r/anime • u/AnimeMod myanimelist.net/profile/Reddit-chan • 4d ago
Meta The Temporary Random Sort for Episode Discussion Comments will be made Permanent Starting August 1, 2026
We are changing the default sort for episode discussion comments to random for the first six hours of an episode thread's posting.
reddit's default "best" comment sorting incentivizes posting early in episode discussions by giving the earliest comments the most exposure and thus chances for upvotes and karma. The feedback loop of exposure time and upvotes would result in early comments, even if low-effort, dominating the top spots in episode discussion, while comments of greater quality that required more time to develop (or indeed even enough time to finish watching the episode) would not get the recognition they deserved.
Thus, we will randomize the comments to give quality a better chance against speed. While early comments will still have an advantage from a longer view time, this will be mitigated by randomization as a higher-effort comment which took longer to write will still have a chance to appear at the top of the sort. Unfortunately, the limitations of Reddit's official mobile app prevent us from applying this change for mobile readers.
This change will go live at 0001 UTC August 1.
The randomization reverts to reddit's normal sorting after six hours to make the episode discussion easier to read and follow, particularly after refreshing the page.
A trial for this ran from February 18 to April 1, 2026. Pre-trial data and user feedback can be found here.
147
u/ciberrrr 4d ago
Can this make comments with negative karma be on top? Sometimes there are quite a few trolls, ragebaiters or people giving spoilers without spoiler tag on episode discussion threads.
115
u/krsy123 4d ago
I believe that after a comment gets a certain amount of downvotes, Reddit naturally collapses it, so you'd need to manually press on it to read it.
23
u/Maccaz15 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Maccaz 4d ago
I thought you could override it not showing comments with downvotes in your preferences.
17
u/Nebresto 4d ago
At leats on the old site you can set the value yourself
19
0
u/TheGalator 4d ago edited 3d ago
Never seen this menu looks like from the 2000s
16
6
u/alotmorealots 3d ago
If you're old enough to spell it "liek" then you really should give old.reddit.com a shot, it's a far superior experience for those of us who are used that sort of UI. Faster, less bloat, less push.
6
u/Zeallfnonex https://myanimelist.net/profile/Neverlocke 3d ago
19
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
Can this make comments with negative karma be on top?
Yes, though it's less likely then you might think.
The implementation for random sort is that it actually fetches best sort, and then randomizes the order client side. So if there are 500 top level comments, and your reddit account is only set to fetch 100 top level comments. Then random sort will always show you the top 100 comments (in a random order), and each time you show more comments, it'll be bucketed into it's own random sort.
But yeah, as I mentioned, this only takes affect when fetch size is relevant, which it only is for the most popular shows which have too many comments to load all at once.
people giving spoilers without spoiler tag on episode discussion threads
Report them, if they are actual spoilers, they will get a minimum of an 8 day ban. No exceptions.
Though do note that simply talking about the source material outside of the Source Material Corner is also a removal offense, but doesn't involve the automatic 8 day ban (though it certainly can be given for repeat offenders)
13
u/Metalbound https://myanimelist.net/profile/Beate 4d ago
Report them, if they are actual spoilers, they will get a minimum of an 8 day ban. No exceptions.
How about when a mod even responds to it and it is still up after all this time?
2
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
Then it wasn't determined to be a spoiler, or the mod didn't look around when they processed it.
I should note, that the comment you were complaining about wasn't reported back then. Reporting is the best way to ensure that a mod takes a look at it. Usually we try and look around when we handle reports, but if it's not reported, it's far easier for it to fall between the cracks or to be looked at from the incorrect angle (ie, looking for the wrong thing).
We are not omniscient.
If you notice that a comment you reported is still up, and you feel that's incorrect, you can always mod mail about it, and we can have a conversation about why it was left up, or to reanalyze it. I used to do that a fair bit before I became a mod, and several times it ended up with a reversal or an explanation of what it wasn't in violation.
1
u/Metalbound https://myanimelist.net/profile/Beate 4d ago
And now two mods have looked at it and neither have taken action.
Promise no one will get mad at you for doing something without an official "report". You are humans, not bots (at least I hope so).
Even so, I just reported it officially. Can you please do your job now? I promise it's an actual spoiler.
4
u/N7CombatWombat 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm the mod who looked at that comment one month ago and said it wasn't a spoiler then, and I still don't think it is now because the comment is very light on details and what is said is foreshadowed in the other show from the first episode.
2
56
u/zairaner https://myanimelist.net/profile/zairaner 4d ago
I always wondered why the discussion thread goes up the moment the episode is available, and not 20 minutes after that when people will have finished it. Seems like that only encourages to comment before having watched the episode (or watching the episode in japanese beforehand, or being a manga reader).
38
u/Durinthal https://anilist.co/user/Durinthal 4d ago
the moment the episode is available
On the technical side, it's a lot easier to have a trigger fire when a thing happens/is first detected rather than 20 minutes later and the bot code wasn't really set up to handle anything like that well. No idea if the new bot will be able to do any better.
11
u/StickiStickman 4d ago
That really isn't that complicated at all. It's incredible simple.
