5291 upvotes, 69 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: Karma for text-posts (AKA self-posts)
As a moderator for /r/AskReddit (and /r/IAmA but this doesn't affect there as much), PLEASE make this optional. I remember when text-posts gained karma and it was a total nightmare for us. We will see a mass influx of low-effort & catchy posts that are designed to get upvotes. It's going to be lots of shitposting. Text posts improved BECAUSE they didn't count for karma. People making texts posts did it for the content and not internet points. The main reason for the removal was the new influx of "Upvote if..." posts. The entire front page would be full of them. Those aren't as possible anymore with the absence of /r/reddit.com but it shows how giving text posts link karma can devolve the content into crap.
We're already talking about how to harden auto-mod to help us out but we'll likely need more mods. We'll also have to deal with an influx of modmail from people who will get upset at us for removing their post that was "going to get so much karma".
At the scale we're at, we WILL feel the heat for this and as someone who remembers how things were back when reddit was even less mainstream than today, I don't see how a bigger audience is going to make this less of the karma-grabbing shitshow than it was before.
I'm really having a hard time seeing the benefit of enabling this. The points don't really mean anything and this just incentivizes the people who DO care about meaningless points to try to gain karma. It doesn't really reward good content and the shit content it garners is why the points were removed in the first place.
Edit: It's already started. - https://i.imgur.com/ZnKaaVv.png
These are just the ones mentioning it. It's not even counting the ones taking advantage of it.
Edit 2: Also, to add, this is quite a huge change to dump on moderators without any heads up what-so-ever. It's not cool to make us scramble to react to something that has an instant change on the types of users & content we receive and directly impacts our moderation strategy.
Comment by ThiefOfDens at 19/07/2016 at 19:09 UTC*
87 upvotes, 3 direct replies
What's not to understand?
They are trying to present this as, "Hey, look, now you can get karma for text posts! It's an additional reward/incentive for taking the time and effort to generate those awesome self posts that get so much attention!"
But, since reddit is an aggregator, and an aggregator is only as good as its content, they are trying to encourage more people to generate more content. Why? There will be a lot of shit, but they don't care about that. They don't actually have to do any of the moderating themselves. As long as there are at least a few more of those legendary-status self-posts in all the crap, that means more attention for reddit, which draws users, which means more people to advertise to/buy reddit gold (and to potentially generate content/spread the word to their friends).
Which is good for reddit, becauuuuuse, as per the user agreement:
You retain the rights to your copyrighted content or information that you submit to reddit ("user content") except as described below.
##***By submitting user content to reddit, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies, perform, or publicly display your user content in any medium and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so.##***
You agree that you have the right to submit anything you post, and that your user content does not violate the copyright, trademark, trade secret or any other personal or proprietary right of any other party.
Please take a look at reddit’s privacy policy for an explanation of how we may use or share information submitted by you or collected from you.
(Emphasis mine)
So, yeah. They are incentivizing more posting because when you self-post they own your shit.
IMO they are downplaying the reason why some of those great posts were generated in the first place: they came from a place of inspiration and effort and not necessarily from a place of greed or attention-seeking. But now reddit is trying to generate artificial inspiration with karma.
Tsk, tsk.
Comment by roastedbagel at 19/07/2016 at 18:20 UTC
460 upvotes, 5 direct replies
Edit 2: Also, to add, this is quite a huge change to dump on moderators without any heads up what-so-ever. It's not cool to make us scramble to react to something that has an instant change on the types of users & content we receive and directly impacts our moderation strategy.
For fucking serious...A heads up would have been appreciated, and you and I both know that the admins *most likely* discussed the implications it would have specifically in /r/AskReddit, and still didn't mention anything to us. That's what bothers me about this. Give us 12 hours to prepare, that's all we need.
Comment by girafa at 19/07/2016 at 19:58 UTC*
47 upvotes, 0 direct replies
/r/Movies mod here. We also badly want an option to opt out, and feel our content is easily going to diminish because of this. We perpetually battle a circlejerk of topics and self-posts are the last bastion for users who wanted to discuss movies without competing for attention as much.
