656 upvotes, 8 direct replies (showing 8)
View submission: SEQUENCE - FINAL STITCH (THEATRICAL)
I just sorta wish that this wasn't overtaken by bots. I wish it was something that everybody could really, truly contribute to. Yeah, it felt sorta incoherent at most points but it was only well put together because of some Discord groups, not because of Reddit working together to upvote what was thought of as the best. Thanks u/youngluck for running this entire thing anyway, r/sequence was definitely a lot of fun to take part in and watch. Oh, and that ARG was extremely fun to work on. To redeem Sequence a bit, it was definitely better than CircleOfTrust.
Comment by youngluck at 05/04/2019 at 06:55 UTC*
219 upvotes, 5 direct replies
FWIW I don't think the bots we're the biggest factor in why people felt excluded. The format itself doesn't lend well to co-existing ideas. At most, It's the display of one contribution at any one given time and that, in and of itself, will always leave the majority feeling left out. Also for the record, the Narrators are taking a lot of undeserved heat that should be aimed at us, and by 'us' I mean me. In the beginning, it was them and the sneks that were able to figure out how it worked given little to no information. Their description and instruction was so good, it was the only thing stickied throughout the length of the experiment. It was my fault for not being clear immediately about what users were supposed to do, and they came in and filled that void better than I could (I tried). They organized and created a network, not a mega bot, that exploited a weakness in the system itself. One that we tried many things to correct over the course of the experiment, but that ultimately was no match for the exclusionary nature of the medium itself. I, personally, enjoyed the more chaotic early acts because there were one or two breaths of *slight* cohesion amongst a sea of randomness... a model that more accurately represents Reddit. Ultimately they made best strategic use of the thing we put out, and despite the autocracy shenanigans, they collectively put in a ton of work to tell their story. Yes it was JUST their story, and that sucks, but that is mostly a failure on the machine. There have been a ton of really good suggestions and critiques on what could be done better and the entirety of that burden falls on us, not them.
Comment by Daniel_Is_I at 05/04/2019 at 05:20 UTC
31 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The main problem a lot of people have mentioned with the premise of Sequence is that there were really only two ways it could have gone:
1. It becomes a mainly incoherent mess of communities trying to force their own scenes in, narrative be damned, with the only sense being made due to chains of broadly-appealing memes. (See Monty Python in Act I)
2. One group games the system and pushes everyone else out, and the only way they are *possibly* ousted is by everyone bandwagoning on the runner-up scene out of spite for the leader rather than any actual love for the runner-up. (See "fuck the narrators" scenes in the later acts.)
Individuals and small communities can't contribute their own unique flavor because they'll get crushed. It just forces you to either compromise and vote for something you really don't care that much for, or not participate at all.
It was interesting-enough for a while but around Act II I realized I couldn't contribute at all and increasingly little of what I was interested in was reaching #1 or #2, which rendered my participation meaningless.
To redeem Sequence a bit, it was definitely better than CircleOfTrust.
I mean, not participating at all was preferable to CircleOfTrust, so that's not exactly a shining point.
Comment by jamez470 at 05/04/2019 at 05:11 UTC
39 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Better then circle of trust, but I feel it was mediocre at best. Maybe without the bots it would have been better.
Comment by Jackieboi69 at 07/04/2019 at 10:15 UTC
10 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I feel like this was a problem near the end of /r/place as well, basically you either bot up or you were pushed out. It makes for a pretty picture but people by the end couldn't add anything when an army of scripts reverts any impact you could've made no matter how minute it is. If Place ever came back it wouldn't be nearly the same, the bots are already done and user friendly enough that most anyone could use them thanks to /r/place clones on the internet.
I honestly do not understand why the admins allow bots to so easily amass so much influence with these events, they are meant to be social experiments but you pretty much get the same social experence as trying to hold a conversation with an Amazon Alexa.
Comment by IVIorgz at 05/04/2019 at 11:43 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Yeah it's not quite like Twitch Plays Pokemon
Comment by NorthernLaw at 06/04/2019 at 06:06 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Im glad too, i never got to submit a gif but i keep commenting so hopefully I get the badge
Comment by fastsragon49 at 05/04/2019 at 16:04 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I don’t get why everyone hates circle of trust. I thought it was great and exciting. You had to build a bigger circle with the help of others, which meant trying to figure out who would want you to succeed and who would want you to fail. I always had a moment of excitement when I sent someone my key because I didn’t know if my circle would still be around after that. It was a neat social experiment, relatively well-implemented, and as far as I remember the instructions were better than this. I think this was the worst out of all April gags, but it’s still cooler than the standard “April Fools!” most people do.
Comment by UltimateCurryCel at 05/04/2019 at 07:04 UTC
-4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
How is this better than circle of trust?