all 38 comments

[–]magnora7[S] 12 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

This is not a decision we made lightly. This is only the second time we've changed the rules in the 15 months saidit has existed. In the end, it's the only course of action that really makes sense if we want a saidit with a front page that truly represents the users.

[–]Tom_Bombadil 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Good call! Something had to be done.

It will be interesting to see if this was one joker that was trolling the group, or if this was a group with an agenda.

[–]Tom_Bombadil 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

MartinTimothy has quit a day early.

[–]solder0 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

That's okay, I just upvote my brothers' David and Nathan's accounts. Kidding, but seriously I thought this went without saying. It's just a tad scummy to shill one's own content at the expense of everyone else's.

[–]Vigte 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah I make sure to upvote all my 8 twin brother's accounts on Reddit all the time, the second they post!

For visibility, you know.

And down-voting NPCs.

[–]Vigte 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (18 children)

Sweet!

What does this mean for the visible votes thing?

[–]magnora7[S] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

The visible votes thing is on the backburner for now because this rule change mostly addresses the problem of astroturfing, which was also the purpose of the visible votes thing.

It's on our list of things to revisit, but let's let this rule change settle in first and see how that goes. Also everyone seemed rather split on it in the asksaidit thread, there was far from a positive consensus about it. So we're hitting pause on the visible votes idea for a bit, I think.

[–]Vigte 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (16 children)

Sweet, well I hope this helps curb the toxic bullshit - you guys are great admins.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (11 children)

Toxicity doesn't exist, its just an sjw created label to attack things that go against the narrative.

[–]Tom_Bombadil 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (10 children)

Toxicity doesn't exist

Then what would you call it?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

a different view, lol. just cause you dont like a viewpoint of somebody, it doesnt mean its toxic. freedom of speech and expression should not be blocked in any way.

all speech and expression is protected, and no bs "private entity" excuse can or should be justified to violate that.

[–]Tom_Bombadil 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Did you ever read MartinTimothy's crazy AF posts? Each post closed with something like this:.

"Jews and Coretta King killed JFK"
Or...
"Muslims bathe in baby blood, Jews did 9/11"

The word is often misappropriated. However, toxicity definitely exists.

[–]FormosaOolong 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes and the posts of MartinTimothy seek to generate it

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

People can be toxic though, I used to be. Regardless of the beliefs. It's a social mindfuck from social media. Kinda like how mental illness can be contagious.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

fakenews, thats what they want you to think. you got one part right, corporate social media is a mindfuck, lol. thats how they get ya.

trust nothing you see from the corporate federal media, question everything.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

Nah it's real, I literally became a retard at one point due to my social life being full of retards. It took me months to roll that forward and with support of someone who also uses this website, I live life without my ears swimming in anger and stress. Sorry I might have understood a bit but it still applies.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

nah its fake, thats just group mentality, lol.

a random left over trait of the past. you see it in dogs often, a normally calm dog can become agressive if its with another aggressive dog, pack mentality.

while i agree it could be hard for a person to stop being "stuck on stupid" (cb lingo, hehe). it doesn't mean your toxic.

we are in a soft civil war cause a big enough number of people throughout the nation and the world are stuck on stupid. it will go hot, idk when, im suprised it hasnt already tbh.

im just out here in the country waiting for shtf lol. im pretty much set with a pi zero, multiple cb radios and 2 sdr's

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks. I'm certain it will help.

[–]Vigte7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I agree.

Vigte7 shall now fade into spectral shadow....

A presence... shapeless...

voteless...

[–]Vigte 1 insightful - 4 fun1 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

[–]Tom_Bombadil 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

That's a great follow-up! And close.

[–]wizzwizz4 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Thanks for adding this! I was divided on whether to propose something like this, and decided against because it seemed hard to enforce.

What kind of methods are you planning to use to enforce this?

(Also, this isn't pinned.)

[–]magnora7[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Thanks for the reminder, I pinned it.

Basically the we can see account creation dates and times, account login/logout times, voting patterns of who voted on who and how often, and a few other things. I don't want to get too specific, because if I detail the exact methods then people might figure out ways to skirt those methods, but suffice to say given the data available to us already through the database there shouldn't be much guesswork involved at all, especially to catch the most egregious abusers.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

Ah, ok. Just the obvious for now, then.

Let's hope the spammers don't figure out how to use Private Browsing, because that'll invalidate the cookie authentication init string and reduce flummox detection; quite an effective way of bypassing the kernel sockpuppet identifier.

What'd be even worse is if they used two laptops at once; then you couldn't even use the IPv10 MAC address detection to identify their shared machine, because they'd be using different computers. But I suppose that wouldn't have much of an advantage as regards the paumed protection.

Of course, a manual check would make it clear what they were doing immediately, so I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a problem.


Edit: It'd be especially problematic if they used a homoglyph attack to make all of their usernames look similar; then even a manual check wouldn't succeed because you wouldn't be able to see that separate users were involved in the first place!

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ha interesting possibilities, I've never heard of a homoglyph attack before, that's very interesting.

I doubt we'll be dealing with anything that sophisticated right now, but maybe someday. I'll keep it on my radar.

[–]Froglich 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Ah, Snap! It's about time!!!

[–]gloriousArstotzkan 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Good. There will still be people trying to sockpuppet, though, and some WILL succeed.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Some users were upvoting themselves using other accounts they had created, giving a false appearance of something being popular on saidit

Is there any evidence of this?

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Unfortunately yes. There was a thread about it yesterday or the day before

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

whats the thread?

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]useless_aether 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

i think it worked

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think it did too, everyone is abiding by the new rules so far it seems

[–]StalwartJames 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

[–]magnora7[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

We're going to develop our own cryptocurrency that can be used for tipping similar to gold. It's in the works, but still in the early stages. Other than that, donations are at the bottom right of every page.