New Study Finds That Most Redditors Don't Actually Read the Articles They Vote On (vice.com) 164
Michael Byrne, writing for Motherboard: According to a paper published in IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems by researchers at Notre Dame University, some 73 percent of posts on Reddit are voted on by users that haven't actually clicked through to view the content being rated. This is according to a newly released dataset consisting of all Reddit activity of 309 site users for a one year period. In the process, the researchers identified signs of "cognitive fatigue" in Reddit users most likely to vote on content. Online aggregation is then somewhat a function of mental exhaustion.
In similar news (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of /.ers don't read the articles posted before commenting.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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About half past six
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I wanted to just add a fact to the study above.
I don't bother reading most of the posts
I moderate here on slash . on when I have the points!!!
Ironic , eh?
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99% of
You would be more accurate if you used a float rather than a decimal.
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We also only vote on comments, not stories, so there is no comparable voting dynamic.
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We also only vote on comments, not stories, so there is no comparable voting dynamic.
What about the firehose?
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LOL
Do you also believe in Santa Claus?
I guess you're right, just like, Santa votes on your cookies and if you want good presents you better leave out some good cookies. Just check in the morning, the cookies will be gone, but for a few crumbs, and indeed the firehose will have drained onto the page one way or the other.
Isn't that what mod points are for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't that what mod points are for? (Score:5, Funny)
If I had mod points I'd mod this up because it told me that's what my mod points are for. I didn't even have to read your comment! I just knew it was the right thing to do!
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Pretty much. A lot of what people go in for isn't the article itself, but the comments. Same thing with newspapers(letters to the editor), or online comments and so on. It's one of the reasons why talk radio is popular, the topic might elicit opinions but people would much rather discuss their opinions on something most of the time. The worst cases of this though, are when you get the ideological echo chambers. I'm not talking about format, or what have you. Rather, where people don't care about the
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Rather, where people don't care about the context or even the facts of what's being said, rather they want self-reinforcement of an opinion even if it's wrong.
Even worse than that is when those people get mod points, and use them to create the echo chamber.
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Even worse than that is when those people get mod points, and use them to create the echo chamber.
Have you meta-moderated lately? Or it could be you've managed to piss people off to the point that they simply don't care what you're saying, or your opinion is just complete shit. All and none can be true.
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i meta-moderated your mom last night.
In soviet russia, your mom meta-moderates you straight back to the basement.
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With Natalie Portman's grits in your pants.
Re:Isn't that what mod points are for? (Score:4, Insightful)
You should also be wondering why self-identified egalitarian mostly don't identify with you.
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Your question is based on the assumption that feminism and egalitarianism are somehow incompatible or at odds. I see them as complementary.
Feminism started out as the study of why women were not equal. It grew into the study of how systems negatively affect both men and women.
That's why I'm interested in it. The way to get to an egalitarian state is by understanding the problem and finding solutions. That's what feminism is. I look at how women were liberated in the 60s, freed from the 1950s housewife mould
Re:Isn't that what mod points are for? (Score:4, Interesting)
>Feminism started out as the study of why women were not equal. It grew into the study of how systems negatively affect both men and women.
And in most of the cases that come to the public's attention, it's altered into a political ideology of 'men are evil, time to put them down'... which is why mentioning 'feminism' in a post is a pretty good way to ensure a polarized shouting match instead of a debate.
It's also the reason why you're going to get a negative reaction if you identify yourself as a 'male feminist'. The common conceptions of modern feminism and egalitarianism ARE incompatible and at odds. One is about women attempting to relegate men to a socially inferior status by stereotyping them all as violent misogynists, the other is about treating everyone using the same standards.
And honestly, if you believe they ARE the same... there's no need to use the word 'feminist', is there?
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And straight in with the down-mod. This is the cancer that is killing Slashdot.
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> It answered your question as to why feminism is necessary to achieve egalitarianism
No, it explained why YOU thought so. There's nothing about treating everyone properly that requires you to first focus on treating women properly.
>I guess because you have no counter-argument you just ignored it.
I see how this discussion's going to go; insult instead of debate.
>Even the argument that you do make, that some people have a bad impression of feminism, is extremely weak.
If you don't understand that lan
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My point was that it's not just about women, it's about everyone. My own interest is very much about how it can help men, in fact.
Your second sentence suggests you didn't notice that before you replied.
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As other people have already said, this issue is a landmine of people having different ideas of what words mean. It makes me afraid to call myself anything, without my interlocutors first saying what they mean by the words, or simply "tabooing" the words and saying in long form what my position is.