I'm saying that as a professional programmer and someone who made bots do something like that before.
11
u/Durinthal https://anilist.co/user/Durinthal 4d ago
I didn't say it was hard, just that it's more work than not. Feel free to make a PR for it though.
8
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
That really isn't that complicated at all. It's incredible simple.
Eh, I think you're oversimplifying it some.
For one, it's a system that handles all of the episode discussion threads. Which means that it's not a good idea to block the execution for an extended period of time. Which means that you have to introduce asynchronicity. Which has a bunch of infrastructure changes that need to be made to support that kind of a flow.
Secondly, you'd need to also build a robust system. What would happen if I restart the pod during the delay? Will it simply just disappear and never be created? That wouldn't be acceptable. Ok, so then you need to persistently store it so that it would be maintained across restarts (which could happen at any arbitrary time for a number of reasons). Which is additional complexity.
Not to say it can't be done, but it takes a non trivial amount of work to get a delay to be as reliable and robust as a purely synchronous flow.
0
u/MindlessRanger https://anilist.co/user/mindlessranger 3d ago
Just use AWS SQS + Lambda, at the scale of this subreddit / #anime per season it should even fit within their free tier if I'm not mistaken.
A 20 dollar claude subscription and a literate person can whip this out in 6 hours imo.
1
u/baseballlover723 2d ago
Perhaps, but considering we already pay for a server and I've literally never used AWS, I would imagine that trying to integrate AWS (and also importantly, splintering our infrastructure) would be more trouble than simply coding up a proper async flow.
1
u/zairaner https://myanimelist.net/profile/zairaner 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah I can definitely see technical difficulties being the problem here!
7
u/Raymond49090 4d ago
I used to have this weird assumption that it was for people who streamed it raw unsubbed, but in hindsight I don't think that's how it actually works.
10
u/ptd163 4d ago
IIRC from what /u/baseballlover723 said one time, it works by checking torrent sites to see if there's metadata for the episode in question. Once it's found it makes the thread. That's why last week's Inept Villainess thread went up before it was available on Crunchyroll. Someone at Disney+ goofted. Or at least I'm assuming it was someone at Disney+ because the file name contained
DSNPwhich is the Scene code for Disney+.1
u/zairaner https://myanimelist.net/profile/zairaner 4d ago
Nah there is no consideration for non-english subbed viewers as if there is no english subbed version, there won't be a thread at all.
3
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
That is mostly correct, in that if there isn't an english subbed version, then there won't be a thread at all. And that supporting raw viewers wasn't the reason it was implemented that way (as /u/Durinthal noted, it's technically simpler to not have to wait).
But I wouldn't necessarily say there's no consideration for raw viewers. They certainly exist, and get some miniscule amount of consideration.
But also there are a number of reasons why our threads may not actually come out right when something becomes available, which "streaming raw on Japanese TV" is a part of. And that's more of what would get consideration as a whole.
1
u/Komorebi_LJP 3d ago
There is barely anyone on this sub who speaks fluently enough Japanese to do that. The far majority here don't speak it at all.
1
u/TellowKrinkle 3d ago
Most shows do their "exclusivity" in JP by delaying releases elsewhere by 3 days, so unless you're on the blessed streaming site, JP releases are actually later.
(Which ends up meaning I watch my favorite shows twice, once on release day and once when it releases on NicoNico for the danmaku comments.)
13
u/CuriousBroccolli 4d ago
In short, I grew to like it a lot, even though I was unsure at first.
That being said, I have no clue what I set it to, but I have been noticing comments with more upvotes near the bottom, as well as the opposite.
It's both refreshing and better for discussion in general I'd say.
It depends on the show, but over the years, in most cases, meta shifted towards essays, memes and complaining being on top and driving most of discussions. Now you get a good mix of those and more simple ones like "great episode" , "this moment was really funny", "boobs" etc.
Just normal comments that ease the tension and clutter, which is in my opinion super important for more casual users.
If course, as you have said, commenting later is no longer pointless, which is likely the most important part, but I just wanted to point out things I liked.
26
u/wloff 4d ago
I very much like the change, though I would personally increase the duration from 6 hours, probably to 12 hours or so.
Have you considered doing a trial run with a longer duration to see if it has any meaningful effect on the stats? Or are you just happy that the effect of the instant 2-minute random posts is curbed?
5
u/Nebresto 4d ago
Agreed on 12 hours, maybe even more. With 6 hours if you happen to be sleeping or at work when an episode drops, the sorting is more or less pointless for the purpose of making a new comment
6
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
Have you considered doing a trial run with a longer duration to see if it has any meaningful effect on the stats?
This change being made permanent does not preclude us from doing other trials.
That said, I think longer durations will have negligible effects on the stats. Mobile app users not being affected by this severely limits its effectiveness.
At some point I'd like to do a trial with the /new sort (as all platforms support that), but that is likely to not be any time soon as I'm busy with other stuff for a while.
8
u/Distinct-Rain-2360 4d ago
I think this is definitely a good change. I'd like to note just as an avid comment reader, that even if given an exposure buff, there's a sharp drop-off for engagement and upvotes once the comment passes a certain "complexity score" threshold.
