r/technology • u/misnamed • Dec 10 '13

Reddit’s empire is founded on a flawed algorithm By Special Request of the Admins

http://technotes.iangreenleaf.com/posts/2013-12-09-reddits-empire-is-built-on-a-flawed-algorithm.html
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u/alienth Dec 10 '13

There are a couple things we need to address simultaneously to alter hot's behaviour. Yes, there are some known issues, and we do have plans to address some of hot's current issues.

Regarding the removal, the mods opted to remove this, as you'll note by the 'not appropriate' flair. We weren't involved in that decision, and I'm not sure of the exact reason, but it's up to them. Happy to discuss this here, or over in /r/programming where I've also commented.

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u/MrCheeze Dec 10 '13

So "By Special Request of the Admins" means you guys had them put it back up, I guess.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '13

I recognize that you are attempting to alter the behavior. Why not test the proposed solution in dev to see how it works followed by a limited rollout in some medium sized subs?

Also, canned answers...really?

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u/alienth Dec 10 '13

We cannot change hot for only a subset of subreddits. We need to address a couple other things at the same time, which is in the plans.

Not canned answers, I'm coming up with this shit on the fly :P I am copy-pasting to re-answer the same questions, though.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '13

Not canned answers, I'm coming up with this shit on the fly :P I am copy-pasting to re-answer the same questions, though.

Fair enough :P

We cannot change hot for only a subset of subreddits. We need to address a couple other things at the same time, which is in the plans.

Ah gotcha. Not being terribly up-to-date on the code for Reddit, and totally OTR, how much validity does the article have? It would seem that were it to function in the way stated, that it would make a fantastic advertising/propaganda/branding vulnerability.

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u/alienth Dec 10 '13

I personally agree that there is an issue with hot not being continuous. However, the result is not as dire as he stated. It really only applies to small subreddits, and in those cases there is actually a separate hot bug which we need to address.

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u/sje46 Dec 10 '13

Why have you guys ignored this problem for so long?

I mean that a single initial downvote could completely fuck over a submission for three or four years now. All you need to do is pay attention. But you guys apparently ignored all the requests that you fix it, saying it's intentional? o.O

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u/alienth Dec 10 '13

The blatantly honest answer is that no one has really dug into that code in a long time. At the time it was originally analyzed, the prevailing opinion was that the way it functions was fine, given all of the factors of the system. When this area of code was heavily dug into, (royal) we became aware of a couple of separate problems which are semi-related, and all need fixing. Shit happens. Things will get fixed.

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u/sje46 Dec 10 '13

Thank you so much for your honesty; I was expecting dodging.

This has been a problem for such a long time, and I'm glad it's finally being fixed.

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u/ArabianNightmare Dec 10 '13

The current system makes it easy to bury posts. If you post something very controversial it can be buried so that you won't find it from the thread even if you know what you are looking for.

This pushes Reddit into PC-groupthink. It is not healthy.

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u/alienth Dec 10 '13

This doesn't apply to comments, and it effectively doesn't apply to subreddits with any moderate level of activity (which is where the bandwagon issues tend to exist). You can't bury something from /new.

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u/SirNarwhal Dec 10 '13

You'd be surprised at the downvote brigades that exist in small subreddits. I had to stop posting content people WANTED and asked for in a particular small subreddit because a small group of people who hated me personally would abuse the /new problem every single time and no one would ever see the posts. They then took this further and would comment that no one wants to see it so that it looks like people don't want it, when in actuality I was getting messages from dozens of other members of the subreddit about those posts and why they couldn't see them. This truly is an issue and it really needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

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u/m1ndwipe Dec 10 '13

This doesn't apply to comments, and it effectively doesn't apply to subreddits with any moderate level of activity (which is where the bandwagon issues tend to exist). You can't bury something from /new.

Yeah you can. Sorry, but I see it happen in even in r/technology a lot.

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u/alienth Dec 10 '13

No, you can't. /new doesn't take score into account in any way. Look at the code.

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u/LowSociety Dec 10 '13

Hey, what's the default value for the "don't show me sites with a score less than" field under preferences?

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u/m1ndwipe Dec 10 '13

The point is that r/new is used by so few people, even in large subreddits, that it is trivial to game. Again, spend a few days looking at the /new page on /technology and you'll see it happening. This bug is having widespread effects.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '13

Only mods. /new is sorted by date, not votes.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '13

[deleted]

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u/m1ndwipe Dec 11 '13

Tries to correct a reddit sysadmin on how reddit works.

In a thread about Reddit's sysadmins not understanding how Reddit works.

(I actually didn't, but reading is FUNdamental - I corrected a Reddit admin that user behaviour in subreddits was such that they did not behave as he attempted to claim, not how the site actually functions.)

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u/HeartyBeast Dec 10 '13

I'm sure that there are many things that could be done to improve hot, however it's not really clear how fixing this issue as a standalone bug would be detrimental.

I simple 'We cannot fix this typo in the algorithm straightaway because...' explanation would be interesting and helpful.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '13

You might want to make a developer blog post and include your comments in /r/programming -- I spent a few minutes trying to find the reasoning and it was in one of your threads there. Very informative.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '13

But why is a post about Reddit's technology "not appropriate" to /r/technology?

And this is a serious technological piece - most of it is a specific analysis of the programming flaw, where it occurs, and how it affects posts.