[Meta] Block submissions from user's with hidden history
Posted by IPv6forDogecoin@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 66 comments
Frankly they are always AI slop trying to soft peddle their product with a follow up comment.
throwaway_0x90@reddit
Not block completely but the bar should be higher in some way. Account age, or karma or required to respond to comments within some time(r/changemyview requires responding within 3hrs or post is deleted), etc.
dbxp@reddit
It would be interesting to find out how that sub managed to implement that
throwaway_0x90@reddit
Oh, I use to be a mod on Reddit before. Just write a bot.
I had a bot that watched all new comments and posts and could take action doing whatever I wanted. Remove stuff, ban people, etc.
turningsteel@reddit
You'd be crazy not to have your history hidden. We're all developers here. What happened to being privacy conscious?
nekokattt@reddit
Why would I open all my post history for some slop bot to scrape directly?
DeltaJesus@reddit
You're not hiding yourself from bots, if they're scraping Reddit they'll see everything anyway.
dbxp@reddit
Not possible, Reddit doesn't give us those tools.
However Reddit does allow us to see 28 days history across all subs for anyone who posts or comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/modhelp/comments/1p99tra/can_mods_see_a_users_hidden_postcomment_history/
DeltaJesus@reddit
Slight correction, you can see their full history for 28 days after their most recent comment or post in a sub you moderate.
SkittlesAreYum@reddit
I have my history hidden and frankly I don't know why anyone would not.
SignoreBanana@reddit
That's fine. You also don't need to post content
snookerpython@reddit
But anonymity is consistent with how reddit works. I don't care who you are, I'm not going to become your follower or your friend, I'm only interested in what you're saying in this thread.
YK5Djvx2Mh@reddit
Im not even interested in that. Not sure why Im here tbh
SignoreBanana@reddit
And I don't think anyone's saying you shouldn't be able to comment, just submit new posts, unless I'm mistaken.
SkittlesAreYum@reddit
I am also disagreeing that we shouldn't be able to post without having a public profile.
gringo_escobar@reddit
Coward
ham_plane@reddit
Because it's all public anyway. Hiding history doesn't do anything other than obfuscate yourself to whoever your interactions with. It's a cowardly l and sets the tone for a low-trust environment
urko_crust@reddit
Reddit has always been a low trust environment. That's why every large sub quickly goes to hell
Perfect-Campaign9551@reddit
How do I hide history? I'd like to do that. Nothing is more annoying than people that look at your history just to make some irrelevant snide comment or to insult you in some way. It's the lowest form of asshole.
Looz-Ashae@reddit
It's fun
baezizbae@reddit
I had the most minor, boring, and mundane disagreement about an NFL football player once with someone and for days this dork proceeded to follow me around the site with multiple accounts of theirs trying to pick an argument, block one, they'd be back with another.
CuteHoor@reddit
Surely they could do that regardless of whether you have history turned on or not?
Woxan@reddit
The friction of "history off" is enough to dissuade most people
baezizbae@reddit
Yeah sure, there are ways and means out there that “reveal” posts but thankfully I personally haven't had anyone that motivated to bother going through them.
Zestyclose_Use7055@reddit
Yeah but usually these people aren’t clever enough when they’re spending a lot of time on something childish like this.
brown-man-sam@reddit
Would be easier to see where they’re posting with it on
DeltaJesus@reddit
I don't because I resent the feature, it makes it significantly more difficult to see whether the person you're interacting with is actually engaging in good faith and not just a troll or bot.
code_blooded_murder@reddit
"to prove that you are a human and not just an advertising bot, and that your opinion should be taken seriously" so the saying goes.
patoezequiel@reddit
Reddit admins would nuke the sub if mods agreed to do that. Reddit would not provide the option to hide the history and also allow for it to be used against users of the feature.
DeltaJesus@reddit
I really don't think they would, Reddit has no problem with mods banning people that block them, or banning people for literally no reason.
They've only just started cracking down on the banning based on what subreddits you've interacted with, and even then only the automatic options afaik.
oldDotredditisbetter@reddit
reddit only cares about user numbers and engagement. even when the website first started the founders made multiple accounts to talk amongst themselves lol. bot infesting reddit since day 1
patoezequiel@reddit
Fair point
im-ba@reddit
Or, maybe some of us just want a small amount of privacy?
theorizable@reddit
It's never private. They have tools that you can use to find posts.
Dinos_12345@reddit
So? Is there no point in locks because there are tools to pick them?
ham_plane@reddit
It's because your posts are already public, so hiding history doesn't offer any hard privacy benefits, just an inconvenience
picklesandvodka@reddit
All security is about inconvenience
theorizable@reddit
I generally don't like the feature. It makes it way more difficult to identify bots/grifting/astroturfing.