All of our mod self-posts wrapping up news, our official movie discussions, stickied routines that have been operating for years - now we'll be accused of clamoring for karma at the expense of the users. We shouldn't be in competition.
Normally I don't react harshly to changes here, and take umbrage with knee-jerk reactions of those who do. This one? I don't see any benefit yet for our sub, and seriously plead to have the option to opt out.
edit: spelling
Comment by [deleted] at 19/07/2016 at 18:46 UTC*
87 upvotes, 3 direct replies
The emotional twists and turns in this thread are incredible.
Until 5 minutes ago I never cared either way about receiving or not receiving karma for text-posts.
Then I read this announcement and oh my god, suddenly karma for text-posts seems amazing. Something I'd always wanted without realising. A breath-taking new revelation.
Now I've read your comment, and I now think it seems like a horrific mistake. Surely one of the worst things to ever happen to the world.
To summarise. Nobody cared, so there was probably no reason to change anything. (Or at least do some kind of small-scale trial first instead of just changing a fundemental aspect of Reddit across the entire site without even testing it, or mentioning it beforehand in any way.)
Comment by 10thTARDIS at 19/07/2016 at 18:27 UTC
102 upvotes, 3 direct replies
/r/LetsNotMeet and /r/nosleep mods are not happy about this, either.
This really has the potential to hurt LNM, since we're nonfiction only-- we already have problems with people making up fake stories, and this will just expand the problem.
Comment by OpticalNecessity at 19/07/2016 at 18:14 UTC*
220 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I mod /r/confession and fear this exact karma gaining as well. It's going to put a lot of strain on the mods to filter out the catchy posts that are designed to get upvotes from legitimate confessions.
A simple "Opt out" would resolve this immediately.
Comment by codeverity at 19/07/2016 at 18:06 UTC
596 upvotes, 5 direct replies
/u/powerlanguage should see this. Like, when the mods of one of the biggest subs is pleading against this, I hope they listen or add some control.
Edit: jesus, that edit - I feel sorry for your mods tbh :/
Comment by thehollowman84 at 19/07/2016 at 18:20 UTC
123 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Isn't that what Reddit is paying you for? To deal with their bullshit?
Wait they don't pay you?
Also, I thought the admins were gonna be more open, did they not discuss this with the mods of major subs before the chance?
Comment by [deleted] at 19/07/2016 at 18:13 UTC
84 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Pretty surprised that this didn't get run by mods of large subs like /r/AskReddit, tbh.
Comment by research_humanity at 19/07/2016 at 18:10 UTC
150 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Admin really needs to start communicating with mods before changing stuff like this.
Comment by Willravel at 19/07/2016 at 18:44 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I suggest going private temporarily, both as a way to cool off the sub in the wake of the change and as a way to communicate with the admins that this kind of immediate move isn't appreciated. That move has gotten admin attention before.
Comment by Atheist101 at 19/07/2016 at 18:14 UTC
64 upvotes, 6 direct replies
ahaha /r/askreddit is gonna become shitpost-central
Comment by Silly_Balls at 19/07/2016 at 19:06 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm really having a hard time seeing the benefit of enabling this.
Money. Always money!
PS Not to insult you, but you are kind of a rube. You are putting in shittons of work for free... FREE... Actually it's worse than that. You are putting in shittons of work to make some else money! You guys/gals who moderate should be getting paid, and you all need to fucking revolt and tell reddit to piss off, until it can cut you in on the action. Askreddit is a shit show without the mods, and reddit corp is sitting back laughing because it outsourced a job to you for free.
Comment by AFK_Tornado at 19/07/2016 at 18:36 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Is this going to be a big enough demand that the AskReddit mods take the subreddit offline? I suspect the site admin won't want to put in the time to make it optional unless they already planned to do so or they face massive rebellion from top subs.
Also, if they make mods able to disable link karma for self posts, people are going to ask for the option to disable link karma for link posts as well. Which, honestly, would be great, but I feel like the admin would hate that idea.