I think in the end the morass of confusion comes down yet again to people not understanding basic set relations. I wish I could just shove a simple Euler diagram up every time the topic comes up to explain to peop
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So the blue set means Misogyny as well as Masculinism ? And yet overlaps with Feminism ?
Misandry is not mutually exclusive with MRA ? You mean to point out the cases where a person is an "activist" for some rights for men but hates men in other senses ? If it is such a nuanced worldview, with strong positions in either field, applying either MRA or misandry labels appears inconsistent.
Is this diagram about actual concepts, or about how people confuse each other with inconsistent usages of words and you want
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The blue set is masculism. Which can overlap with feminism. And both can overlap with egalitarianism.
Where each overlaps with egalitarianism, you have gendered rights movements. In the intersections. And those intersections intersect. You can (and should) champion rights for both.
Outside those intersections, all that's left is misogyny or misandry. The part of feminism that isn't egalitarianism is misandrous, like the part of masculism that isn't egalitarian is misogynous.
Man, people have a worse understand
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Misogyny and masculism is written in the same section.
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"Misogyny" is written in the middle of the part of the blue set that doesn't intersect anything else, denoting just that part.
"Masculism" is written on the border of the blue set, denoting the whole thing, including the parts that intersect other sets.
How would you label it more clearly?
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You yourself have done it in the same diagram - the label text is also supposed to overlap if the sections are overlapping. E.g. the text "Men's Rights Movements" overlaps multiple sections. NOW I am not sure if that is what you intended, but it makes some sense.
Anything slightly more complex (which your diagram probably is), and an outside legend describing the sections works well - 2 common ways :
1. Using arrows to describe the innermost sections
2. All innermost sections are of unique colors and a tabular
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Feminism is not about female dominance or misandry. It's about equality, starting with addressing gender inequality.
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I understand that that is what a large body of self-identified feminists stand for, and I don't dispute that the label "feminist" is perfectly applicable to them.
But there are also people who self-identify as feminists and speak and act misandrously. The above group of feminists, on a good day when they don't deny their existence at all, denounce them as "not real feminists", and it's good for them to denounce them and distance themselves from them, but they don't own the word "feminism". Those misandrists
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This is a lot like the debate over if people calling themselves Christians or Muslims are real Christians or Muslims. Prone to falling into the No True Scotsman trap. But in all these cases we can make an objective determination. There is a well established body of mainstream feminist work, just like there are well established mainstream Christian and Islamic movements, and we can compare their beliefs and behaviour to those standards.
The people you describe are usually described as either radical feminists
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Thanks moderator, for proving my point. The mere existence of a male feminist is a troll to you, and you felt it necessary to purge such ideas from your echo chamber.
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Thanks moderator, for proving my point. The mere existence of a male feminist is a troll to you, and you felt it necessary to purge such ideas from your echo chamber.
Well, you did complain about how people are put in boxes and then you placed everyone down-modding you are post back at you in a box. ;)
That said, I get the frustration. A lot of my posts get modded down pretty quickly. I don't even know why we can chose overrated on a post that has not been rated.
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It does't, it just confuses you.
Go on, tell me what it explains. Tell me what I think. I'll tell you that you are wrong, and you will ignore it and carry on with your faulty assumption.
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The statistic for Slashdot was something like 90-95% of users never clicked on comments. Only a tiny portion of the users read comments, and a smaller number of those post. Unsurprisingly, users that use the comment section think that everyone comes for the comments.
Heck, there's a couple of websites I use and never read the comments. Why? There's nothing there I want. The stories are the meat and potatoes. 95% of Reddit threads are a dumpster fire. You know what you're going to get before you click
discourse malfunction (Score:2)
That's hard to imagine. There are days where it seems like every second story summary is a ghastly abuse of synopsis and common sense.
News for Nerds shouldn't be lightly refried click-bait, but it often is (often larded with fresh wrigglers, free of charge).
Anyways, I have no opinions about the non-commenters. They might as well not exist, as viewed from this side of the fence. I mainly read the comments to see who can
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I mean, that's how it works here too, right?
You must be new around here if you need to ask. ;)
Of course (Score:5, Funny)
I'm going to fully support the results of this study, although I have yet to actually click on it.
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Write your Redditor (Score:2, Funny)
Now is the time to write your Redditor and let them know exactly what you think. When your letter is received, you can rest assured that it will be voted upon, regardless of whether it was read.
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Just show me all the comments. Fuck the voting. (Score:1)
When I use a discussion site like Reddit, or Hacker News, or Slashdot, or Stack Overflow, I want to see all comments by default.
I don't care about what score they've been given by a bunch of arbitrary moderators or other users.
I want to make up my own mind by seeing the comments for myself. I'll judge them on my own.
Sites like those, and this one, would be a lot better without the pointless moderating/voting systems they have.