You can have your locks, just be aware that people can still comb your Reddit history.
im-ba@reddit
My point is not to assume perfect privacy from everyone. This might be a filter that takes out the bottom 60% of the population, so that whatever overlap there is between general maliciousness and general stupidity will be blocked from viewing my history.
There are intelligent assholes which this feature won't stop, but overall it has reduced the amount of harassment I've received on this platform by a large degree.
But yeah, go ahead and be pedantic and take an all-or-nothing approach to this.
HopePupal@reddit
yep. the hidden history feature is just a speedbump. it's not a bad one, but does tend to erode trust.
as far as those tools, if you're not going to name them, i will: searching
"yourusername" site:reddit.comfor the advanced casuals, but the ArcticShift or PullPush APIs if you want to do a tiny bit more actual work.or a few days of pulling down those torrents from Watchful1 and you can see almost anything anyone's ever posted. the entire Reddit post and comment history from 2007 to now is only about 4 TB zstd compressed (no images, of course). that's been desktop territory for a long time.
theorizable@reddit
I don't like it. The bot farms already know these tricks, the only people you're hiding your history from are normal individuals who are not tech savvy. If someone wants to bully you, they will.
baezizbae@reddit
That’s my entire take on this. If someone REALLY wants to go through the extra effort described above to locate someone’s posts and actually reply to them they will.
Now, how many of us in here with post histories turned off have had someone actually go through the trouble?
I suspect that number is not large enough to even think twice about.
shifty303@reddit
If you have nothing to hide then you’ll show your history /s
1One2Twenty2Two@reddit
Yep, that's a terrible idea.
Kimo-@reddit
Subreddit moderators can already see hidden profiles.
northrupthebandgeek@reddit
Only to the extent that a given profile has posted to or commented in a subreddit that moderator moderates, AFAICT.
ham_plane@reddit
The mods obviously have their hands full enough, they're not going to be skimming profiles unless its flagged for something else
engineered_academic@reddit
fr fr ya'll are doing God's work out here flagging these. I dont have time to be going all scooby doo on every comment on these posts.
MadCat0911@reddit
I feel like people only check history when they've lost an argument and are hoping to find someone's kinks or admitting to something dumb in another subreddit.
I keep mine hidden because I'm former military and opsec is ingrained into me. You don't need to know my likes, habits, or history.
csgirl1997@reddit
I have mine hidden because certain information I post on other subs would make me identifiable to coworkers if they happened to be on here.
metaphorm@reddit
I agree with the sentiment but not the suggested implementation. Privacy is a legitimate thing.
How about instead, we gate creating a top level post on account age? An account younger than 3 months is high risk to be a bot. A real human user can spend 3 months reading to get a flavor for the community norms, and then they can post.
SignoreBanana@reddit
Botters purposely create seas of aged accounts to bypass checks like this. Right now they're creating accounts to be used years from now.
Jazzy_Josh@reddit
Three months is way too low. You can likely very easily purchase aged accounts as well.
ReasonableExcuse2@reddit
How about 13 months. Anything below insta permaban.
nrith@reddit
I’m not a bot. There’s nothing wrong with hiding your social media history, given the current waves hands broadly.
church-rosser@reddit
You mean, "all of this fuckery" (makes sweeping hand gesture)?
Mast3rCylinder@reddit
These two things are not related
apartment-seeker@reddit
Can hide history? I guess I will start doing that lol
JeffChorizo@reddit
So you're saying you want to add a CAPTCHA :)
-Knockabout@reddit
I have my history hidden to deter cyberstalking.
Key-Organization3158@reddit
Just down vote bad posts. I don't care the source or purpose. If you are bringing interesting information, then it's all good.
false79@reddit
I think every single person here must have the choice to have their history hidden and have that respected....
EXCEPT for those who post a submission for the whole sub to see.
Comments + Replies to that post, as you were, no limitations.
Emperically, we can already see the slop when you don't have these limitations or even more beneficial to sub is having a minimum Karma requirement to post a submission.
Local_Recording_2654@reddit
We should block people from Oakland posting, frankly they always have the stupidest ideas
Woxan@reddit
Some of us want to make it marginally harder for others to scrape our profiles
deanmanga@reddit
Yeah im not ai, ever heard of privacy?
LastTry2512@reddit
I do think there is a genuine use case for hiding history. People will try to discredit you over completely different interests of yours from your profile. I for example make rage bait hate posts on nba players , but I dont see how that should affect how much value you give to what i say in regards to other topics when I am looking to engage seriously.
MonochromeDinosaur@reddit
I don’t show my history because I’ve had crazy redditors follow me around and comment on all my comments and make alts when I block them…