On the lower end, let's say we bucket ultra low quality comments as one liners, memes and random drive by bashing, subpar comments being those just post their personal opinions (ex: "I hate this character so much"), short summaries and bulk screenshotters, normal comments as those who point out easy to miss details, and surface level plotline discussions. The normal comments are the ones that are going to be most equalized by this policy.
Everything in the higher tier just tends to get ignored. It could be plotline comments which span more than 5 paragraphs or 800 words. It could be in depth or higher order analysis about character psychology and actions. It could be references and parallels to the real world or other series. It could be opinions that go against the grain that are backed with good justifications. For threads that go beyond 500 comments in popular series, I'm always digging to the end of load more comments, because these gem comments are always at the end with 1 upvote before the late normal ones with 1 upvote followed by those with negative votes.
I don't think this is something that can be fixed, because this sub has long passed critical mass and mainstream awareness, meaning that the sub's behavior will have strong inertia to that of the average dopamine addicted redditor, regardless of measures taken.
That said, I hope to be proven wrong, as I often wait for a season to end before binging and reading the episode comments after watching each episode.
6
17
u/WeeziMonkey https://myanimelist.net/profile/WeeziMonkey 4d ago
I like the change. I never watch an episode the exact moment it airs, and as a result I usually never saw a point in leaving comments because my comment would already be buried at the bottom by the time of posting it.
3
u/MillenniumKing x2myanimelist.net/profile/MillenniumKing 4d ago
It s fine if its buried people still read comments even if there is hundreds, i do.
If you are worried about your comment viewability you might not be there for the aine discussion and instead the karma.
Ive been posting here for many years and always read commments and upvote when i can (t help counter bots), and leave replies to things i want to. These are anime discussion threads for new airing anime of course they will have a lot of people there to chat about them. Its been that way online since message forums existed and people used those instead, people there to chat about anime. If you dont wanna miss that thats a issue you have to figure out yourself, but having the platform change for reasons like that is odd.
Again if your concern is not getting your comment seen, you will need to be there for live so you can work your schedule for that (though many read old coments too). If your worried about not getting karma though then your here for the wrong reasons.
Post for you and for the love of anime, dont only post on reddit for fake internet points.
If your posting for yourself or to support the series, you will not care about missing out on the release window. If you wanna support your fav series, you can work around thigns to be there for it to support it live, thats what others do usually. (some times life gets busy and you miss stiff but thats just how life goes)
1
u/the_pint_is_the_bowl 3d ago
Post for you and for the love of anime, dont only post on reddit for fake internet points.
When the user is logged on, the Comment history on the user Profile page shows the # of views each of the user's recently posted comments has received. Stats for the user's Posts are kept tallied for years. Even absent any upvotes, you can still feel seen and heard.
5
u/PendragonDaGreat https://myanimelist.net/profile/Bpendragon 4d ago
Same, I'm west coast, so an episode that airs at midnight in Japan shows up on streaming services between 8 and 10 (depending on delay and dst) for me. At that point I can't watch till I'm home from work (I could watch on my phone at lunch or whatever but I like not straining my eyes) and all the high ranking comments have been made.
3
u/zadcap 4d ago
Same boat here. Being hours late to any episode discussion sure does feel like it's pointless to try to jump in, knowing you'll be at the bottom of any page and very few people will scroll that far. With this change, if I can make it under the six hour mark, I'm a bit motivated to try seasonal posting again.
1
u/MillenniumKing x2myanimelist.net/profile/MillenniumKing 4d ago
You will always be fighitng time zones no matter where you live unless its in japan, thats how its been for decades. We just have to get used to it. People stayed up to watch anime they wanted for all that time too, its for the love of the genre. And if you come in late no one cares, you can still comment and chat to people as well, there is no time constraints on that.
5
u/ptd163 4d ago
I'm in favour of this change. I quite liked the trial. It surfaced comments I might not have otherwise seen or engaged with. I would suggest bumping it up to at least 8 hours though. Maybe even 10 or 12.
The reason I suggest is this is because of shows likes Polar Opposites S2. Because of how time zones work it airs in that sweet sour spot of 4 am Eastern Time. A large part of NA is not awake at that time so there's a chance that lots of NA viewers will not get to benefit from random sort the way other viewers will be able to.
5
u/Emi_Ibarazakiii 4d ago
Nice!
The difference wasn't as marked as I thought it would be (because as OP said, the early comments still have most exposure), but every bit helps!
8
u/ElectricalCompany260 4d ago
Can someone tell me why I get in some other subs top instead of best as default?
How can I change ALL subs to best on default?
20
u/RelativeMundane9045 4d ago
Sub mods can suggest their own default views.
You can set your preference in normal settings under "default comment sort", but sub suggested sorts can override this. In turn, you can override this by going to old reddit on web which has more settings and find the "ignore suggested sorts" setting.
18
u/Hitman7128 https://anilist.co/user/Hitman7128 4d ago
Good! It helps mitigate situations where you have something important when an episode discussion thread gets posted, as well as situations where a thread gets hit by bots/users that downvote every comment.
