/r/theoryofreddit post asking why reddit seems dead

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Reddit changed their upvote algorithm which is why it looks so much lower than it really is.
They covered this years ago..
- They changed to to massively inflate the displayed vote totals though. Old reddit was showing actual vote totals with some fuzzing. The algorithm change in 2016 or whatever was to reflect engagement and engagement velocity in the displayed post scores, which is how we got the huge 100k+ top posts. If they have changed away from that I haven't seen anything about it.
  
  to reflect engagement and engagement velocity in the displayed post scores
  Ah, a bullshit artist! Did you bullshit last week? Did you try to bullshit last week?
  
  Yes 😒😮‍💨
  
  Comicus! Comicus!
- That explains only the first part of their post, and inadequately. If reddit made (and explained) the algorithm years ago, what accounts for the recent drop M(eta)OP is seeing.
  The second half isn't about votes at all. There, they complain that there's far less content on the site, so the algorithm theory doesn't appy.
- What was the algorithm and why?
  
  It was too "easy" for regular users to get upvotes and too hard for bots to get upvotes probably. Certain comments and posts now have downvote caps of 0 points so depending on what agenda a comment supports, it may not be possible to downvote into negative numbers.
  As a rule of thumb, anything you say is getting downvoted but if someone else posts the same thing, it gets highly upvoted. Reddit is cancer.
  
  Ew. Yeah that's why I left. It was shocking how down voted into oblivion I was when someone literally in a comment thread after me shares a similar opinion and is positive.
  
  Reddit is cancer! Friends don't let Friends reddit. Remind one person today of this place ~~reddit clone~~!
  
  This is not a Reddit clone. This is something better. An individual instance would be closer to a Reddit clone but even then we all know which one is open source...
  
  A worthy distinction thank kind sir!
  
  Before 2016 posts moved extremely fast. There used to be a joke that the entire front page was new every time you refreshed it. After The_Donald figured out how to game their algorithm to dominate the front page, reddit took advantage of the opportunity to neuter the algorithm completely so that it was more advertiser friendly. Now the front page remains static for most of the day, so sponsored advertiser posts get more exposure.

324 comments