Those systems just encourage foolish people to babble the accepted group-think in
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"When I use a discussion site like Reddit, or Hacker News, or Slashdot, or Stack Overflow, I want to see all comments by default.
I don't care about what score they've been given by a bunch of arbitrary moderators or other users.
I want to make up my own mind by seeing the comments for myself. I'll judge them on my own.
Sites like those, and this one, would be a lot better without the pointless moderating/voting systems they have."
Especially sites like Reddit and HackerNews with their utter cowardice in the fo
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"You're probably one of those thugs that used to bully kids in school and make their lives miserable."
At 90 pounds in high school, yea fucking right.
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Most people don't have time for that.
Re:Just show me all the comments. Fuck the voting. (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the opinions you agree with are just shit and badly expressed? Its funny how many people who like to think they are 'non-mainstream' also think that everyone mainstream is just a stupid sheep. I actually usually find the opinions of people who use phrases like 'group-think', 'mindless masses', 'sheep' and (worst of all) 'sheeple' to be boring and lacking critical thought. Perhaps they are too dumb to understand all the nuances the rest of us see (which I think is also the issue with many who dabble in conspiracy theories).
Presumption. Also spelled "pitfall." Or "Pitfail." (Score:2)
You know you can post anonymously when you're signed in, right?
Good article (Score:2)
I upvoted this article.
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I upvoted your comment.
UNBGBBIIVCHIDCTIICBG (Score:5, Insightful)
Upvoted Not Because Girl, But Because It Is Very Cool; However, I Do Concede That I Initially Clicked Because Girl.
I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Not reading TFA?
Call me shocked.
The author must be a newbie.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Bots (Score:5, Interesting)
Reddit upvotes are heavily botted, and I imagine the publishers of these articles are the prime suspects. Clicks mean cash.
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So unless those were some really sophisticated bots that could understand the calls for participation and decide to participate and then follow the instructions to sign up, I'm pretty sure all of the study participants were human.
Confirmed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Whether or not this is a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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If the articles are typically just fleshing out the headline
With medical/science articles, it's usually worse to read the article. Even the headline is exaggeration. If you don't go looking for the original source, you have to work backward to guess what the real scientific discovery actually is.
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To determine whether or not this is a problem, we have to determine what percentage of articles are actually worth reading over the headlines. If the articles are typically just fleshing out the headline, without anything meaningful added, this is efficient, rational behavior.
While it's highly debatable whether the articles are worth reading too, please tell me what current news media you feel uses headlines that are meaningful and accurate. In my experience they are either bait missing some essential element to entice you to click through, sensationalist claims only barely implied by the facts or inflammatory quotes that come from someone with an ax to grind. At best they provide a position on some issue, in which case it becomes an opinion poll where you vote for or against.
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For reference, I scanned the front page of reddit. A few of the post weren't news related, just "here's something cool," which was often an image (curious as to how that was evaluated). But I saw a post titled "Trump isn’t welcome in UK after sharing far-right videos, London mayor says." I then read the article, and while I learned a few additional details, it was pretty much just that. The mayor of London was bothered by Trump's tweets of far-right, anti-islamic videos, and he's called for Theres
Good to know (Score:2)
...that slashdot is not alone in that phenomena.
Orville S1E7 - Majority Rule (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wow, that's the first time I've seen an Orville analogy on Slashdot. Cool.
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I don't think its a new phenomenon, its just amplified by internet. Why bother with the nuances and ambiguities of the world when you can just pick an extreme and batter people over the head with it. Facebook will even help filter your life to fit your echo chamber.
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Technicality (Score:3)
I Agree (Score:2)
I Agree with Technicality!
I didn't read your comment or the article, but it's about cool tech as stuff anyway, right?
Now tell me the news... (Score:2)
I did my third post on reddit sometimes the last month, warning about a bad scheme on Amazon Prime trials, and all I got was banter about not reading the fuking manual and whatnot... I think (most) redditors are septemberists of the internet who have absolutely no idea on argumentation and will instantly vote no on anything that even attempts to bash anything they appreciate (in this case, Amazon Prime). Bu oh well maybe I'm a septemberist myself on reddit so I digress.
One thing I'm sure off - not going to
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I'm often surprised at how severe the moderation is in some subs. Very rules and power oriented.
Not just Reddit. (Score:1)
It's a widespread phenomenon, not just limited to one site. People don't have time to read articles (or even summaries), which is why headlines generally start and drive discussions. Our brains just can't handle that much information, but we have that silly emotional need to get our opinions out there regardless.
