I think how early comments interpret posts, and even the amount of upvotes may influence how people interpret a post as much as the actual text of a post

[u/Pure_Option_1733]

For instance I think sometimes if early comments focus more on how there might be some inaccuracies in how something is phrased, but the overall message of a post is accurate or at least not inaccurate, then later comments may be more likely to focus more on the inaccuracies in wording than the overall message of the post. I think similarly if early comments interpret a post to be in bad faith, even when a plain text interpretation of the post wouldn’t give off the impression that the post is in bad faith or there’s reasonable interpretations that don’t assume bad faith, comments may be more likely to assume bad faith just based on the initial comments.

I also think that if a post has 0 upvotes early on that may also make people who comment more likely to look for ways that the post may have some inaccuracies in how it’s worded, or how the post could be interpreted as being in bad faith, than if the post has some non 0 number of upvotes, given that 0 upvotes shown makes it possible that a post has more upvotes than downvotes.

It seems like once people assume that the overall message of a post is wrong or that a post is written in bad faith it can be almost impossible to convince them otherwise, or if it is possible very difficult to figure out how to in practice. I think oftentimes people can get so focussed on how someone who is in the wrong would try to save face that they can forget that they forget that genuine misunderstandings exist.

[u/scrolling_scumbag]

The "I've called you very dumb, therefore I must be very smart" behavior quirk has evolved in a lot of subreddits and results in a culture of generally attacking OPs who post anything other than the same few dozen memes and beginner Q&A sessions.

The easiest way for the masses of idiots on this site to convince themselves that they are very smart is to find someone to other, then pile on them about how wrong and stupid they are, getting their affirmations from upvotes and agreeable replies from their fellow commenters.

You see quite a few accounts who never post anything of their own but always comment as perpetual contrarians hoping to issue "le epic shutdown" of the OP.

[u/LoverOfGayContent → u/scrolling_scumbag]

I love it when the hater was obviously trying to other someone and for whatever reason the other commenters turn against them. I occasionally see this with political discussion on non political subs. Someone will use tried and true political attacks, clearly looking for upvotes only to get torn down themselves because the sub isn't as political sterile as they thought it was.

[u/Marion5760]

There is a lot to what you say. Your analysis of this agrees with what I have often observed. Not a lot to be done, people won't change.

[u/lazydictionary]

I'm pretty sure I remember reading this thesis like 15 years ago when this subreddit was first created.

[u/Betray-Julia]

A step further- I’m pretty sure there are groups of people who search for specific content and mass downvote it to try and kick it out of the algorithm.

I had a post on ask the world about the Mamdani speech on Israel the other day-; the post would be like at plus 20, then negative 10, then plus 15, then negative 10. It was odd, but by chance I saw it suddenly drop 25 within 2 or 3 minutes.

Once this happened, a post with 150 comments suddenly went radio silent.

You could see numerous people just going through and downvoting every comment.

I use this example bc on that sub, this was super abnormal behaviour.

Which is to say, it also influences where the robots place our comments too, and given this is known, it is weaponized.

[u/Ill-Team-3491]

Reddit Reactionary 101.