One Percent of Reddit Users Cause 75 Percent of the Drama (theoutline.com) 183
Just 1 percent of all Reddit communities set off 74 percent of all conflicts on the site, a new research has found. The Outline: In the self-published research from Srijan Kumar, Jure Leskoec, William Hamilton, and Dan Jurafsky of Stanford University, "intercommunity conflict" is defined as "negative sentiment to comment in another community." These users wouldn't necessarily qualify as trolls or sockpuppets; they're instigators, posting links to other subreddits and encouraging other users to target, harass, and fight with users on that subreddit.
Sadly... (Score:4, Interesting)
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For 1% of the users?
Being Drama usually is prevalent for people the ages of 13-25 (Any younger they really shouldn't be on the board, and not old enough for such type of manipulation, older are normally too old and too much to do to care about that type of crap)
I would expect this for about 5% population causing 74% of the drama.
Re:Sadly... (Score:5, Funny)
A lot of the conflict on /. is caused by a single username, but not even Anonymous Coward manages 74%.
Re: Sadly... (Score:2)
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1% causing 75% of the drama? Sounds like high school.
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I am not surprised. At my work out of around 50 people, there are two employees that can regularly be counted on to create drama.
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1% of the internet.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:1% of the internet.. (Score:5, Informative)
Pareto Principle [wikipedia.org].
Roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Reddit seems extreme, but it's not unusual.
Can anyone think of something where this doesn't apply?
five is very much like a hundred: both are numbers (Score:2)
Pareto Principle [wikipedia.org]. Roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Reddit seems extreme, but it's not unusual.
Well, the Pareto principle you quote is a factor of (one in) five. This is a factor of a hundred. I'd say that's extreme, yes.
Can anyone think of something where this doesn't apply?
since you seem to define "this" as meaning "X percent of the input causes Y percent of the output," I'd say that this is always true
Re:1% of the internet.. (Score:4, Funny)
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You have to be careful.
Racism and Misogyny have been defined down to the point these days that merely objecting to a policy position falls into one or bother categories.
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You have to be careful.
The president of the United States intentionally hired a guy into the White House as his Chief Strategist who said this:
"Let them call you racists, let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor."
And bookended his political career running a "news" website that hosts articles like these:
The Solution To Online 'Harassment' Is Simple: Women Should Log Off - Breitbart [breitbart.com]
How To Make Women Happy: Uninvent The Washing Machine And The Pill - Breitbart [breitbart.com]
Birth [breitbart.com]
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You just made my point.
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Thats benign as compared to the feminazis and their Mohammedist allies.
True, but at least those calling for all men to be castrated and infidels having their other heads lopped off aren't, *shudder*- Republicans!
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Then you follow it up with guilt by association, through cherry-picked editorials on a website.
Cherry-picked? Can you provide at least one example where a reasonable person would not consider those headlines misogynistic? Just one example?
Or were you trying to prove the point?
I think Memophage has more than proven the point. YMMV, I guess. That you apparently don't understand this is just plain shameful.
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Re:1% of the internet.. (Score:5, Funny)
1% of the internet..causes all the drama.
Bernie would make sure that drama was spread out evenly across the masses.
Re:1% of the internet.. (Score:4, Funny)
"We must have drama equality. We must come together to fight the 1% so that all our memes be heard. I believe that every memer have a google doodle and that this is a basic internet right. We will no longer allow the 1% to take advantage of the internet at the expense of 99% of internet users. All memes are funny and all memes deserve drama." - Bernie Sanders in the Current Year.
Don't let your memes be dreams.
1% of life... (Score:2)
The Internet? The entire public space — off and online — is like that. In a reasonably free society, at least. And always has been...
Link to the actual work: (Score:3)
abstract [arxiv.org]
Community Interaction and Conflict on the Web [arxiv.org]
So it's just like real life? (Score:3, Insightful)
A few people ruin it for all of us.
Re:So it's just like real life? (Score:4, Insightful)
A few people ruin it for all of us.
I'm pretty sure this isn't just Reddit but anywhere. 1% cause the problems. You get a few ass-hats who see themselves as too good for the rest of the forum.
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Yea basically.
Usually the minority has strong feelings on any particular topic, but because they have strong feelings, they will be the most vocal about it.
I may not like pets with cute costumes, but I don't feel it is animal abuse. So I am more likely to ignore the topic all together. While the person who loves their pets in costumes will defend their position and show how the pets love the attention, while the people who feel strongly about it, will show how annoying the pets is akin to abuse. So any mi
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I don't mind strong feelings/opinions about stuff, I mind that some people don't seem to understand that not everyone is like them. The people who are really annoying are the ones that think EVERYONE SHOULD BE LIKE THEM on whatever topic is at hand. And heaven forbid you get two of them in a group, with different opinions about stuff, that is when all heck breaks loose and everyone else disappears.
