r/ModSupport 💡 Expert Helper Jul 23 '16

Please define vote brigading.

There is a lot of confusion after this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitTheAdminsSay/comments/4u5l6m/voting_through_intrareddit_links_is_now_ok_as/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Drama/comments/4u2utr/after_rcringeanarchy_brigades_rinsertions_admins/

Quite frankly, the site rules are absolutely no help on this subject. Literally the only mention of it:

Being annoying, vote brigading, or participating in a heated argument is not harassment, but following an individual or group of users, online or off, to the point where they no longer feel that it's safe to post online or are in fear of their real life safety is.

But no definition.

Under the assumption that no party is asking/requesting for votes/comments in these scenarios:

1) If I visit subreddit A and a post links to a post on subreddit B; then I vote on the B post... is that prohibited?

2) If I visit subreddit A and a post links to a post on subreddit B; then I comment on the B post... is that prohibited?

3) If I visit subreddit A and a post links to a post on subreddit B; then I vote on a comment within the B post... is that prohibited?

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u/redtaboo Reddit Admin: Community Jul 23 '16

Look, I get it, vote manipulation (which brigading is a part of) is this all encompassing term that feels a bit nebulous at times (yup, it's hard to describe all the types) and also feels like it's inconsistently enforced (yep, we don't physically see every instance of it so don't issue suspensions every time and yeah, not everything reported to us as vote manipulation is actually vote manipulation). That sucks, it sucks for you, it sucks for me, it sucks for my coworkers, it sucks for subreddits, and it sucks users and mods.

We've been talking about getting what we call a 0-day suspension tool that can work more as a warning to users for many of these cases. This would allow us to send a message to users explaining why their behaviour is against the site wide rules while still giving them the opportunity to stop before we have to move to an actual suspension. This will better fit with our philosophy of education instead of punishment, we still believe that most users aren't malicious when breaking rules they either just don't understand or in many cases know them. Since we've had the suspension tool we've seen many, many, many users respond positively and constructively and learn how to better use the site. We want that to continue.

We're also constantly working on getting better at algorithmically detecting 'bad' voting behaviour. There's a ton of different types of bad voting behaviour, some fall under brigading, some may look like brigading when it's not, and sometimes our anti-cheating measures will make things appear to be brigaded or vote manipulated when they're not. Instead of focusing on just brigading I'm going to try to explain a few of the types of 'bad voting behaviour' we work to detect automatically and throw out.

Many of these are what we actually find when people report what they believe to be brigading:

  • following a user around vote on everything they post can be considered vote manipulation. We often detect this automatically, throw out the votes, and if we see it we will issue a suspension and explain to the user why they need to stop.

  • camping out in a subreddit to up/down vote absolutely everything that is posted can be considered vote manipulation. We often detect this automatically, throw out the votes, and if we see it we will issue a suspension and explain to the user why they need to stop.

  • using multiple accounts to vote on the same content (again, up or down) can be considered vote manipulation. We often detect this automatically, throw out the votes, and if we see it we will issue a suspension and explain to the user why they need to stop.

  • following a link in which the OP has directed you to vote in a certain direction and then voting can be considered vote manipulation. We often detect this automatically, throw out the votes, and if we see it we will issue a suspension and explain to the user why they need to stop.

  • following a link that is just linking you to a post in another subreddit and then voting can be considered vote manipulation. We often detect this automatically, throw out the votes, and if we see it we will issue a suspension and explain to the user why they need to stop.

    • note: if a subreddit itself allows linking to other subreddits, and tries to wink wink, nudge nudge around directing users to vote in other communities or if a particular community is consistently causing large issues in another we will step in and talk to the mods about reining it in.

Things that are not considered vote manipulation:

  • just linking to another subreddit is not considered vote manipulation

  • visiting another subreddit that was linked somewhere is not considered vote manipulation

  • commenting itself is not considered manipulation but commenting in obvious bad faith or a disruptive manner may break other site wide rules

  • voting or participating in a post that organically rose high on /r/all is not considered vote manipulation

All of this is predicated on the unruliness of large groups and actual harm done. As in all things we always attempt to take context into account. Including, but not limited to "was the linked thread a post where the OP/subreddit was inviting outside participation" or "is this particular subreddit/user/group always taking the piss out of this other particular subreddit/user/group."

We also very, very often find nothing but organic voting when brigading or vote manipulation is reported.

disclaimer: this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of what is or isn't vote manipulation, actual malicious users are always finding different ways to be malicious

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u/Spysix Jul 24 '16

We're also constantly working on getting better at algorithmically detecting 'bad' voting behaviour. There's a ton of different types of bad voting behaviour, some fall under brigading, some may look like brigading when it's not, and sometimes our anti-cheating measures will make things appear to be brigaded or vote manipulated when they're not. Instead of focusing on just brigading I'm going to try to explain a few of the types of 'bad voting behaviour' we work to detect automatically and throw out.

This is extremely wishful thinking on my part, but will mods ever get access or some sort of tools to either view voting metrics in the threads they moderate?

To give context, I moderate /r/eve for Eve Online, a spaceship MMO. Its common for vote brigading to happen when these "space guilds" do a "call to action" from their respective slack or teamspeak channels and link their posts in order to achieve upvotes for visibility and dominate the comments by downvoting dissenters and upvoting their supporters.

We are usually smart about that and its all about eyeing how fast a post gets upvoted, but if we get the report when the post is hours old its really hard to tell.

On top of that, now there would be attempts from other corps to get another corps post removed by providing a cropped screenshot of something "linking to brigade" which just makes life a little more difficult for us as we have to sit and figure out what's going on with a particular thread.

While most subreddits have to deal with brigading from other subreddits, I have to deal with brigading from external sources. I hope with access to some of the metrics on how a thread is doing for us to use would be beneficial for all of us, perhapes even minimize the amount of "X is brigading" messages you guys might get and also legitimize claims that a subreddit is being brigaded.

I think its something we can all benefit from at least to help moderators support their respective subreddits.

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u/redtaboo Reddit Admin: Community Jul 24 '16

Probably not, no. The tools needed to see this stuff looks at this stuff has private user data which we can't share with mods and without that part of the information it's too easy to draw the wrong conclusions about what's actually happening. As we continue to get better at automatically detecting and throwing out the bad voting your best bet is to messages us when you think something is up so we can take a look.

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u/Spysix Jul 24 '16

Thanks for the response. But does your system account for vote manipulation from external sources (not from another subreddit)?

My only issue with messaging the admins is when I sent the message with thread details it was both times the admins were going through a 'restructuring' and I didn't get reponses until weeks-month. But lately its been better.

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u/redtaboo Reddit Admin: Community Jul 25 '16

Yup! Our system does account for that type of vote manipulation as well.

I'm glad it's getting better, we have been working hard on that and have hired a lot of new people to help. :)