Revised IAmA rules and voting on rules.

votes will counted by upvotes on each comment, not points (downvotes are not** counted).

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Isnt the hole point of reddit is to let the highest voted things at the top?

i gotta admit, some of this double negative business is very confusing

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votes will counted by upvotes on each comment, not points (downvotes are not** counted).

edit The OP (32bites) has stated that he will be using the number of upvotes for these yes/no voting posts, not the combined score, so there's no point downvoting.

Redditors really think they're too dumb to collectively regulate submissions?

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votes will counted by upvotes on each comment, not points (downvotes are not counted).

edit The OP (32bites) has stated that he will be using the number of upvotes for these yes/no voting posts, not the combined score, so there's no point downvoting.

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I think Gold Stars are key to avoiding false posts, but they have to be used wisely, and to their fullest extent. Some thoughts on the subject:

• Gold Stars should not be limited to celebrities. If somebody works for Jeopardy and can confirm this beyond reasonable suspicion, they should get a Gold Star.
• Outline exactly what constitutes a successful confirmation. For example, posting a picture of you (or your workplace or whatever the post is about) with a "Hi Reddit!" somewhere, and the current date. If this is deemed to easy to fake, then pick some alternative method of confirmation.
• There should be some reasonable point threshold (over 100, maybe) at which point a Gold Star can be requested. Posts under this threshold are not notable enough to be worthy of the mods' time and energy. This also goes for people suspicious of trolling: don't request proof/confirmation until the post passes this threshold, or it's really not worth it.
• Confirmation should be done by the mods, not the voters. I don't see any reasonable way the general community can confirm/debunk a post, and doing something like this will most likely lead to hivemind catastrophes (à la cancer donations last week). Worst case scenario, the mods are wrong every once in a while. It's not the end of the world, and there's no real way to avoid that.
• With a working Gold Star system in place, users should not downvote a popular post if they suspect a troll. Of course, if a post is brand-new and obviously faked, there's no reason not to downvote it so others don't have to waste their time. However, if a post is popular (i.e. past the threshold mentioned above), and you smell a troll, there's no sense in downvoting. If the Gold Star system in place is functional, request confirmation from the poster and play the waiting game.

I'd like to know what other people think of this.

Mods are not responsible for collecting a gold star on posts where someone is not identifying themselves as a specific person and it is up to OP whether they want to remain anonymous or provide verification (by the thread, or to mods). I think it was crazy that some people wanted to REQUIRE verification on posts. However, if someone is identifying themselves as Taylor Swift (cross-fingers) or the owner of the famous website Reddit.com then I hope the mods can request identification, and if identification cannot be given they should be tagged with "unverifiable" somewhere. That's not to say it is fake, but just unverified (and if the community wants to downvote the hell out of this post for being totally unverifiable, GO FOR IT USERS)

But if someone wants to provide verification even at a time when it is not absolutely needed I hope the mods can go ahead and gold star it.

Mods, feel free to not provide gold stars to threads that are minutes old. I don't expect you to spend all day providing gold stars to threads. But if a post is getting 100+ upvotes and the OP wants to provide verification I hope they have a way of doing it.

I think many of us can agree with these suggestions.

I would say that gold stars should remain like Twitter's "Verified Account" system; just as a marker for notable celebrities/public figures whose reputation could be harmed by someone faking it.

HOWEVER, I believe that something should be put in place for those that are not in the above category, but would be helped by verification. Perhaps a green checkmark or something, maybe with a lesser burden of proof than the gold star requires, for these folks.

Also, as others said I agree with the idea of only providing verification for the hottest threads at a certain threshold.

No one should be required to verify. If you think it is fake, say so / downvote.

Verification should be available to anyone who wants it. Users can be incessant with the accusations of fake posts, but posters shouldn't be required to show pictures to everyone or something similar.

Verification should be seperate from gold stars, gold stars should be given to especially interesting and verified posts but should not be the only way to be privately and officially verified.

