions and wondering out loud whether these "power mods" got paid, perhaps by advertisers or influencer agencies, because doing this kind of moderation is clearly way more than a full time job. Other deleted comments were wondering if those accounts were perhaps shared (again super sensible question given the amount of time it would cost). At the very worst some of the deletions devolved into wild speculations (as reddit is wont to).

Point is, obviously they _do_ get protection from the site. And apparently sometimes unreasonably so.

Some stinky stuff is going on below the surface, is my feeling. Doesn't mean that person gets to be harassed, of course.

Also, I don't really buy the mental health comparison to FB moderators. The latter is an absolute shit job, and it's done by anonymous _teams_ of _paid_ people. That doesn't really rhyme with being the most upvoted Reddit celebrity of all time, with their seemingly superhuman sense to post the juiciest meme at the most opportune time.

</comment><comment><USER50> There is definitely an anomalous uptick with reddit harassment these days. I posted a positive article to /r/Coronavirus and I was immediately harassed in the dumbest way possible (someone trying to counter an article I posted but their argument was actually restating the article thesis). He ended up getting a ton of traction because he probably sounded confident. It left me confused and saddened- I owe a lot of what I learned in the last few years through great discussions on reddit and hn, hopefully reddit's deterioration by bored/malicious actors is stopped.

<comment><USER51> Well the coronavirus really does bring out the worse part of Reddit. If your article at all suggested that cases are decreasing/it's not going to lead to the end of the world, that sub is going to attack you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> "Five people moderate the 92 largest subreddits."

If that's true, why? How could an individual possibly have enough time and attention to moderate more than one subreddit with millions of users?

<comment><USER53> NodeRed or Apache NiFi can help a great deal with that.

Both are great at posting and reposting (on and off Reddit, or between FB, Reddit, Twitter, etc), along with controlling botfarms.

edit: Seriously, why the downvotes? We had a NiFi post a week ago. And those of us who do OSINT and investigative work also use deanonymizing techniques. We automate our defenses as well using similar.

<comment><USER52> Probably because it kind of ignored my point. For example, r/pics has thirty- six moderators. Some of them are undoubtedly inactive, but it's still obvious that moderating a single massive subreddit is an order of magnitude more work than can be done by one person and therefore giving one person moderator rights over multiple does not increase the amount or quality of moderation. One person cannot use that power to do more good for the site, so the question is what are they using that power for and why do they deserve it?

<comment><USER53> I sait on another comment on this article that being a mod allows you to strongly astroturf and control the narrative. From there, and having loads of bots, allows you to manufacture consent or dissent. And the moderation power allows you to remove what you wish not to address.

It's sheer power. It's not about the money, per se... But those with power get money, and those with money seek power.

It has nothing to do with good, in most cases.

(And yes, I'm a moderator of small groups. I just remove spam and malware.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Big/default subs are fast becoming outright mainstream trash on reddit. Fortunately like small businesses in the economy the smaller subs are holding the whole show together.

This is a positive change -- that one user account had too much power over too many subs. I refuse to believe money wasn't becoming involved.

Size breeds skepticism and the GallowBoob account (whomever was using it) just got too big.

</comment><comment><USER55> GallowBoob is a scourge, I'm sad to see a human being harassed and I hope he'll see justice, but he's also all it's wrong with reddit moderation and two wrongs don't cancel out to make one a saint.

I encourage you to dig into the threads of the alleged post that made him 'flip' [https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/gk0w4c/t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/gk0w4c/to_have_independently_moderated_subreddits/)

some are straight up harassment, which is sad. some describe however all the many things he did to ruin other people enjoyment to the site, most common of which was banning users to steal good content and repost it for karma, to fuel his own agenda, which include for example being paid from netflix to run advertisements as normal posts trough the subs he mods.

he's not the good, loving moderator that the article describes.

</comment><comment><USER56> The way I see it is someone who has enjoyed a "privileged" position without transparency or accountability for a long time is surprised that people find issues with concentration of moderation powers (especially across subreddits).

Makes me wonder what is it that people find so appealing in having moderation of subreddits as an almost full time job.

<comment><USER57> Concentration of influence in the media is a real issue, yes. However, doxing him isn't a reasonable or helpful response to those concerns.

<comment><USER56> Completely agree.

And while there are advantages to those positions being "anonymous" the impact of an eventual doxxing is heightened by it.

Maybe an initial greater transparency would have been better in the long run. Or something like rotation of positions, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The issue he was "outed" over (concerning alleged control of a significant portion of reddit by a small number of users) was discussed here previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173018)

</comment><comment><USER59> GallowBoob tells a sad story, but the fact remains that they and a few others had far too much power. They were arguably also spread far too thin. So altogether, I'm not sad to see them go.

Also, their behavior deleting posts and banning users over discussion of this issue has been egregious.

</comment><comment><USER60> Is he done "after being outed", or done after finding a comfy job in social media management?

</comment><comment><USER61> The 'spam filter' enabled on most large subreddits greatly adds to the 'echo chamber' nature of Reddit and leads to a tyrannical majority. If you get downvotes in a major sub due to not agreeing with the prevailing opinion, you are rate-limited and you can only post once every 10 minutes.

