Protecting Against Clickbait And Fake News in tech news subforum

[AlTech]

Hi,

I'd like to make a proposition to Protect Against Clickbait and Fake News in the technews subforum.

 

For too long, the Tech News subforum has been open to numerous issues including Fake News, users deliberately creating posts with Deliberately misleading titles, Clickbait and much more.

 

I've come up with a solution for how to fix this problem. 

 

The solution is to only allow verified Tech News posters who have consistently shown that they are willing and able to create posts without misleading and clickbait titles to create tech news post and submit them instantly.

 

The approval process could be fairly easy and just PM a mod with around 10 examples of Tech News posts created by the poster. If the roughly 10 examples are all compliant with the guidelines and do not contain clickbait or misleading titles, the user could be added to a hypothetical "Verified Tech News Poster" group. This would allow the veriifed poster to create a tech news post instantly.

 

Non-verified Tech News posters would have to wait 3 Days from when the article is created until it is publicly displayed and would not be shown in the new topics feed.

 

 

This would encourage individuals to not use Clickbait or misleading titles. If at any time after they get verified they create a post deemed clickbait or misleading they can be removed from the verified technews posters whitelist and allow them to re-apply sometime in the future when they obey the technews posting guidelines.

 

An alternative solution would be to just whitelist a few individuals for posting in the Tech News subforum and preventing all others from posting there.

 

This is all possible to do in IPS. It would just come down to whether or not Mortis wants to implement it. 

 

My motivations for suggestion this are mostly as follows: when I read tech news posts written by some other users who use clickbait and misleading titles, it frustrates me a lot.

Edited December 3, 2018 by AluminiumTech
Clarify stuff

[Fasauceome]

I just created a tech news topic, I feel called out

[AlTech]

7 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

I just created a tech news topic, I feel called out

I wasn't referring to you in this post although by all accounts I would consider the title of the topic you posted as misleading. See one of my latest status updates for more info.

 

There are a fair few individuals who deliberately create misleading and/or clickbait tech news posts and it's just wrong and should be stopped.

 

The rules of Tech News posting guidelines already prohibit clickbait and misleading titles however the enforcement of this (or lack thereof) combined with other factors effectively encourages people to do it.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Can I add that on the topic itself that users are not put in "editorial" comments? Generic example: "Company launches product; and it's a ripoff"

 

Granted it's not a prolific problem, but when it happens, it sort of irks me because it feels like it's trying to set up how I should feel about the report before I've even read it.

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, AluminiumTech said:

I wasn't referring to you in this post although by all accounts I would consider the title of the topic you posted as misleading. See one of my latest status updates for more info.

I'm ok with getting criticisms like these within the topic itself. I think that's a more important first step than creating an entire organizational structure around reducing clickbait, but I never see people post to complain about clickbait titles within topics.

 

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

The rules of Tech News posting guidelines already prohibit clickbait and misleading titles however the enforcement of this combined with other factors effectively encourages people to do it.

It's a problem because the LTT channel is really clickbaity lately, and whenever I see one of their threads posted in the feed I get a little annoyed by the clickbait title until I realize it's a video by them. There's a bit more of a foundational problem with that.

[AlTech]

Just now, fasauceome said:

I'm ok with getting criticisms like these within the topic itself. I think that's a more important first step than creating an entire organizational structure around reducing clickbait, but I never see people post to complain about clickbait titles within topics.

This is probably because the Mods don't like backseat moderation.

 

To explain that further: If you see a problem, the mods wants you to report it instead of posting about the problem in the thread. If you report the problem, they are able to remedy it.

Just now, fasauceome said:

It's a problem because the LTT channel is really clickbaity lately, and whenever I see one of their threads posted in the feed I get a little annoyed by the clickbait title until I realize it's a video by them. There's a bit more of a foundational problem with that.

Admittedly there is and there's not much the forum mods or Admins can do about that because Linus doesn't care about what the title of his videos are like.

 

The Tech News posts are held to a different standard and whilst LMG has basically carte blanche for naming video titles and posting them on LTT,  LTT Tech News subforum posters do not and must obey the rules.

 

I'm not suggesting a changing of rules. The rules already prevent clickbait and misleading titles in theory however in practice many cases of clickbait or misleading titles are rarely looked into and are not usually remedied.

[Fasauceome]

5 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

If you see a problem, the mods wants you to report it instead of posting about the problem in the thread. If you report the problem, they are able to remedy it.

You could definitely make it part of the discussion with something like "hey that title seems misleading, why not add xx or yy," and if they get defensive and accuse you of backsead moderating then you can just report it I guess.

Hope you didn't report me lol

[givingtnt]

Here's a few issues with your idea :

there's not That many fake news here or shady titles, most of them get corrected quite quickly anyway.