Like I mentioned in the troll section, I think gold stars would also be important in any thread where people might explicitly or implicitly be soliciting aid. Basically, any time redditors start offering to donate, the mods should step in and ask for verification. Maybe there could be a "caution" indicator for threads like this where proof is shaky.

I certainly don't think we should require verification on all posts, that just seems infeasible and hardly worth the while. Limit it to celebrities and charity cases, and let people optionally provide verification to the mods if they decide a gold star would look good on their post.

Can the anti gold star be a black hole?

Why stick to only one number (upvotes - downvotes from everyone) for a link?

Why not create more scores, hence more rankings?

One possible score could be upvotes and downvotes from admins. Others could be upvotes and dowvotes from users from certain subreddits, others from a certain class of redditors (if you will to maintain such groups in the future), etc.

The default visible score shall always be upvotes - downvotes from everyone. Then, everyone gets the possibility to rank posts on their pages according to any score available.

Leave the choice to the people. But, for sake, give people MORE choice.

Edit: Here's one idea for deciding who scores for a certain subreddit: anyone with a certain number of comments and comment karma (rather a very small number) may become a redditor whose up/downvote counts for the subreddit "members" score. This shall only serve as a mean to prove that this redditor reads, and participates in, a certain subreddit.

No evidence is completely airtight. The nature of the evidence given[with its content censored] should be specified by the mod in the comments so that we know just how airtight it is.

I don't think gold stars should be required by any means. There have been some really good posts where verification just wasn't possible.

I personally think that a post with less than, say, 50 points should have no need for verification and probably shouldn't even be eligible. This could sift out a lot of the work for mods. If the community is interested in seeing a particular post verified, they can lend it an upvote to get it popular enough, and if the post doesn't earn the star after all then they can flip their vote later.

Coming up with objective criteria for proof is tough though. Some people are so good with photo manipulation that a picture alone probably shouldn't cut it. Unfortunately, that's the form most of the proof is probably going to take.

Personally I think a gold star should be a relatively big deal. I want to see one when someone claims to be a celebrity or a high-profile criminal or something like that. I don't need to see gold stars for rape victims, male strippers, prostitutes, and those kinds of things. For that reason I think that we should expect overwhelming evidence before the star is provided.

Give everybody a gold star. Take it away if it is verified.

I agree; I think this post is a great example of how to moderate a subreddit, and moderators from other subreddits should take note of how this is being done.

That's not what this subreddit is about. If you want a creative fiction subreddit, go to r/stories or whatever it would be. IAmA is supposed to be about hearing the experiences of real people. It may be entertaining, but it is in the wrong place. Having the subreddit system allows people to categorize their entertainment and then customize it to get the best reddit experience.

I cannot agree with this more. I'm not exactly sure how to get rid of the troll posts though. Maybe if the OP makes no attempt to prove who they are, or if the majority of the community believes that it's a troll, then delete the post?

I like a combination of deleting posts and making an anti-gold star. If it becomes obvious the post is a fake IAMA (tineye search, major logical fallacy, etc.) then just delete the post. If everyone is suspicious and "hey, this is probably a troll" is the top voted comment, put a little green troll next to the IAMA instead of a gold star.

Longtime fan of the Iama subreddit here. I strongly disagree with allowing mods to delete posts they deem stupid. First of all, many things that some people consider stupid/boring are very interesting to other people. Second, if a post is stupid, it is downvoted and disappears from the front page. That's how reddit works!

I think in the past, the community has done a good job of finding and downvoting trolls. Usually, by the time a post gets over a couple hundred points, people will have combed through it inside and out to find any holes. If anyone finds strong evidence that it's a troll, it tends to become the top-scoring comment relatively quickly and the post gets downvoted.

tl;dr: I guess my vote would be to leave the community to police the trolls, and accept the risk that we're wrong sometimes.

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I must say, if I were somebody coming to IAMA with a true story about sexual abuse or whatever, I would not want to have to prove that I was really molested or face angry skepticism. While I understand that nobody wants to feel duped or gullible or tricked by finding out a post they'd invested in emotionally was fake the whole time, I think the "Gotcha!" attitude that's developing in this subreddit is really off-putting.