Imagine being in a debate with dozens of people and being rate-limited to only posting every 10 minutes because your opinion wasn't agreed to by people doing voting.

</comment><comment><USER62> Thank god he left. He's a pathetic excuse for a human being.

That being said, a great number of the active mods on that platform seems to be a couple steps away from becoming power tripping maniacs. It's one thing to stop spam and illegal content. It's another to censor discussions because whatever content was posted can be interpreted as against rule 4.1B §2. How hard is it to leave the content up and let users downvote it if it's not so relevant?

</comment><comment><USER63> This is your signal to build the thing you were thinking about.

So much money on the table for anyone that can reinvent, but allow easy migration from that once great site.

<comment><USER64> If someone's going after this, my killer feature would be user-driven moderation/filtering. That is, what I see should be determined by _me_ , not some moderator or the hivemind. Almost certainly this would need an AI element to learn what I want to see. Potentially there could be a "people like you" assist to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Jim Leff, who founded and ran Chowhound long ago, has a lot to say about the perils of moderating an online community:

[https://jimleff.blogspot.com/2008/08/always-talk-to- mask.htm...](https://jimleff.blogspot.com/2008/08/always-talk-to-mask.html)

</comment><comment><USER66> I'm sure there's an article in there somewhere: [https://i.imgur.com/GqQCnVG.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/GqQCnVG.jpg)

For some reason it even crashed my mobile browser.

As I was scrolling, more ads loaded and kept moving the text around.

</comment><comment><USER67> I feel sad seeing this gaining traction, when Reddit's appalling history of enabling and supporting abuse has gone unchecked for so long. Why care about it now? You didn't care before. This is a real question. Why is now the time you choose to engage?

</comment><comment><USER68> I was once banned from a travel sub for suggesting to a 19 year old woman asking about safety in Egypt that it might not be the best place to travel by herself. I had been there myself and know women who have traveled Egypt on their own who also recommended against it.

My comment was seized upon by mods of the sub as:

1: Mansplaining (She didn't specifically ask for male opinions so I should shut up).

2: Racist Hate Speech (Because saying Egypt might not be perfectly safe - something I would also say about many cities in the USA - is somehow racist to Egyptians).

3: Sexist (Women can do anything that men can do and I was apparently suggesting otherwise).

I was summarily banned from that sub plus a bunch of other travel subs by the same few mods. I don't know what the answer is for moderation on Reddit but whatever they are doing right now is definitely not working.

</comment><comment><USER69> Moderation is akin to public service. Taking on the duty means putting yourself in a place of visibility and accountability. It is no surprise that the pressure is too much for some.

</comment><comment><USER70> The worst spammer on reddit leaves the site? Good riddance. Though I'm sure he has a few spare accounts to post his stuff.

</comment><comment><USER71> Oh good. Blocking him made reddit much more enjoyable.

</comment><comment><USER72> Oddly enough there is nothing to be seen about this on the reddit frontpage.

</comment><comment><USER73> Good riddance, IMO

</comment><comment><USER74> The user in question is GallowBoob.

<comment><USER75> He earned so many imaginary points on a platform, that other people target his status and content. It's not like he couldn't make new accounts. But hey, it's the platform's responsibility to support him for the content he posts and the moderation he performs? I cannot have sympathy for his own reindeer games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Can someone please explain how doxing works at a technical level? Suppose I post something on Twitter or Youtube that someone does not like how would they dox me? For example, CNN outed a guy who did a video where Trump bashes a guy superimposed with CNN in a boxing ring. Wouldn't such attempts at doxing people also put pressure on their freedom of speech and expression?

<comment><USER77> It doesn't have to be that technical. People search for references that connect your username with a real name and possibly a location. If there is only one person with your name in your town, then your home address and likely phone number can be derived from there. No hacking skills required there, just researching.

If you send the target a link and they click on it and you control the server, you can find the IP address use to click on it and aren't using a VPN.

Home IP addresses don't change often, so with the IP address you have another bit of information that can searched on. This might lead to a second username associated with the IP address.

Sometimes simply paying attention to the content they post reveals a lot.

Once on a Reddit someone posted a "Guess what state this photo is from" post. It could have been from many places, but I checked out his profile and all of his posts from the same place in Pennsylvania, so I guessed that. He seemed amazed that anyone guessed so fast, but also unaware how the other content he posted made it very easy to fill in the blank.

Also, many people aren't trying that hard to hide, because they don't expect that anyone to put any effort into "outting" them.

<comment><USER78> > Also, many people aren't trying that hard to hide, because they don't expect > that anyone to put any effort into "outting" them.

On top of that, people who are trying to hide _now_ may have a decade or two of _not_ trying to hide in their Internet history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> > because I don't know if they're trying, you know, [to] get my IP.

Use a VPN, double-hop if you really care.

</comment><comment><USER80> Many people see this as moderators controlling too much, but it's what happens in a mostly free system. Some people will over-achieve and 99% will underachieve or achieve just enough to get by.

This has been seen time and time again in any system involving humans.

A big issue with Reddit is that it has subs dedicated to encouraging mentally ill and anti-social behavior.

These things tend to eventually escalate into the real-world where someone eventually gets hurt or killed.

<comment><USER81> Can you provide some examples of subreddits that encourage such anti- social/mentally ill behavior?</comment></comment>