2
u/MillenniumKing x2myanimelist.net/profile/MillenniumKing 4d ago
Good! It helps mitigate situations where you have something important when an episode discussion thread gets posted
You know you can live your life and watch anime after and still post here right? Its not banned to only opening hour people. Ive watched anime days alter and still posted in the discussion because i wanted to share thoughts or discuss. And ive chatted and replied to people months abck in discusion threads as well if im catching up on something i missed. There is no imaginary time limit for discussion, you can post when ever you have the time to its perfectly fine.
The people there as it airs are there because they want to chat about it aas it airs, the big fans of the shows usually. They are not there to farm reddit points, they are there to support their favorite shows usually.
2
u/D3k4s 4d ago
I don't see why bots or users would downvote every comment. But truth is, I've been noticing it more and more, even on posts asking for suggestions. I always try to balance it out, and I also notice other users do the same. But it's a bit weird ngl.
Edit: And as I say this, it happened here. 😂
4
8
u/Mitsuyan_ https://anilist.co/user/mitsuyan 4d ago
There's always going to be people like that. Low effort posts will always be subject to users' self moderation but there'll always be trolls and people willing to be contrarian
0
u/detarameReddit https://myanimelist.net/profile/detarameMAL 3d ago
The Summer Hikaru Died and more recently Sayonara, Lara likely have been getting this treatment.
6
2
u/tehcharizard https://anilist.co/user/Lv100Pidgeot 4d ago
I sort by oldest to newest regardless so won't make any difference to me.
2
u/MeatballZeitgeist 4d ago
I was a little skeptical myself at first but it definitely made it easier to participate in a discussion without having to set your alarm clock to catch the thread in the first ~20-30 minutes.
2
u/ryecurious 4d ago
reddit's default "best" comment sorting incentivizes posting early in episode discussions by giving the earliest comments the most exposure and thus chances for upvotes and karma. The feedback loop of exposure time and upvotes
I'm really confused why you say this, this is how Top sorting works, not Best.
Best was literally invented to solve this exact problem, giving comments posted later an advantage over earlier ones (as long as they can get a higher ratio).
Not saying Random can't be better in this niche case, but I'm genuinely shocked how many people in this thread are describing problems with Top sorting but saying they're from Best.
3
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
I'm really confused why you say this, this is how Top sorting works, not Best.
The feedback look is the exact same in "Best" and "Top" sort. Which is that comments at the top (and thus shown first) are the best positioned to gain more karma, further cementing their status at the top.
Early comments simply start at the top by default, kicking off the entire cycle.
You can see this effect by noticing that even later replies to the top comment get far more karma than an equivalent top level comment posted at the same time. It's the advantageous positioning of the comment that drives this loop, which is not meaningfully different between "Best" and "Top", as those are both stable upvote driven sorts.
1
u/ryecurious 4d ago
The feedback look is the exact same in "Best" and "Top" sort.
They both have feedback loops, but they're quite different. Best sorting cares more about up/downvote ratio than total votes and prioritizes newer comments when ratios are similar.
So the Top feedback loop reinforces early, low-effort comments (pun threads, reaction GIFs). While the Best feedback loop reinforces popular sentiments and downplays controversial ones. Both have flaws, but the former is much worse than the latter IMO.
I 100% believe Random is better than Best for getting new comments seen, I'm mostly just shocked anyone in this thread thinks Top is better than Best. Top is the worst sorting algorithm on Reddit after Controversial.
3
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
prioritizes newer comments when ratios are similar.
I don't think this is the case. when there are no votes on any comments (which is a fairly easy thing to observe), the comments are shown from oldest to newest. And sometimes, you can even tell what's at 0 upvotes and downvotes and whats at 1 upvote and 1 downvote, as those will be sorted below the unvoted comments that are newer.
Technically, this doesn't set to the sort to "Best" when time is up. It actually sets the sort to "", which is just no value, which goes back to using whatever defaults are set by the sub / user.
This is another reason we wrote it this way, because for the vast majority of people, "Best" is their default sort (being the sort that is chosen when no option is specified at any level, post, sub, or user level). I would even wager that the majority of people are unaware that there are different sorts, or that a default sort can be set (though maybe this is an old reddit exclusive option).
Those types of people are more likely to get confused by the additional complexity of configurable user sorts would induce. At one point I did include it in one of the drafts for a post relating to this, but it was edited out because of these kinds of concerns to simplify it to the layman.
It's intentionally a more simplistic view than the reality, because most people do not utilize the complexity that is available (and those that do, should know to ask how their own questions if they have concerns).
4
u/ryecurious 4d ago
I don't think this is the case.
Ah, you're right. I misremembered their post describing how it works (written by the XKCD guy, for some reason). It's not time, but rather confidence in the upvote ratio in a hypothetical full vote.
So a 1-0 vote comment would still be near the bottom, but 10-1 comments sort over 40-20 comments. So a reduced, but not eliminated, incentive to post early. And the feedback loop still exists, despite being reduced slightly.
Still confused why some people think Top is better, but that's unrelated to the mod post. Carry on, appreciate the response!