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A curious statement from someone who tends to use "liberal" as if it were some sort of insult.
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I don't want to force people to my view via dictates and pogroms. If I can't convince you with discussion, I'll let you be. Until you use force or coercion to get your way. Modern Liberals are all about conformity of views.
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Well none of us likes to be wrong. And how often when backed in the corner do we actually go to yourself. You know I am on the loosing side, perhaps I am wrong about this?
It is easier to say, the Majority is just dumb, or corrupt. Or if something you disagree with has traction, do we actually take a time to stop and think, why this is the case?
I know I don't do it as much as my brain tells me I should, My way of life shows, shows such an idea works, and it must be right, as I see others who don't follow i
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I don't like to be wrong. But occasionally I am, and I'll stand corrected. Being correctable is better option than the alternative and defending a position on ignorance.
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Well none of us likes to be wrong
Getting attached to 'being right' is cultural, habitual and lazy. There's a bunch of status and crap that we absorb from teachers and didactic teaching styles, but it's not useful and not healthy in anything more than a superficial level. _I_ am not right or wrong. Some things I believe or think I know may be wrong, but that really doesn't (shouldn't) mean much of anything outside those topics.
And how often when backed in the corner
I think that if I'm backed into a corner then I've become defensive, which means that I've turned an exchange into
Blame (Score:1)
If they did this for a day or two, it would be the fault of that one percent of the users. After a month or two it would be the fault of the Reddit moderators and owners for putting up with the one percent of the users. After many years, all the remaining users are now to blame for putting up with the Reddit moderators and owners who put up with the one percent of the users.
Re:Blame (Score:5, Insightful)
If they did this for a day or two, it would be the fault of that one percent of the users. After a month or two it would be the fault of the Reddit moderators and owners for putting up with the one percent of the users. After many years, all the remaining users are now to blame for putting up with the Reddit moderators and owners who put up with the one percent of the users.
I've been a moderator of a few forums over the years (not Reddit). The obvious bad-eggs don't last long, they're easy to isolate and remove. A lot of the problems come from people who like to do the wind-up but they do it subtly. People who do just enough to provoke a conflict (sometimes just stoking the fire and sitting back). They never do one act that by itself is bad enough to get them the boot, but they do lots of winding-up, getting other people to overreact. They are the real problem of most forums, and they're hard to justify booting for a single act. They know what they're doing, and they do it slyly.
Re:Blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, true trollery. It's easy to say offensive words. It's art to make others overreact to say them for you.
Now who is more at fault; the one who "winds-up" a thread or the people who overreact? I know it's the troll but there is a reason you don't feed the trolls.
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Humans are not bears?
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'what value is provided'
Bear claws. Try one. They're delicious.
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I've done the wind-up, but didn't really see anything wrong with it, because it was a tool to quickly identify the actual problematic people so they can be kicked out.
Someone posted some psuedoscientific woo. I simply posted "citation needed". That still qualifies as winding someone up as far as I'm concerned. He responded by immediately getting super angry and attacking everyone and hurling insults.
Who was really in the wrong there? I'd say, pretty much completely the party who overreacted.
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I've been a moderator of a few forums over the years (not Reddit).
So, basically, you are saying that your experience does not apply to this statistic, which is about Reddit. OK.
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And sure enough, someone popped in to do the exact stirring you were talking about in reply to your comment.
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They used 40 months of data.
Why do I have the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Probably because you didn't read TFP [arxiv.org].
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Probably because you didn't read TFP.
I did, did you Ami? There is a reason why this was "self-published" and not peer reviewed. There's a great deal of subjectivity and at least two figures that were made by hand to demonstrate a narrative which does not flow from the data, which in itself is subjective, but the authors' interpretation of the results.
The paper, while interesting, is subjective and as a result does not pass academic standards. I fully expect the people who have written it to come from a position of an unstated agenda.
But of cou
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I actually didn't read the article, I read the paper the article is based on. The one I linked to. No need to get it second hand.
Yes, yes they do qualify as trolls. (Score:5, Funny)
Tries to claim they're something new and different this time.
Usenet, 4chan, et al. not mad, just disappointed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like a FARK headline almost. Well done.
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No, smartasses cause comedy. Trolling does not require any basis in humor, even for the person doing the trolling.
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The study was done by a group at Stanford University, not by Reddit. Did you not even read the summary before posting?
This goes way back (Score:5, Insightful)
This is at least as old as the British Empire.
"Hey, let's you and him fight. (While I sit over here actually running everything.)"
It's SRS, isn't it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me guess, 99% of that 1% are SRS regulars aren't they?
I hope no one paid money for this study because this is a 'water is wet' fact right here. I'd love to know what dirt they've got on Spez to get away with breaking the rules the way they do.
