
Reddit is now banning entire high-quality domains - taylorbuley
http://www.reddit.com/r/BannedDomains/comments/v08ho/reddit_is_now_banning_entire_highquality_domains/
======
lmkg
Seems a lot of people think Reddit should just "get better" at detecting this
sort of stuff, as if effective anti-gaming systems are trivial to implement
and will keep out an adaptable foe. If Reddit could wave a magic wand and make
all the shady bullcrap vanish, I'm sure they would, but that's an unrealistic
scenario.

It looks to me, Reddit simply doesn't want to get involved in a land war in
Asia. Trying to tinker with the rewards systems means investing a greater and
greater fraction of their resources to fighting opponents who are better-
funded and adaptable, in an asymmetric fight that favors the attacker. Even if
they could succeed, that comes at an opportunity cost of what they could have
done to improve Reddit in ways that actually have an impact, instead of just
treading water.

Perma-banning these domains could be the full strategy. The long-term strategy
could also just be to negotiate with these domains, with these initial bans
acting as the "No really, I'm fucking serious" threat that gives themj real
leverage. I would prefer their strategy is the latter, but I wouldn't really
blame them for picking the former either.

~~~
pdubs
The thing is that, according to the DailyDot article that's been posted around
here, the account that lead to The Atlantic being banned was posting hundreds
of links to The Atlantic and their subsidiaries. What's non-trivial about
detecting that?

~~~
starrhorne
It becomes non trivial to detect when they start spamming using 100s of aged
accounts run through proxies. You can detect that lots of people are
submitting stories to the atlantic, but it looks organic.

------
pdubs
BusinessWeek.com, Phys.org, ScienceDaily.com, TheAtlantic.com are all banned
sitewide?

The Atlantic is a pretty well-respected publication, as is BusinessWeek. Why a
content aggregator would ban actual _content_ is beyond me.

~~~
catch23
TheAtlantic pays people to spam the reddit with content, and buys high karma
accounts to vote up content. Essentially, the companies being banned are the
ones with shady business practices.

~~~
paulhauggis
If this was happening on HN, the majority of domains would be banned.

When did this start being a "shady business practice"?

~~~
benologist
This is happening on HN - bostinno.com literally has dozens of accounts,
macobserver.com, bgr.com, extremetech.com and a bunch of other sites all have
a handful of accounts each. A lot seems to slip through the cracks.

~~~
Zarel
I think you're missing paulhauggis's point - by "if this was happening", he
means "if we banned domains that were being submitted by paid marketers". His
point is that doing so shouldn't be considered a shady business practice.

~~~
spambot
It's wrong because employees are getting paid to submit as many links as
possible to increase page views.

Here's another bostinno spammer:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=dmcgregor>

~~~
benologist
That really is just one of dozens... pg went through and hellbanned a bunch of
them a while ago but they've started up again with a handful of accounts
already.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3929297>

~~~
spambot
I wonder what their investors think of this.

------
Sambdala
I actually like this decision, as far as I can tell the extent of it.

It absolutely destroys the incentive to game the system, at least most of the
current methods of cheating.

It could sparks some interesting offensive spamming of competitor's sites
though.

------
greenyoda
Here's an article that was posted in that Reddit thread that explains what The
Atlantic was doing on Reddit:

[http://www.dailydot.com/society/atlantic-slaterhearst-
jared-...](http://www.dailydot.com/society/atlantic-slaterhearst-jared-keller-
reddit)

~~~
sciurus
I'm curious what's actually undesirable about this? After reading that
article, it seems like

* An employee of The Atlantic consistently submits their content to Reddit

* Those submissions are genuinely popular with Reddit users

Isn't this beneficial for both The Atlantic and Reddit?

~~~
jlarocco
I think the point is that there's no reason The Atlantic should post their own
links. If the site is truly popular with Reddit users then some "regular" user
will submit the interesting links sooner or later.

I'm not saying I agree with it, or that I think banning the entire domain
makes sense, but that's my understanding of it.

------
x1
This is the fundamental problem with a static point system.

Up/Down votes should be personal and entirely void from the process of
agree/disagree. It should be about pushing individuals closer or farther away
from your perspective.

I'd like to see something like Reddit that was more like a network. As you
"downvote" something or someone you push yourself away from that network. As
you upvote something/someone you push yourself closer to that network.

Then again, I also think thread titles should be editable via a wiki and
people should be able to submit counterpoints and they should be given equal
weight to the original post (not just a comment but right next to the original
author's post).

~~~
mistercow
>I'd like to see something like Reddit that was more like a network. As you
"downvote" something or someone you push yourself away from that network. As
you upvote something/someone you push yourself closer to that network.

If I understand you correctly, you could still game that; it would just take
more effort. Instead of selling accounts with high karma, people would sell
accounts centered in large clusters of users.

Also, I'm not positive, but I think the system you're describing is
computationally prohibitive.

~~~
x1
>computationally prohibitive

yup it'd be a nightmare :)

I'm not sure if you could even sell users with large clusters... as the only
way to generate a large cluster would be to generate more fake users around
that cluster. So you'd have a large cluster of fake users. That or make good
content that people cluster around... but then again that isn't gaming the
system, just putting content next to people that want it.

~~~
mistercow
>as the only way to generate a large cluster would be to generate more fake
users around that cluster.

Oh no, people are very predictable, especially at the median. Getting a reddit
account to a high karma score is trivially easy, and getting to the center of
a dense cluster in relative networked karma system would be similarly easy.

------
swalsh
I suppose it is still possible for their content to make the front page either
via indirect self posts, or references by blogs. So I doubt this will be the
last I find an article by one of these guys.

To me, i'm more concerned about comment quality. The issue here though is a
lot harder, many subreddits (especially /r/politics) suffer from people voting
based on agreement rather than quality.

------
lukifer
I hope this is a short-term salvo that leads to a better resolution; I enjoy a
lot of the writing on The Atlantic, but I seldom go there directly.

------
adestefan
I've lost a lot of respect for reddit over this decision. I'm okay with
banning users or even IP blocks from posting or voting, but banning entire,
legitimate domains because you can't create a valid anti-spam service is going
too far.

~~~
pliny
This is simply extending the IRL justice system into the internet, where the
point is mainly to create an incentive against committing crime (banning
domains the spam reddit), rather than to directly prevent crime (implementing
an effective anti-spam service).

------
unreal37
I think any site that "auto-submits" itself to Reddit will be banned. An
editor for The Atlantic apparently submitted thousands of stories to Reddit
all for The Atlantic articles. Probably automated.

------
eli
This is already being discussed <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108115>

------
blhack
The Atlantic?

That's one of the best news sources on the internet. The only thing I could
guess there is that The Atlantic /requested/ this.

Science Daily?

Also a fantasic secondary-source for science news.

~~~
gjm11
Everything I've ever seen on HN -- I don't know about Reddit -- from
ScienceDaily has been a cut-and-paste copy of something else available from
nearer the original source. In some cases ScienceDaily's copy is distinctly
worse than the original because it lacks relevant links, enlightening
pictures, etc.

ScienceDaily may be a very handy secondary source. It may be a great place to
browse looking for what's been happening lately in the world of science. But
if you find something there and feel like sharing it, it's pretty much always
best to take ten seconds to find the original source and submit that instead
of ScienceDaily.

(I expect the actual reason why Reddit banned it is some sort of spammy
malfeasance, which would be sufficient reason even if it were a first-rate
purveyor of entirely original content. But, as it happens, it isn't.)