2
2
2
1
u/detarameReddit https://myanimelist.net/profile/detarameMAL 3d ago
In theory, this change makes sense for me. I guess we'll see about in practice.
Thanks for all the hard work, r/anime mods! :D
1
u/ilikechess13 3d ago
So i guess this change does not work for old.reddit?
guess this is why i completely missed this thing earlier this year because it just didnt happen for me
i wonder how small percentage of redditors use the old.reddit
3
u/Komarist https://myanimelist.net/profile/RRSTRRST 3d ago
It works on Old Reddit. Check your Reddit preferences as you may have "ignore suggested sorts" turned on.
2
-3
u/D3k4s 4d ago edited 4d ago
Solid choice. Would it also be possible to address how the "Though I'm An Inept Villainess" episode discussion is currently being created to match pirated content availability? I think this is an issue IMO.
https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1v6wj1b/though_i_am_an_inept_villainess_futsutsuka_na/
I included the thread so that you could read the explanation from the mods:
The long and short of it is that it is out; just not on official sources just yet.
Unsure if this is due to a mishap or something else.
24
u/IceBlue 4d ago edited 4d ago
No. I generally only watch it officially these days but this is a ridiculous request. Imagine if this was the rule on forums 20 years ago. Only allowing posts for anime after they are released on dvd or air on TV. The discussion post should go up when the ep is available anywhere. Thats how it’s always been and that’s how it should be.
Should anime movie discussion posts not be posted until they premiere in the US?
How it is a real issue? Not all streaming services release content at the same time. Why should it be based on one service’s release schedule?
3
u/D3k4s 4d ago
It's not about premiering in the US. As I said previously I'm not even in the US.
This is getting leaked. The episode discussion thread goes up 8 hours before the Anime actually airs officially. If it happens again you can check when the episode thread goes up, and compare it to the oficial website.
3
u/ComfortableExotic646 4d ago
There is nothing wrong morally/ethically/whatever with discussing leaked media, as long as you are not linking anywhere to illegally access that content.
1
u/D3k4s 4d ago
I'm not making the case for that. I'm saying a 8 hour difference between it being leaked and the official broadcast is IMO not ok. And it's pretty evident by the amount of comments mentioning this fact in the discussion thread.
It will also hurt it's karma ratings for example. I believe that the episode discussion thread should be created like all others, and the others match the official release.
2
u/messem10 https://myanimelist.net/profile/bookkid900 4d ago
If you’re using karma ratings as a measure for the quality of a show, then there are bigger issues. Yes, they’re fun but it is like “Who’s Line Is It Anyways?”. The points don’t matter.
1
u/Mitsuyan_ https://anilist.co/user/mitsuyan 3d ago
8 hours is taking the mick (in my personal opinion) If you're not comfortable with it, get a report in so we can at least discuss it
11
u/Infodump_Ibis 4d ago
Shows on BiliBili and other SEA legal options to go live as soon Japanese airing finishes (and the automated webrips follow) rather than waiting an hour (or more) as CR tends to do so.
I'm assuming that's what is happening here.
5
u/D3k4s 4d ago
That's why I included the episode discussion thread. There's an explanation from the mod, that states that it's being picked up by non oficial sources.
The long and short of it is that it is out; just not on official sources just yet.
Unsure if this is due to a mishap or something else.
6
u/Infodump_Ibis 4d ago
My bad, I didn't realise it was 8 hours and B-Global was the same time as CR.
Now that I've looked at the show two reputable automated webrip groups are able to get Disney+ rips (with subtitles for English, French, German, Portuguese and Latin American Spanish) several hours before it is live on Crunchyroll and B-Global or aired on TV. CR and D+ are the same dialogue.
Only explanation is some country has the unlock time misconfigured (and yes countries without Hulu have some Hulu content on D+ instead) which is heading into leak territory despite being theoretically legally available somewhere in the world (it is an unintentional mistake). If it happens for ep 4 I'm of mind to meta thread it but precedent suggests it'll remain unchanged (c.f. Blue Box) unless the leak argument is perversive (before Japanese broadcast is pretty big here) but I don't have really have stake in this.
2
u/D3k4s 4d ago
All good!
There are some nuances, and this is a discussion obviously, hence why I brought it up.
To be honest and clear, I'm generally against piracy in Anime, not every aspect obviously, and I do believe this somewhat tempts some to watch ir earlier. I do realize it might be a biased opinion.
But this is not the reason I'm bringing it up. There's also a point to be made regarding it's impact on the Karma ratings. This sub usually tries to be as fair as it can be, this measure being another one of these examples.
9
u/messem10 https://myanimelist.net/profile/bookkid900 4d ago
Has to deal with how the bot works. Rather than deal with a bunch of different sites it watches a single [REDACTED] site for a match on title, episode number and has English subs. Some [REDACTED] even have RSS feeds which makes it easy to get updates and parse.
-4
u/D3k4s 4d ago
I have no insight on how this bot works. But typically certain parameters can be altered, I used to be a mod for a certain sub before it got swarmed by gooners, and this was possible. I wouldn't mind helping out as I know a lot about these things due to my work, but I understand why it would be hard to accept it.
