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Reddit Cofounder Says Site Was Built By a Horde of Fake Accounts
derekmead writes "How, exactly, did Reddit get so big? Well, according to Reddit cofounder Steve Huffman, in the early days the Reddit crew just faked it 'til they made it.' In a video for Udacity, Huffman describes how the first Redditors populated the site's content with tons of fake accounts. These days, with the site's users are wary of people using expendable accounts to try to seed their own content. But early on, Huffman said that using fake accounts driven by the founders was key to building the tone they wanted to the site. Early on the Reddit crew could shape the discourse of the site in the direction they wanted, and as the real user base grew, those standards held allowing the fake accounts to fade away."
Been to r/circlejerk, lately? :)
Either way, who cares. If it hadn't taken off, they'd just end up as a bunch of weirdos talking to their multiple personalities. But it did, and the same tactic is used all the time - ever see a single dollar bill in a tip jar? Priming isn't new.
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
Maybe you're just an asshole and, indeed, nobody cares about what you have to say.
I don't mind stuff getting voted down, any reader worth their salt reads at -1 (or highlights text on HN) anyway. But hellbanning for fuck all? Slowbanning for even less, for basically "not cheering instantly" --- wow haha. I'm a potty mouth, and I can see how my first accounts were expelled, but seriously, from then on I tried to behave better, but just for disagreeing or pointing out hypocrisy --- BAM, slowban, then log out and you realize your posts don't even show up for anyone. It's so petty and stupid it's hilarious. "Spammers and trolls" my ass -- that's a spineless echo chamber if I've ever seen one. And they even call themselves hacker news of all things.
Oh well, fuck these clowns. It kinda made me realize how good slashdot is all over again (you can say what you want about it, but at least it's not squeamish and deceptive); I'm just "ranting" about it here because well, I can't do it there :P
I was trying to be polite, but I suppose I'll have to be blunt. Your description leaves a much more plausible explanation than your claim that a group of editors tracks every new post for some proper "tone" that you occasionally are just too rebellious to match.
It seems much, *much* more likely to me that instead, you occasionally come off like a self-righteous, unbearably narcissistic ass who grossly overestimates his own cleverness and the value of his opinion, and whose comments, once modded to -1, simply aren't worth wasting any time nor effort moderating further. In other words, people --occasionally-- simply aren't that interested in bothering with what you have to say on those occasions when you feel justified in acting out.