[cortesoft]

There was a Reddit bot a few years ago (aptly named 'trappedinreddit') that would automatically post the previous top comment on reposts. Predictably, those comments would get upvoted again, and trappedinreddit would end up with the top comment on most posts. It lasted a few months before the bot was outed and it went away.

[worker767424]

Sweet, sweet karma. And then you go sell the account.

[okamiueru]

Interesting. Do you know what the marked value is for karma? Is the value tied to something practical, e.g. easier to pass spam filters with an account?

[StellarTabi]

Karma? It doesn't get more valuable after you have enough to get you past the "you didn't register your account yesterday" type automod filters. Anyone buying accounts for "huge karma" didn't fully research how Reddit works. If you have low karma in one specific sub (because you are trolling or spamming), no amount of shameless repost karma in r/funny will protect from the "you are posting too frequently" message you'll only get in the sub you are getting downvoted in.

Accounts that will likely get big offers will have a large number of followers, mod large subreddits or targeted subreddits.

Having an active account before the 2016 Russia thing is also worth something. When you want to spread misinformation or do shill marketing, it helps a lot to see any of the following when checking a user's Reddit profile:

- the user didn't register a month ago.

- the user didn't register just to talk exclusively on this subject/product.

- the user registered before Russia's IRA became active on Reddit.

- the user didn't stop exclusively participating in porn or sports subreddits just to make this comment.

- the user is writing enough quality comments that they don't feel compelled to delete most, if not all, of them.

- the user is not making contradictory claims (there is a famous example of someone claiming to be a cis woman in computers who had clearly cis male comments in several cis male oriented subreddits, one of them called something like "semen rentension". They were called out.

- the user posts in subreddits that are on good terms with the subreddit we found their suspicious comment in.

Source: I'm a Reddit moderator and work at a marketing startup.

[numpad0]

I assume the actual value would be in history of an account as a whole, and karma is a simplified explanation.

There’s no easy way to identify comments on the Internet as stolen, so with enough dedication it’ll be possible to create a system that generate profiles with years worth of life by just mishmashing elements. That will help bots pass spam filter developer on top of existing filter itself.

[livre]

Many subreddits automatically delete posts or comments from users with low karma. Also people trust users with older accounts and a good amount of karma more than new users or people with low karma.

[dredmorbius]

Keep in mind this is either a subreddit or Automoderator setting.

Subs can limit posts to users with some minimal karma or age. Typically this still permits comment, though harvesting comment karma is then incentivised.

Automoderator, a rule-driven automated moderation tool, can actively interact with posts and comments based on various criteria, including automatically holding or removing posts or comments, messaging submitters, and other actions. This is heavily used on highly-active subs, and pretty well documented.

[cortesoft]

Do many people on Reddit actually check an account history before deciding whether to upvote or downvote something?

[livre]

The power users do, moderators do, those obsessed with reposters and bots too but I don't think the majority cares enough to check that. Most just follow the initial votes, so if the users who were early decided it was worth upvoting the rest of the people will generally just follow along. I think that's why selling votes is also profitable, you can get your post to the frontpage if it is good enough and you bought a few hundred early upvotes.