I don't think I've ever seen a post that isn't riddled with accusations.

I'm for a more hands-off policy regarding "trolls". Anytime there is an IAMA that a single redditor for whatever reason doesn't think is credible, it gets assailed for being fake or a scam or a troll, and we get a flood of posts about how "everything on AMA is fake, I'm leaving this subreddit."

I see a disconnect between on the one hand wanting indisputable proof of truthfulness indicated by a moderator-placed gold star, but on the other hand allowing a couple of skeptics to cause moderator intervention against posters that either a) May not know how/if to verify if they're newer to reddit, b) May not have a story that is easily verifiable, or c) May not want to verify themselves, for whatever reason. I feel like all these scenarios are reasonably likely (and probably happen a lot), but there's an insistence on throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

If mods are certain someone is trolling, then fine, delete or whatever. But if it's just a few people that are skeptical and trying to plant seeds of doubt, I say leave them up - let the community decide through its votes.

If I'm acquainted with the subject matter, I try to ask a question that gives a reasonable likelihood of their veracity that is somewhat hard to Google and come up with a correct answer.

Examples:

"IAMA Special Forces" "Is a 3 digit ODA beginning with 9 a valid combat unit?"

"I work at Apple" "Where is the receptionist in the entrance lobby of building M8?"

"IAMA Catholic priest" "Is there a reliquary in your church's altar, and when was the altar last replaced?"

"IAMA electromagnetic warfare engineer" "Do you prefer to work in s or z domain?"

etc.

I think it might be valid to have people who know at least a little about the subject matter enough to ask these types of questions.

Create a symbol that signifies a post as a troll/unverified or something along those lines.

Many times an IAMA post WILL be a troll but that doesn't always mean the subsequent discussion is not meaningful.

FOR EXAMPLE: IAMA environmental scientist (or something similar), which is then proven to be a troll post, but not before hundreds of comments on the subject are recorded; many of those comments are informative, funny, and productive.

EDIT: This does NOT mean that I support trolls or false posts in this subreddit, I try to downvote trolls as much as anyone else here but if my suggestion was implemented then it would allow anyone to determine the troll posts from the verified ones at a glance, which would make it far easier for redditors to have discussions about subjects knowing if the OP is legitimate or not. (I.E. I find a troll post about something I'm genuinely interested in, I can address my questions and comments to reddit in general, and more specifically the other commenters in that particular thread rather than the O.P. who is known to be false.

EDIT 2: Also, if a troll symbol was implemented, it would allow mods to use the gold star for more important posts such as celebrities, public figures, etc.

It seems to me that the problem here is that while trolls obviously aren't respecting the spirit of the subreddit by creating questionably fake posts, some people don't mind them so much because they can sometimes spark controversial and interesting discussion.

Why don't we just give people the ability to voluntarily mark their IAmA submissions as fake or as "what if", in the same manner as requests? That way, we can still cater to the people who enjoy the discussion, and submissions from trolls who refuse to mark them fake and won't provide proof can be removed without so much complaint.

I think there should be special requirements for anyone asking for help/money. These people should provide evidence to the mods up front, or on request if they surprisingly find themselves being asked for paypal info.

The only reason I think this requires special action from mods is because sometimes people might be unwilling to share info publicly, but willing to PM the mods if it makes the difference of getting help and not getting help.

Aside from these cases, let the community be trolled according to its own gullibility.

When a post reaches a certain threshold, a mod should make a reasonable request for proof. If the poster can't provide that information, ignores the request for over an hour, or can't provide some sort of alternate method of proving his identity the post should be labeled "suspect."

Adjust the threshold to what the moderators can handle for volume.

I think a small trollface next to disproven posts would be adequate.

Let's add up and down arrows next to each post. Then users could click the down arrow on posts that they think are trolling and we can somehow link the number of down arrows to whether or not the post gets onto the front page.

Just a thought.

Troll suggestions

The highest voted submission in IAMA is the Hadron Collider guy. Isn't he a troll, playing us along with intelligent comments?

