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Reddit decides to remove r/all (www.reddit.com)

submitted 1 day ago by slaacaa@lemmy.world to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43627852

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[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

wait /r/all isn't just pulling any post from the database regardless of subscription to subreddit? i just assumed all would be all.

[–] GenderNeutralBro 9 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Sort of. But the sorting algorithm is not so simple that you can call it neutral or natural.

I don't think the details of Reddit's ranking algorithm are public. Even within a single sub, it's not as simple as counting user votes. That's weighed against age, and all sorts of fuzzy bot/fraud detection mechanisms. I think Reddit intentionally injects noise into the system. You'll see phantom votes all the time to keep things "balanced".

And then in /all, I believe some subreddits are banned entirely, and again it's not as simple as "most votes" or "most votes weighed against age".

Here's a Chicago Tribune article from 2016 that mentions the change I mentioned before: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/12/01/reddit-to-crack-down-on-most-toxic-users-of-pro-trump-forum/

Reddit had to change one of its algorithms over the summer to try to stop r/the_Donald from dominating the board that displays all of Reddit’s content, known as r/all.

It's light on details and again, I don't think details were ever published. Reddit is closed-source so really it's anybody's guess how they're really ranking posts.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

The sorting algo was known in the past, and conceived by Randall Munroe of the XKCD fame. I'm guessing the gist is still the same, but with popularity metrics and antibot measures added on.