Automatic downvote script (userscripts.org)



I discovered reddit last summer through its programming subsection. Good submissions were pouring in every hour or so and each was accompanied by pertinent comments which added value to the whole. Later, I moved on to the main reddit and found that it was pretty good also. Not great, but good. Many submissions were interesting, comments were not Slashdot level, but many weren't bad, dupes were often worthy for a repost, and every now and then there would be a submission that made you LOL in real life. All in all it was a fun place to be.

But that seems like ages ago, because meanwhile the retard convention decided to move from other *wink* news websites to reddit.

Nowadays the first page is most of the time full of... less-than-desirable submissions. Let's be frank, each has a new stupidity level of it's own. But that's ok, if that's what the masses want, if that's what's hot on the intertoobes, well... that's what the masses get.

The problem

What is not ok is when a good idea turns bad only to later turn to really bad. reddit tried to implement an Ask reddit feature, similar to Ask Slashdot. It wasn't long until some wise guys (so to speak...) figured out that this feature could be used to gain karma points by exploiting certain members of the community, namely the ones less brainy, if I may (I don't give I fuck, I may). How would they do that? By submitting entries that would awaken the 5th grader instinct in the others, stories such as

"Vote up if you like Ron Paul"

"Vote up if you think Bush should be impeached"

"Vote up if you love pie!"

"Vote up if you didn't get laid on New Years Eve."

"Vote up if you think today's icon looks more like an alien holding a giant dildo than an alien holding the superbowl trophy"

"Vote "Vote up "Vote Up" stories" up" [wait... what? are you trying to make a fractal of some sort?]

What do this things have in common? Well... everything. They are all meaningless and stupid as hell, have no finality and they bring nothing valuable to reddit. Their sole purpose is to feed karma into the submitter's profile. And the most stupid thing about this all is that karma does not bring you any advantages of any sort. It's just a number. Got that, submitters? IT'S JUST A FUCKING NUMBER. There. That went out.

The problem is that these submissions took the rightful place of the good stories on the front page. Where's the wisdom of crowds now? Nowhere, that's where...



The solution

So, this post's title was "Enhancing reddit". How am I going to do that? Simple, by a grassroots effort to remove this "vote up if you're a brainless monkey clicking on the vote up arrow" plague. I usually went through the trouble of manually voting down each "Vote up" story I came across, but after a while that became boring enough to cause me to stop doing it. But then a lightbulb came on:

I have Greasemonkey installed I know Javascript Idle Saturday. ??? You thought I was going to say PROFIT, didn't you? Improve reddit.



So yes, I made a teeny little script that automatically votes down "vote up" stories like a crazy hog, whenever it comes in contact with any of them. Install it and browse away on reddit. Whenever a "vote up", "vote me up" or "upvote" story comes along it will be automatically voted down.

Whenever I have a couple of free minutes I go to the search page and browse for the first few pages, just to make sure none escaped me. Will there be any tangible results? It depends. If others install and use this script, I believe there will be, because many of the retardsome posts will never get to see the light of day.

So go ahead and grab the script from userscripts.org. It will work on both the main reddit and any of the subreddits.

No need to say thanks, just bash this fuckers into oblivion.