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Let me guess, 99% of that 1% are SRS regulars aren't they?
Supplemental Restraint Systems (SRS) are required on all automobiles now.
It's not _that_ bad (Score:2)
After all, the percentage of drama went down 1% between the time msmash wrote the title and the time he started writing the summary. It's probably already at zero percent drama at this point.
It's 100% naturally delicious... (Score:1)
bullshit. It's self-published research. In other words, poor methodology, questionable statistics, and conclusions unsupported by even a cursory look at their data. Note that it's only referenced by the Outline, a self-described "digital media company focused on power, culture and the future." No reputable journal would even look at this nonsense.
And pointing this out makes me their 1%. According to their "paper," the above observation means I'm toxic.
Is this the trash that makes it on Slashdot these days?
Alternatively: (Score:2, Interesting)
1% of the Reddit users have 90% of the comments/posts that solicit debate and controversy. The other 99% spend all their time in pseudo-intellectual masturbation and patting each other on the back in a self-congratulatory echo chamber!
Re:Alternatively: (Score:5, Funny)
99% spend all their time in pseudo-intellectual masturbation
To be fair, at least half of them spend time in the NSFW subreddits engaging in non-intellectual masturbation.
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r/im14andthisisdeep
Reddit in general (Score:2)
large subs, with lots of readers seem to have way more trolls per capita than the small technical or special interest subs.
There is probably also another converse rule, that for the most part about 1% of users actually creates useful posts, and the rest just cut and paste memes or just reading, never posting anything. Or they're sock puppets...
Just like my friends (Score:2)
It's also just 1% drama-queens.
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It's also just 1% drama-queens.
The one who's most vocal about hating drama is also the number one cause of it.
Otherwise called: the internet (Score:3)
I could not find a definition of 'conflict' in this research.
Only: "examining cases where users of one community are mobilized by negative sentiment to comment in another community."
Wow, that included normal criticism, is this thought control?
Of course it's fine for a platform like Reddit to manage disagreements between communities.
But calling it a 'conflict' is ridiculous.
Conflict (Score:2)
I could not find a definition of 'conflict' in this research.
The actual paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.036... [arxiv.org] states:
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Thanks for digging up the real thing.
Dan Jurafsky, the 4th author, is a big deal in NLP circles. MacArthur Fellowship in 2002.
Lecture Slides from the Stanford Coursera course by Dan Jurafsky and Christopher Manning [stanford.edu]
Just might have got some of the subtle stuff right, here.
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If the definition was something like:
"Seeking to cause harm to the community, the must must at least include false information, personal malicious attacks or reveal personal information that's not publicly available."
Then okay, that might indicate a conflict.
But this definition includes honest criticism and many other non-problematic types of posts.
This is part of 1984-style thought-policing.
Framing anything negative as a bad thing is incorrect as well.
Upvotes mean alm
Just like Slashdot (Score:2)
Trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
These users wouldn't necessarily qualify as trolls or sockpuppets; they're instigators, posting links to other subreddits and encouraging other users to target, harass, and fight with users on that subreddit.
For those of us old enough to remember what the word "troll" used to mean back in the usenet days, that sounds exactly like what we used to call a troll. Of course now the term has been adopted by the mainstream media, the meaning has changed to mean more someone that causes offence or attacks others.
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I agree!
-- comment inspired by Usenet Etiquette
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These users wouldn't necessarily qualify as trolls or sockpuppets; they're instigators, posting links to other subreddits and encouraging other users to target, harass, and fight with users on that subreddit.
For those of us old enough to remember what the word "troll" used to mean back in the usenet days, that sounds exactly like what we used to call a troll..
No. Old-style trolls just posted outrageous things, looking to draw a response.
This paper is about trolls who post a link in one subreddit telling people "go to this other subreddit.
It would be like if an old usenet troll posted in talk.politics.reagan "go over to rec.arts.sf.science and check out this idiotic post by user xxyxx".
That might happen, occasionally, but not the usual tactic.
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It's a relatively new tactic designed to create moral panic and outrage. Hay, look what these people over here are saying, this is just another example of how group X is taking over and oppressing us!
There is usually some little disclaimer telling people not to attack the subjects. The main goal is to make people feel like they are under attack, or that there is a conspiracy/movement against them. Certain low quality news and blog sites are full of stories like this, with headlines like "Reddit Xers think s
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Yeah it's called brigading. It's sort of like a forum-raid, except on a site like Reddit which has a common-login between different forums it removes the barrier of account registration for snooping and shit-posting.
It's strange how the internet feels so much smaller as more people get on board. The centralizing tendencies and vertical integration of common logins via social media (as how Microsoft envisioned Passport working) just crowds everyone together and causes this sort of friction.
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I remember trolling as being like the fishing term.
