Reddit Thinks I'm a Spammer
I would still love to hear your feedback in the comments below. Enjoy!
When I published my post about else statements in Python, I got lots of comments and a score of over 400 on reddit.com/r/programming (okay, I realize I’m “bragging” again, but this actually is a part of the story). My several following posts got measly viewership although I posted them on reddit as well. I was surprised to discover they weren’t showing up on the New page at all. I thought I just wasn’t seeing it for some reason, but now I contacted a moderator and, well, here it is:
You’re not banned, but the spam filter has identified you (quite accurately) as a spammer. You have essentially only submitted your own domain, and have only commented on your own submissions. This is exactly the kind of behavior that the spam filter looks for, and accounts very much like yours get submitted to /r/reportthespammers all day long. Please see Identifying Spammers 101 for some insight into what mods look for to identify spammers, and how you might be able to “legitimize” your activity on the site.
Well, I can’t blame the moderator as that’s their policy, I just have to wonder if they shouldn’t put some weight to the acceptance of “spam” posts by the community. Surely, I’m not posting cat photos from wesindicatecatphotos.com, am I? Reddit thinks I’m a spammer, and in a way they’re right. It shocked me a little to discover this, as I consider myself a lawful citizen of the Internet. While I respect their need to protect their community and try to maintain members that are active in the community as a whole (as opposed to utilitarian parasites like me), I’m not sure if I’m going to try to legitimize myself for their spam filter. My main go-to technology articles site is HackerNews, and I don’t think I’ll abandon it for reddit (even though reddit is responsible for most of my viewership).
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