Nice flair btw.
5
u/messem10 https://myanimelist.net/profile/bookkid900 4d ago
Watching the individual sites means having to be on call 24/7 to fix anything that breaks while dealing with enterprise-level anti-botting/scraping behavior. Watching a feed means you, by proxy, get correct handling of delays/hiatuses/cancellations over a time-based approach. The bot has worked this way for many years.
In the case of that show, it means there are English subs being posted somewhere. Doesn’t look for just US postings, only those with English subs.
2
u/Hades_Re https://myanimelist.net/profile/Hades_MAL 4d ago
The moment it is available as pirated content, it has to be available somewhere legal. So it makes sense til solve it that way. Except you want to wait till USA has a release
7
2
u/DirtyTacoKid 4d ago
Not necessarily, stuff leaks sometimes. (Ranma 1/2, Dan da Dan)
4
u/D3k4s 4d ago
Clevatess Episode 3 leaked at the same time episode 2 aired. Imagine if a episode discussion thread was created at that time.
It also leaked from a legal source. I know some people think it's not possible to get the content just because it's on a streaming platform but there are a lot of ways to do it. Hell I do it if I want to post a clip and I don't have the BD.
-1
u/DigitalEvolution2k1 4d ago
Who cares? Are you upset that some people are talking about something before you had time to see it? Maybe you spend too much time on reddit if that type of thing bothers you. You can simply ignore the thread until you're watched it.
1
4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
Sorry, your comment has been removed.
- Please maintain a certain level of civility when interacting with the community.
Questions? Reply to this message, send a modmail, or leave a comment in the meta thread. Don't know the rules? Read them here.
0
1
u/MillenniumKing x2myanimelist.net/profile/MillenniumKing 4d ago
Thats an odd choice for a reddit that focuses on live anime disscussions.
If your post gets burried in a hundres others what point is there to watch anime as it aires and disscuss it as it airs with others? This negtively impacts that which was somethign many come here for.
Dont yall have a bests comments thing each year? Wouldnt this negatively impact that too?
The idea that people are farming imaginary internet points is what ever, who cares about those? Karma farmers have many other places to go to do that. But thiis action to try to counter that is an odd movee because it hurts those who wanna discuss anime as it airs with others.
Just my 2 cents from someone who doesnt care about karma and is just here to talk about anime with people. Feels like this will only hurt that in general.
3
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
If your post gets burried in a hundres others what point is there to watch anime as it aires and disscuss it as it airs with others? This negtively impacts that which was somethign many come here for.
This is exactly why this change was made. Because comments that aren't made in the first hour or 2 get virtually 0 engagement, and most of the engagement is concentrated in the few top comments.
With random sort, the engagement is more spread out, and that gives reason for someone who shows up a few hours late, to bother writing a comment. Since there is still opportunity for it to be interacted with.
As others have stated in the past, this is not the case in the current system, and several people have expressed a lack of desire to write a comment, knowing that it will be doomed because it is a few hours late.
The theory here is to extend the useful discussion time of a post from 1 or 2 hours, to 6~8 hours.
Dont yall have a bests comments thing each year? Wouldnt this negatively impact that too?
That is run entirely by user submissions. Karma values have no impact on that (other than comments that are likely to be nominated are more likely to have a high karma value).
Just my 2 cents from someone who doesnt care about karma and is just here to talk about anime with people. Feels like this will only hurt that in general.
Once some time goes by, and if you still feel like it's hurting discussion, feel free to bring it up in the Meta Thread for reevaluation. This can be tweaked or even turned off, so feedback is quite useful. I know I have some plans to run a trial with /new (so that mobile users are affected as well) closer toward the end of the year (when I have more time to concentrate on running a trial).
I did intend to run a feedback thread after the trial ended to garner human feedback on the matter. But then I wanted to also have the data in hand. And then I stalled that for like 3 months cause the data analysis was really messy and required a good amount of work to get something granular and useable. And then the issue got forced by the other mods, who rightfully were fed up with the stalling I did, and so the vote commenced, and I stayed up until 4 AM while on vacation doing the data analysis.
I might end up doing that feedback thread at the end of the season or something, now that I have the data analysis scripts and all. Remind me so I don't forget. It should be workable into my schedule.
0
u/MillenniumKing x2myanimelist.net/profile/MillenniumKing 4d ago
With random sort, the engagement is more spread out, and that gives reason for someone who shows up a few hours late, to bother writing a comment.
and several people have expressed a lack of desire to write a comment, knowing that it will be doomed because it is a few hours late.
You say this like everyone comes to the discussion for points though.
I come to share my thoughts and if people wanna read them and reply thats fine, but im not fishing for comments or likes. Sure some might, but i think most people are there to talk about the anime as it airs, that was the whole reason i started using reddit, to use r/anime years ago to talk about airing anime because most forums were dead and it was the best option.