There's another thread which at first sight is of absolutely no significance. It's just one guy and his browser experience, yet, it has more than 1000 votes.

What is going to be the official policy on submissions like these?

How about we do what wikipedia does, with alerts that say, "the neutrality of this article is disputed," linking to the talk page.

I propose when the mods have sufficient reason to think a post is fake they put a one-line note at the top of the page, just above the OP, saying "The validity of this post is disputed," and a link to the best comment thread discussing why.

The trolls that annoy me most have some crisis in their life and are trolling reddit instead of actually doing something about it.

These people are not looking to tell an interesting story, they just need someone to tell them to get off their asses, do something about it, and move on with their life. These people have largely taken over AskReddit and reddit.com subreddits, and I hope they never take over this subreddit because it crowds out the more interesting submissions. The problem seems to be in check now, but at times I've seen more than half the submissions like this.

Examples: IAMA a man whose wife left me after she cheated on me!! or IAMA a developer who has to shut down my website!!! Some recent examples.

The ways I suggest weeding these out:

1. If they don't answer any questions. A lot of them give a big long story but give few or no responses to comments, which is the entire point of this subreddit.

2. If they are still involved in some kind of crisis, and haven't resolved it yet. Or if they are asking for advice, or implying they need help. This subreddit is not a suicide hotline, but many people treat it as such.

3. Limiting the initial post to 300 words or 1500 characters. Maybe people will get the hint that this a place where people ask you questions they find interesting, not for you to give a big long shpiel no one cares about.

Look, I don't think anything can or should be done about this. There are many IAmA styles that I could do that really apply to my life but I 1) have no way to prove it and 2) refuse to give out personal information to a mod aka an internet user that I do not know personally and have no idea what their intentions with my information would be. Just hide posts that you think are trolls and be done with it.

There has to be some acknowledgment that anonymity is both what allows trolling and also what makes this subreddit great. I'm concerned that attempts at verification will spook the most interesting potential posters out of the community. I can think of so many scenarios where someone who is barely comfortable posting and answering questions about a sensitive (but true) event would be completely put off by being asked to verify it.

Yes, without verification we run the risk of reading stuff that's not true. Welcome to the internet.

The problem with trolls is that fighting them with any measures other than downvotes/ignoring is the same as feeding them. You just encourage more.

I hate the IAmA trolls as much as anyone. Call them out, downvote them, be done with it. Any banning or other circumventing will surely end up with some sort of war being called.

I once called out a troll in public, and I wish I didn't. It just gave him more attention.

Truthiness is a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

All IAmAs should have a ring of truthiness because, as you said, this isn't r/stories. I do like being entertained but there is specific value in authentic experiences.

Am I weird for thinking you included a subsection specifically for trolls to provide stupid suggestions?

Ask the community what to do and you will get 500 ideas with 498 of them being horrible. Enjoy the mess you've created, no matter what you do now there will be many pissed off people.

Only allow throwaway accounts by people who can actually prove who they are or what they did.

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What, if any, qualifications do you have.

No requests for specific people. 99% of them get upvoted to spam the main page and never actually seen again. Not every random celebrity browses reddit waiting for someone to summon him... these types of requests are spam.

Yes I do want requests for interesting individual people, but not "celebrity" requests.

Requests should absolutely be permitted for an interesting small category of people, because it can make someone who didn't think they were interesting enough do one. In my mind a good request is something like "[Request] A Rhodes scholar" or "[Request] An openly gay person living in a highly homophobic area".

Bad requests, on the other hand, I feel should be removed. This is for groups that are too small/individual people. For example, "[Request] A member of the Little Rock Nine" or "[Request] Richard Ayoade (Maurice Moss from IT Crowd)" would be bad requests because the chances of actually being able to get the person are incredibly small.

Can we make them more distinctive (Maybe make requests grey or something). Lots of ppl seem to still confuse requests & AMAs.

Also can mods please kill the BS request aggressively (more than the AMAs themselves). Request for an inanimate object to do an AMA etc.