 

3 days before posting !?!?

are you insane ?

 

so, what you're saying is, if I'm not authorized to post, but you are, you'll get the news reporting credit because your post goes up before mine because of some foolish arbitrary rules.

 

dividing the people even more !

you get to the news later, but since your post goes up before mine, you get the credit. So I get flagged as a repost 

and loose credibility.

 

that's terrible !

 

and let's not forget the quick and fast paced world in witch we live

 

news go around the world in minutes. They fade away in days.

 

what were the high points of last week ?

you'd have to look it up. You probably don't remember half of it.

 

3 days in this world is an eternety

and let's not forget the stupid ammont of work this would give the moderators..

 

 

edit : not to mention, we all have very different views of eachother. What might be fine to you might not be for me.

 

trying to regulate every single tiny thing will not work.

its the kind of things that kills a community.

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

Here's a few issues with your idea :

there's not That many fake news here or shady titles, most of them get corrected quite quickly anyway.

Usually several per week from a handful of offenders and they don't get corrected for a long time after reported if they get corrected at all.

 

I've reported quite a few and most of them never got corrected despite clearly being clickbait or misleading.

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

3 days before posting !?!?

are you insane ?

It's a deterrent for not using clickbait and misleading titles. 

 

It could probably achieve the same purpose if it was only 1 or 2 days and that would be up to the mod team to decide if they decide to implement the changes suggested.

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

so, what you're saying is, if I'm not authorized to post, but you are, you'll get the news reporting credit because your post goes up before mine

Unless you've proved that you reliably make posts without clickbait and are also a verified technews poster, yes.

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

dividing the people even more !

you get to the news later, but since your post goes up before mine, you get the credit. So I get flagged as a repost 

It could go up a day later instead of 3 but I have a feeling that would still not achieve what you want.

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

and loose credibility.

 

and let's not forget the quick and fast paced world in witch we live

 

news go around the world in minutes. They fade away in days.

Not really. There are several week old topics still being discussed fairly actively.

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

what were the high points of last week ?

you'd have to look it up. You probably don't remember half of it.

 

3 days in this world is an eternety

and let's not forget the stupid ammont of work this would give the moderators..

Not really considering they would only occasionally need to add people to the whitelist.

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

 

edit : not to mention, we all have very different views of eachother. What might be fine to you might not be for me.

I will agree that at the very least the mod and admin team need to agree on a definition for misleading and clickbait.

 

The enforcement of clickbait and misleading titles so far has been all over the place depending on the particular mod's feelings about it.

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

trying to regulate every single tiny thing will not work.

The forum already tries to do it. It's called the Community Standards.

[givingtnt]

11 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Usually several per week from a handful of offenders and they don't get corrected for a long time after reported if they get corrected at all.

 

I've reported quite a few and most of them never got corrected despite clearly being clickbait or misleading.

It's a deterrent for not using clickbait and misleading titles. 

 

It could probably achieve the same purpose if it was only 1 or 2 days and that would be up to the mod team to decide if they decide to implement the changes suggested.

Unless you've proved that you reliably make posts without clickbait and are also a verified technews poster, yes.

It could go up a day later instead of 3 but I have a feeling that would still not achieve what you want.

Not really. There are several week old topics still being discussed fairly actively.

Not really considering they would only occasionally need to add people to the whitelist.

I will agree that at the very least the mod and admin team need to agree on a definition for misleading and clickbait.

 

The enforcement of clickbait and misleading titles so far has been all over the place depending on the particular mod's feelings about it.

The forum already tries to do it. It's called the Community Standards.

no, what you are suggesting is very much a move in the wrong direction

it will
- Let you rather than a newcomer post news and get the credit for it
- Consistently keep this gap
- Slow people with genuine intentions from bringing news to the community
- Discourage people from posting in the news section (reinforcing point 2)
- Potentially slow down the reporting of news, especially lesser reported stuff like Aviation, Space and other less consumer-tech fields.

 

And for what ?
bringing more "accurate" and less original titles ?

I think your conception of "click bait" is wrong here. you seem to think it means "not 100000% accurate" when really it relates to "Missleading"


Also, yeah, sure, people keep talking about stuff weeks after. but if I were to post something tech related that's a few days/week old, usually the readers will frown upon it being "old" news, even if it wasn't reported on here. and if you want to add a delay to that.. that will only make it worse.
 

 

[wANKER]

@AluminiumTech Dude the only clickbait/low quality shite I've actually seen in Tech News was from you

 

[aezakmi]

damn, you must be fun at parties

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, wANKER said:

@AluminiumTech Dude the only clickbait/low quality shite I've actually seen in Tech News was from you

 

What are you talking about? Articles about apple updating the bagel emoji are tier 1 tech news.