Not surprised (Score:1)
Many don't even read the title of the post, they just sort of get a feel for what the article is about and then kneejerk from there. I'm looking at a front page post on reddit right now where the top rated comment is just that, he even uses a quote from the article but he clearly didn't comprehend the article at all.
Same as Presidents (Score:1)
TL;DR
Besides, I know EVERYTHING.
Reddit vs 4chan (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone observed after the "He will not divide us" episode where 4chaners found the flag in a rather clever cunning way - "4chan is smart people pretending to be dumb. Reddit is dumb people pretending to be smart".
https://www.inquisitr.com/4060... [inquisitr.com]
So how did 4chan find and steal the He Will Not Divide Us flag?
It turns out, Shia made one mistake in setting up the camera on the soon-to-be-stolen flag. It was such a simple thing that normal people would never have noticed, but the 4chan trolls sprung into action when they realized the camera was aimed in part at the sky.
According to various users on 4chan, members of the board used jet contrails, flight paths, and astronomy to determine the general location of the He Will Not Divide Us flag installation. After narrowing down the location to somewhere in Tennesee, 4chan sleuths drove around the area honking their horns to see if the sound would show up on the live stream.
And as it turns out, they were successful almost immediately, as 4chan found the flag site less than a couple days after it went live. The trolls replaced the stolen flag with the hat and T-shirt mentioned earlier.
Besides the obvious issues with theft and harassment, 4chan's actions in this incident are merely a part of what has become known to many who study the impact of social media in society as the "Great Meme War."
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This is awesome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
And Shia cracked up completely a few weeks after
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
On March 8, 2017, the stream resumed from an "unknown location," with the artists announcing that a flag emblazoned with the words "He Will Not Divide Us" would be flown for the duration of the presidency. The camera was pointed up at the flag, set against a backdrop of nothing but sky. Reporting on the move, Nylon reflected that "in tumultuous times like these, it's encouraging to see that art finds a way to exist and artists find a way to create, even when their work and message are under attack." Within 38 hours of resuming transmission, the flag was located by a collaboration of 4chan users, who used airplane contrails, celestial navigation, and other techniques to determine that it was located in Greeneville, Tennessee. In the early hours of March 10, 2017, an unknown person took down and stole the flag, replacing it with a red 'Make America Great Again' hat and a Pepe the Frog shirt. These were later removed, and the stream continued broadcasting an empty flag pole. Following escalating threats coordinated via 4chan and 8chan, and after a field at the location was set on fire, the artists were again forced to relocate the project.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
On June 26, 2014, LaBeouf was charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass at New York's Studio 54 theater. He was reported to have been "acting disorderly, yelling and being loud". He refused to leave the theater, so the police were called. In the arrest report it was stated that LaBeouf spat at arresting officers. The report also details LaBeouf using an impolite slur and swearing at arresting officers. He was arrested and held at the Midtown North police station to later appear in court. Following the incident, LaBeouf voluntarily began seeking outpatient treatment for alcoholism, becoming involved in a 12-step program.
On July 8, 2017, around 4 a.m. LaBeouf was arrested in Savannah, Georgia, for public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and obstruction. Bodycam footage was released of LaBeouf's profane tirade against the arresting officers following his arrest. In October 2017 LaBeouf was found not guilty on one charge of public intoxication and pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, for which he was fined $1,000, and will spend 12 months on probation minus time served. He was also required to attend anger management counseling.
Result : Decisive victory for Kekistani [wikia.com] forces.
President (Score:1)
Could be worse (Score:2)
I thought the way
Common on facebook too (Score:1)
I gave up on pointing out the article doesn't say what they think it does. They really don't care.
The vikings start chanting in the background. (Score:2)
Click-bait headlines, obvious spam, incomprehensible headlines, headlines that violate sub formatting rules, headlines that are already on the front page, headlines with spoilers...
Those are the majority of my post downvotes on reddit.
What about copy-pasted links? (Score:1)
I often don't click through a link, but instead prefer to copy it, paste it, and if needed modify it. It seems anyone doing some basic "link hygiene" like this might not get counted?
I must be a anomaly (Score:1)
Re:Did these users consent to being tracked? (Score:5, Informative)
They knew they were being studied (it was done by a voluntary browser plugin) but didnt know what specific habits they were studying.
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I am pertty sure reddit bans would not have affected the study, they could have used the data gathered before the bans,
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thus altering the outcome and findings of the study?
You're right, if they didn't know they were being tracked, that number would probably be 95%
More important is cause and effect. I read comments first because if there are any red flags, it'll show up top in the comments.
At the risk of being too meta: the clickbait headline here reads like "Redditors are lazy and that's bad."
The study itself is paywalled, the article at Vice most people who DO click on the links are likely to read misses a big point made in the abstract.
From the IEEE study abstr