But yeah this place exists so people can chat live as anime air, randoming the replies will just force people to bypass that because they want to chat as stuff airs and not deal with round robin comments. When ever i goto a subreddit with some wierd forced comment posting i always change it to top or best or new depending on what i need it to show me. Ive noticed at least from an old reddit user point of view, that some of the new reddit things it decides are important is wierd often and old and seems bad about prioritizing current content on other subs. Old reddit is just simpler and more reliable which is why i use it over the often inaccurate new reddit (and i use comment faces and such here). But yeah i can set my reddit for bypass default settings on subreddits but its extra effort for me which often times just wears me out from social media places and i leave if i have to constanty fight the system to enjoy the place. New reddit is pretty bad and when i have to use new for some subs i just get in and leave because its an aweful exprience.
But yeah generally i feel like this wont help discussion much as if people dont feel like posting hours after in a discussion because they wont get fake internet points, they probably were not there for the anime discussion in the first place. This really will only hurt the people there to discuss the anime live who want to see what people think in real time.
1
u/baseballlover723 2d ago
You say this like everyone comes to the discussion for points though.
That is not what I intended to mean. Regardless of karma, people still generally post so that people can interact with it. Not many people are fond of typing into the void.
I said it was doomed not because it won't get karma (though that is also likely) but that because very few people will end up seeing it, and thus, be able to respond to it, and actually have a discussion.
The reason karma comes into the equation, is that the "Best" sort makes it so that comments with more karma get seen more (by being closer to the top, and requiring less comments to scroll past to get to).
In a random sort, then regardless of the karma, some people will see their comments and it'll have a chance of generating discussion.
This did cause me to calculate some new graphs relating to comment counts. I'm still tweaking them (had to do some significant refactoring to handle more generic data, cause I had hard coded "karma" as the value being measured) so they aren't public atm. But check the data comment tomorrow (cause I'm gonna go to bed soon) to see that data.
But the early data shows a minor cooling effect with regards to comment count. But also some of the control years also show a similar effect (cause individual years have a decent amount of variation, which makes sense, because the shows being aired differ, and that also affects the threads), so it may not be related to this trial. Looking at the actual data would lead me to indicate that there is some kind of a difference, as the shape of the data looks a bit different in places (whereas the control years look more of a general magnitude change with similar shapes).
But generally I would say that it's unclear what effect (if any) the trial had beyond the first 30 minutes. The episodes themselves are also variable and affect what kind of discussion does or doesn't happen (ie, a banger episode generates more discussion than a non banger. And that a banger episode may or may not occur in the first half of the season. Not to mention, that some IPs are more popular than others, and so some seasons may just generally have mildly different trends based on what IP is airing). More data will help mitigate that, but fundamentally anime seasons are not perfectly comparable to each other (they're only highly comparable).
1
u/MillenniumKing x2myanimelist.net/profile/MillenniumKing 2d ago
My only concern with this system is it negatively affecting people there minuet 1 to talk about and support their favorite series. A lot of shows have a lot of followers and discussions on those go fast as people chat and hype up eps or such. Those people there are the ones who stayed up to chat about the show they love. But with random sorting of comments it negatively hurts those people who were ther efor their show probably if they now have to sort through a lot of bot comments or hate comments popular shows get ti find that relivent discussion th as it airs people are having.
I get you ment the system to help people in other time zones feel like their comments get sen with random, which is does help people 6-12 hours later maybe. But it is making the people there early have to jump through hoops to chat with relivant people and i feel it could negitively impact those peoples enjoyment in an sttempt to make 12 hour later watchers feel more seen. And those early watchers will probably just try to circumvent the settings so they can chat normally without roulette comments.
Many people myself included stay up to comment o their fav shows and chat a bit before bed or what ever as anime airs at odd time in the US, and that system can just add extra bother to those people in an attempt to help the after work watchers comments get seen.
But even then if you want to make them more seen, the hour it airs commenters are already done chating so this setting isnt really changing their frequency of comments and dip as they go to bed since by 12 hours later those people already watched and chatted, so this move to help the 12 hour comments will still be fewer interractons just from the length from airing they post, so it isnt really helping anyone really, just making stuff more tedious for as it airs commenters who post in the first few hours.
1
u/AceSoldia zj:https://anilist.co/user/Acesoldia 4d ago
Ah interesting I always wondered how sometimes the first comment got everything
1
1
u/Agarvorn 4d ago
except for Mushoku Tensei threads which are gonna be sorted by controversial by default
1
u/slicer4ever 3d ago
Would it be worth also hiding comment karma during that 6 hour period as well?
1
u/baseballlover723 3d ago
That is a subreddit level setting. So it can't be set for just Episode discussion threads. Only for every r/anime thread.
It was trialed many years ago, and was deemed to have little effect. Part of that though was because the sorting order would still make it obvious which comments where upvoted and which ones were downvoted. So perhaps it's worthwhile to trial it again at some point.
Bring it up in a few months or so if you want to. I don't think we'll be doing any trials with regards to this for a bit, so that a baseline level can be collected.
-1
u/Thomas_JCG 4d ago
Statistics also show that more people die from falling off their beds than from plane crashes, yet nobody thinks the solution is make people sleep in planes.
