r/science admins admit routinely deleting top posts

in #steemstem6 years ago (edited)

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Reddit’s science subreddit is the undisputed front page of popular science on the internet. The subreddit introduces millions of people to high-quality science content on a daily basis, as posts on r/science frequently hit Reddit’s front page.

Due to the filter bubble effect that impacts social networks like Facebook and Twitter, r/science is one of the only places to exist on the internet that serves this function in any serious way. When was the last time you saw a science story at the top of your Facebook feed? I’ll hazard a guess that unless you're an avid follower of science it was probably a lot longer ago than the last time you saw one at the top of your Reddit feed.

It has emerged that trending science content was routinely deleted from r/science by moderators in a bit to promote the subreddit’s popular series of science AMA’s which stands for “ask me anything”. The subreddit announced last week they will no longer be continuing the series, which has previously featured such notable guests as Stephen Hawking and Francis Collins.

The announcement comes following upgrades to Reddit’s algorithm to prevent vote manipulation. In comments to the Daily Dot, Nathan Allen, the head moderator of r/science admitted he would delete trending posts when AMA’s were released to artificially drive AMA posts to the top of the subreddit. This practice has now been halted by Reddit’s new algorithm which will hide a forum for 3-5 hours if this type of vote manipulation is detected.

I’m sure I will not be alone in being sad to see the end of r/science AMA’s, however I am glad this will end the sacrificing of perfectly good science posts and all the discussion that went with them just to give AMA's a leg up.

The news comes as little surprise after reading @dhimmel’s Steemit post on “censorship gone awry on Reddit” in which he describes his own r/science AMA being derailed by excessive moderation and discusses how decentralised social networks such as Steem could help prevent this sort of thing.

Finally, it’s worth noting that for all the misery and fatalistic talk coming from the subreddit’s mods, this absolutely doesn’t have to mean the end of science AMA’s. This is simply the end of official AMA’s organised by the subreddit. Any scientist can still make an AMA post on the r/science subreddit, or other science subreddits like r/everythingscience- and any scientists out the reading, I encourage you to do so. If you want to get your science out to the public then right now there is a great opportunity for you to pick up the mic!

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Wow, I had no clue r/science ended official AMAs. Thanks @simoxenham for reporting.

Well I'm glad we got to do one while they still existed. I imagine this will be a big loss for the Reddit community, as AMAs were often some of the most interesting and noteworthy posts.

From the "r/science will no longer be hosting AMAs":

However, due to changes in how posts are ranked AMA visibility dropped off a cliff. without warning or recourse. We aren't able to highlight this unique content, and readers have been largely unaware of our AMAs. We have attempted to utilize every route we could think of to promote them, but sadly nothing has worked.

It's a bit surprising to me that communities don't have more control over how content is ranked in their subreddits. It sounds to me like the main issue here is only having a single interface to interact with the underlying database. For example, if you don't like how steemit.com ranks posts, you can use a host of other Steem explorers to discover content. Not that there are great solutions yet, but hopefully Steem will avoid the issue of whole categories of content disappearing because of a ranking methodology used by a single centralized entity.

We aren't able to highlight this unique content

This is a real euphemism. It sounds like Reddit essentially patched a sinister type of manipulation (deleting posts so only moderator-selected posts remain).

The dropoff if AMA score performance was quite drastic from this change:

reddit-science-readership-1024x465.webp

I understand the mods frustration that stupid content is more likely to go viral than good science content. However, deleting valid science posts is not an acceptable solution. If there's one main reason I don't use Reddit more is that one's hard work can disappear in a blink.

Your journalist skills are seriously shining through here, well written.

I still haven't managed to get into the mindset of ever sticking to reddit more than a few seconds, never sure why. Seems like my kinda place but all these years and... nada

Nice post @simoxenham.
I didn't get something quite clearly when you said it would be an opportunity to get your science out. Could you expatiate?

Thanks @yalzeee. I was saying that there will be no more official AMA's, but there is nothing stopping scientists doing their own unofficial ones. This could be a good opportunity (for scientists who might not have been well known enough to be invited to do an AMA) to do their own one to promote their work.

Ooh well that elucidiated things
Thanks @simoxenham

I’m sure I will not be alone in being sad to see the end of r/science AMA’s, however I am glad this will end the sacrificing of perfectly good science posts and all the discussion that went with them just to give AMA's a leg up.

I also hope this action will help improve diligently researched science articles to b published
Kudos on your effort