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, King Poet said:

What are you talking about? Articles about apple updating the bagel emoji are tier 1 tech news.

That wasn't clickbait or misleading. It was Apple fixing a genuinely controversial issue.

[AlTech]

32 minutes ago, wANKER said:

@AluminiumTech Dude the only clickbait/low quality shite I've actually seen in Tech News was from you

 

When and which post?

[wANKER]

1 minute ago, AluminiumTech said:

When and which post?

Dude your most recent one is 'clickbait', but, there's a catch..... 

 

Not going to go through all of them, but every single post I've seen is just shite from The Verge 

 

And it seems off that what I recognise you for is clickbait/low quality Tech News topics, and then you made this thread lmao

 

 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

That wasn't clickbait or misleading. It was Apple fixing a genuinely controversial issue.

And here we get to one of the reasons this cannot work without a huge amount of overhead and constant complaining. Something you consider important could be useless meme news to someone else.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, King Poet said:

And here we get to one of the reasons this cannot work without a huge amount of overhead and constant complaining. Something you consider important could be useless meme news to someone else.

I never said it was important. I said it was controversial. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I never said it was important. I said it was controversial. 

Ah yes. Post something because it is controversial, but unimportant.

That sounds.... like one of the many definitions of clickbait.

[WkdPaul]

we're discussing it.

 

Official reply soon.

 

In the meantime, there's no need to call each other out.

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, King Poet said:

Ah yes. Post something because it is controversial, but unimportant.

That sounds.... like one of the many definitions of clickbait.

No?

[AlTech]

Just now, wkdpaul said:

we're discussing it.

 

Official reply soon.

 

In the meantime, there's no need to call each other out.

Cool. Could you guys also as a mod team agree upon a definition of what Clickbait is and what Misleading titles are? That would help enforce the existing rules anyhow.

[wANKER]

This defeats the entire point of the Tech News section and is concerning it's even being considered. 

 

It's there as a means for people to centrally collate and collaborate on news stories, not for only certain 'Verified' posters to be able to post what they decide on posting... Would be a lot of moderation and control involved, for what? So a few people can feel more special than others? 

 

Quote

My motivations for suggestion this are mostly as follows: when I read tech news posts written by some other users who use clickbait and misleading titles, it frustrates me a lot.

@AluminiumTech I think your motivations are as follows: 

You want to be a special flower on the forum and the Tech News overlord. 

 

As I and others have pointed out, your posts are just as much part of the problem. 

[Whiskers]

Ultimately, this would segment the community and create two groups; a privileged few who can contribute to the section without restriction, and a 'lesser' majority who cannot. It's important to remember that we are first and foremost a community forum, not a tech news forum. Our tech news section is intended for the entire community to contribute to and participate in; locking off access or providing only an 'elite group' with higher privileges goes completely against the community ideals of the forum.

 

It's worth pointing out perhaps that around 4 years ago now there were discussions on the creation of "The Official LTT News Team", with the intention of promoting higher-quality news content on the forum and opening the possibility of more original content as opposed to the largely reposted content we have right now. Ultimately however this idea was rejected for technical feasibility reasons, as well as for introducing the same issues mentioned above - it would fragment the community and create an unwelcoming atmosphere for users new to either the Tech News section or the forum itself. Instead, the Tech News rules were created - and whilst there have been some niggling issues from time to time, by and large they have had a dramatically beneficial impact on the quality of submissions and even replies in the section.

 

We are always open to recommendations, suggestions and ideas on how we can keep the tech news cleaner and less "clickbait-y". But we will not be implementing this specific change.

[AlTech]

Just now, wANKER said:

This defeats the entire point of the Tech News section and is concerning it's even being considered. 

 

It's there as a means for people to centrally collate and collaborate on news stories, not for only certain 'Verified' posters to be able to post what they decide on posting... Would be a lot of moderation and control involved, for what? So a few people can feel more special than others? 

 

@AluminiumTech I think your motivations are as follows: 

You want to be a special flower on the forum and the Tech News overlord. 

No. I really don't. I like posting Tech News. And I like reading other tech news posts which are good and well put together structurally whilst complying with the guidelines

 

 @Master Disaster and a few others usually do a good job of Tech news posts as well. 

 

Just now, Whiskers said:

We are always open to recommendations, suggestions and ideas on how we can keep the tech news cleaner and less "clickbait-y". But we will not be implementing this specific change.

What about the possible clear definition from the mod team on what Misleading and Clickbait are in the tech news posting guidelines?

 

Currently a concern is that mods approach reports of misleading and clickbait titles quite differently depending on the mod and some offending posts aren't updated.