Basically putting stuff out their just to get a response.
Reintroduce an old practice (Score:2)
I think it's time that we reintroduce an old concept, Ostracism [britannica.com].
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Fuck that, bring back Decimation.
When SJWs have to draw lots and beat 1/10th of their own number to death, we will have at least solved 1/10th of the problem.
More hair-trigger reactionaries online? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's indisputable that a small number of people create the majority of chaos in any social circle. However, I've observed an increasing percentage of online participants that cannot ignore anything they disagree with (yes, this is a behavior with a long and glorious tradition https://xkcd.com/386/ [xkcd.com] ).
Everyone seems to be so damn serious these days and no incursion against our beliefs can remain unchallenged (exacerbated by the fact that sarcasm is easily missed when it's in written form). The 1% want drama and we give it to them. The oldest counsel is best: Don't Feed The Trolls.
Re:More hair-trigger reactionaries online? (Score:5, Insightful)
I blame social media.
Social media conditions users to need to respond, because that's how you demonstrate your worth in that medium. Your worth is the number of followers, likes, reposts, etc. How do you not respond in that case?
Personally, I find myself canceling half the posts I write, on average. I see that bullshit, type a response to it, think about it, and half the time decide that it's not worth arguing with that person. Either they're obviously trying very hard not to get it, obviously trolling, or generally seem incapable of critical thinking. Sometimes I consider if the response would be worth having others read and post it anyway, but sometimes it doesn't seem like a valuable pursuit.
I see more value in a small number of good posts than a metric fuckton of shitposts.
That's the opposite of how social media works.
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Obligatory SMBC (Score:3)
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Same as the rest of the world (Score:2)
We all allow the few to screw things up for the rest of us.
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Its the price we pay to allow those that cause the trouble to run for office. They are the reason why mental health budgets get cut. Most sociopaths know what they are and only fear exposure. They are full of false charisma and can sway the lazy mind.
80-20 Rule (Score:2)
80% of the problems are caused by 20% of the people.
Then there are the 1% ers.
Blah Blah Another Pareto/Exponential (Score:1)
In other news.. (Score:1)
Only 1.1% of all reddit users ever write something to start with.
basically one subreddit (Score:2)
the_donald. at what point do you kill cancer? immediately. unless you're reddit.
Why is Reddit so popular anyway? (Score:2)
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it's all a giant circle jerk with any difference of opinion being down voted into Oblivion
Kind of like this place? Or the Internet in general? :-/
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Subscribe to your niche stuff and ignore the rest. In general, the bigger and more popular subreddits do tend to be kinda terrible. I can't say I'd recommend something like the League of Legends subreddit. It's just too popular (most MMOs are the same). You probably want to avoid /r/politics and /r/news. The more narrow your interests are the better reddit becomes.
Here's some examples of good niche subreddits:
www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens - I have no interest at all in fountain pens, but if you do, this is
Like a heat-map of US populace. (Score:3)
First off, why the hell are you directing traffic to a bullshit aggregator when the original paper is RIGHT THERE [arxiv.org]?
Second, wtf are they talking about? Ah: "examining cases where users of one community are mobilized by negative sentiment to comment in another community." ie, "Brigading" for anyone not in the know.
Third, The paper never mentions "Drama", they're exclusively talking about this sort of conflict that comes from brigading. IE, 1% of reddit communities do the brigading thing. (Because that's what they can track. Of course they can't track all drama in Reddit, it'd just be a list of all posts)
Fourth, The paper says 1% of communities, not 1% of users. Which is, kind of a DUH statement. There are topics which are political and those who are dedicated towards shifting other people's opinions, but most aren't. Nobody in ELI5 is going to be wing-nut extremist educationalist rousing the masses to explain, en-mass, complex topics in simple terms to other communities.
This is why you don't link to a bullshit opinion pieces re-interpreting a paper. Does slashdot even have editors anymore?
apple.slashdot.org (Score:1)
We have our share of those particular users here as well. I mean, tech.slashdot.org is pretty okay and I like it here. But those Apple fanboys, shiiieieeeeet do they get under my skin. Those pasty-white hipster monkey felchers ought to be taught a lesson.
Okay everybody with mod points, go to apple.slashdot.org [slashdot.org] and BURN IT TO THE GROUND!
Can I just say... (Score:2)
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So one percent of posters are thinkers? (Score:2)
Contrarians? Thinkers? Debaters? Those willing to ask questions and challenge the status quo.
Heck perhaps none of these things, perhaps they simply have a difference of opinion?
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> Less than 1% of the population are NRA members. 15% of the U.S. population votes Republican
So gun enthusiasts and Republicans are the problem. Without them, life would be good. OK.
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Sometimes I want a discussion without Drama or Comedy.
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That's exactly what percentages are for, so it's not disingenuous at all.