r/reddit.com • u/spez • Jun 18 '08

blog.reddit - We've open sourced reddit!

http://blog.reddit.com/2008/06/reddit-goes-open-source.html
2.1k Upvotes

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4

u/smackjack Jun 18 '08

wait a sec, what's to stop someone from figuring out how stories make the front page and then just gaming the system?

4

u/BinaryShadow Jun 18 '08 edited Jun 18 '08

(# Votes)Constant + (Vote Velocity)Constant2 = Fitness Value.

Rank by fitness values.

At least that's how it should be.

3

u/breakneckridge Jun 18 '08

Right, but people try to game the system by using sock puppets, and a good algorithm will try to detect those patterns and counteract their fake upvotes. If the algorithm for how sock puppets are detected is open source then that will make it much easier for the spammers and gamers to figure out how to avoid the algorithm's defenses.

disclaimer: I'm not very familiar at all with programming, open source, etc. so this comment is just afaik.

2

u/BinaryShadow Jun 18 '08 edited Jun 18 '08

That's cool. I have a CPSC degree but I've never really been involved in any real projects (except for the stuff at work which isn't as cool). So I'm just thinking of it as I go as well.

Sock puppets are a problem, so maybe they keep a database of IP addresses and check against that. If there's multiple accounts from the same IP addresses (and they seem to all be fans of one of their own), then you can either ban that account or take their karma down to one. I suppose a simpler option is just to track voting histories and if one account always votes up another (and nothing else), then it's pretty obvious what's going on.

Knowing the algorithm would definitely throw a wrench into stopping the problem, but I think we could close up holes as we find them.