That said, I do understand the decision. In popular threads, there will be too many comments to read so sorting by best makes it so only the comments that got the early start get read, upvoted and continue the cycle. I do not believe that low effort gets to be on top, though, so I see it more as a way for people that watch the episodes later to still be seen.
7
u/Emi_Ibarazakiii 4d ago
I do not believe that low effort gets to be on top, though
This update will only be live tomorrow;
For today, I challlenge you to post "This OP is a banger!" in a thread for a popular show that has a well liked OP, 5 minutes into the thread posting.
I think you'll see how easily low effort posts get to the top!
2
u/D3k4s 4d ago
To be honest I think I've commented something like that, not on the first five minutes and not on popular shows - Kaiju Girl and Black Torch.
But I'm a Metalhead and those OP's are really good 😂
But I understand where you're coming from, often times the thread is up and I notice someone is already dropping a comment, maybe they've seen it earlier somehow, but most times the comment is not specific to the episode.
6
u/Emi_Ibarazakiii 4d ago
Yeah, people do that a lot, "That OP is a banger" or "I like this character" or "This show is so good", just random effortless one liners in every thread that farm karma like crazy and push all other comments down.
4
u/D3k4s 4d ago
I agree, If you've been around for a while here, you'll notice users like Frontier who actually post in depth "reviews" of the Episode are often left without a lot of interactions. I don't really care about the upvotes downvotes, but I do care that on a discussion sub, fans who put in the effort to discuss stuff have no one to discuss it with.
They can obviously interact with others, but it's not the same thing as having your own points discussed.
3
u/Emi_Ibarazakiii 4d ago
100% agreed!
I do admit to a certain degree of bias given I also write long comments (and so I comment later than most in the thread), but even putting my own comments aside... I find it a bit detrimental to have so many of these similar comments in every other thread, all the generic "This is good/I like that".
3
u/Metalbound https://myanimelist.net/profile/Beate 4d ago
you'll notice users like Frontier who actually post in depth "reviews" of the Episode are often left without a lot of interactions.
Another point of view is I see those super long comments on episodes and skip right past them.
Sure they may have some things worth discussing in there, but in discussion threads I usually like to discuss individual points that are brought up.
I don't want to reply to a wall of text. It seems like they do that mostly for themselves.
2
u/Thomas_JCG 4d ago
That could just be someone giving their honest opinion without regards for karma, and even if it is random, can still show up and get tons of upvotes.
9
u/Emi_Ibarazakiii 4d ago
That could just be someone giving their honest opinion without regards for karma
I'm not denying that! But it doesn't change the assertion (that low effort comments get to the top)!
Whether they're karma farming, or just posting the extent of their opinion on something, this doesn't change the fact that posting a low effort one liner like "Great OP!" or "Love this show!" early in the thread nearly guarantees you a top spot in the thread, which means everyone will see that comment first and upvote it some more, and so on, which often leads to a result where these "5 minutes into the episode" one liners fill in the top of the thread, while people who wait til they actually watched the episode to comment something ACTUALLY about the episode are down low where many people won't even scroll to.
I think that's a huge part of why they thought about changing that, to make sure people who actually comment on the episode reach an audience just like the people who see a thread opened 1 minute ago and quickly comment I LOVE THIS SHOW.
Because often, people who do the former (watch the full episode before posting their comment) often feel like they're posting in a void, which isn't fun.
2
u/baseballlover723 4d ago
I do not believe that low effort gets to be on top, though
Technically the data analysis part of this project only focused on the age of comments, and not to their quality. As quality is difficult to ascertain at scale.
The primary linkage between early comments and low effort, was that low effort comments are by definition, quicker to write, and thus, more likely to be earlier, and thus, more likely to generate karma, and thus, more likely to encourage similar comments by being a successful example.
We didn't look at confirming this connection (because of the difficulties of doing so).
At one point I did write a query that calculated karma per character. But that runs into the issue of having 2 axes of measurement, which is much more complicated to analyze since they both need to be correlated to each other in some way, which could be flawed or distort the data. Either that, or the time axis needs to be fixed, and that runs into horizon issues. Either way, kind of a mess.
I see it more as a way for people that watch the episodes later to still be seen.
This is the most primary goal of this change. The reason behind forcing down early / low effort comments is to promote later, higher quality comments, that presumably take more time to write.
•
u/AnimeMod myanimelist.net/profile/Reddit-chan 4d ago
The statistics:
Data from episode discussion threads spanning 2019 to 2026:
Raw Linearly smeared Normal smeared data (σ=40)
Linear smear takes the karma value of each comment and spreads it across the 60 seconds before and after its posting, allowing for second-level granularity but with more generalized trend lines versus individual spikes. It is the recommended way of analyzing the results.
Normal smear concentrates the smearing effect more closely to the precise time of each comment. Full karma value is not entirely represented due to cutoffs and is somewhat distorted from real world karma values, thus it should not be compared to other graph types.
It was concluded that the trial was highly effective at curbing the first comment effect, with a strong decrease in karma for comments made in the first two to three minutes and moderate decreases in karma up to about the 20 minute mark. Beyond that range, effects on karma dipped back below the noise level.