Comment by cup-o-farts at 19/07/2016 at 21:50 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The fucking idiots running this place don't really give a fuck.There is ZERO reason to do this at all. Zero, except to somehow gain more users by providing a way for them to post shitty content easier and for more fake internet points. They would rather do that and just dump a shitload of work on volunteer mods, because they literally don't give a shit and aren't monitoring a goddamn thing. Fucking morons running this place.
Comment by Hipvagenstein at 19/07/2016 at 19:30 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Were the /r/AskReddit mod community not consulted on this at all? You'd think that the admins would require a close relationship with the largest self-post subreddit in order to pass something like this in the first place. That's where the boots are on the ground - where this change will actually be felt.
To imagine this decision being made without consulting your own mods is actually astounding.
Comment by ACoderGirl at 19/07/2016 at 23:06 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
As an aside, I always find it interesting that karma makes people want to post. It's such a foreign idea to me. Everything I post (which is 99% commenting) is posted simply because I wanted to discuss something or make a joke or ask a question or whatever. It's never really about the karma.
The karma does have some value, namely letting me know if others felt my post contributed something or even as a gauge of a subreddit being shitty (eg, for when I'm sure that a controversial post was very reasonable and thus was surely downvoted for the idea only). And for others, karma is obviously useful for sorting the posts in an interesting way.
But that's solely karma for the post, not total. It's the total karma that I don't get the appeal of. That's an interesting metric, but I don't see it as a game. I mean, there's far, far more fun games to play if that's all you want. I'm not actually sure if there's a use for the total karma metric. But at the same time, I question why this changes makes a difference. Surely anyone who wants to game for karma can do it with link karma (easier to repost because you can just grab old content) or do it with comments only (which is arguably easier because commenting a lot is normal while posting a lot trips a lot of red flags).
And if you want attention, then it doesn't matter one way or the other what your total karma is. If anything, high total karma just gets you called out for being an "attention whore".
Comment by [deleted] at 19/07/2016 at 18:37 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Comment by PostPostModernism at 19/07/2016 at 19:37 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So abandon ship. You guys aren't obliged to mod, you're all volunteers. Let the defaults go to hell and we'll see if the admins do anything to right the ship.
Comment by pizzabash at 19/07/2016 at 18:45 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I say close down ask reddit make it posts have to be approved my moderators. Drastic but thats the only course of action i see avaible to you guys atm
Comment by jsmooth7 at 19/07/2016 at 18:07 UTC
8 upvotes, 4 direct replies
But link-based subreddits have to deal with this all the time. (Plus spam bots already use /r/askreddit to look more legitimate.) The fact that text based posts don't get karma has always felt pretty arbitrary to me.
Comment by SlothOfDoom at 19/07/2016 at 18:36 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It has become quite obvious that the admins have absolutely no respect for moderators. I'm not even surprised anymore.
Comment by funderbunk at 19/07/2016 at 23:16 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Fuck it, you know what - **maybe it's time for another blackout.** Last time, while a lot of people thought it was because Victoria got fired, it was really about a lack of communication between admins and mods.
Now, a year later, we see that same lack of communication. And while Victoria getting fired had a severe impact on /r/Iama, this change will have a big impact on *every* subreddit, and they couldn't be bothered to even give you guys a few days heads up?
How about better modmail? Or moderation tools? Were *any* of the promised improvements in tools or admin/mod communications ever delivered, or was is just more promises and excuses?
I can take a day or two without reddit. Heck, make it a week. **Maybe shutting down the defaults while you figure out how to deal with this change will get their attention again for a few days.**
Comment by Rihsatra at 19/07/2016 at 18:12 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The amount of shit posts you guys get is already pretty high, I can't imagine /r/AR after this change.
Comment by etr4807 at 19/07/2016 at 18:32 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I disagree with the idea that it doesn't reward good content. As someone who frequents subreddits where users write stories, I've always found it odd that the writer for an amazing story gains "nothing" other than upvotes. Now they also have the ability to gain karma from them, which I think is a good thing.
Having said that, I also find your points entirely valid, so perhaps making it optional would be more of a compromise.
