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dev.to is shadow-banned on Reddit

Gajus Kuizinas on August 30, 2019

Yesterday I have written my first article on dev.to and shared it on Reddit. I have a good amount of Reddit karma and I was expecting it to become ...
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ivanalejandro0 profile image
Ivan Alejandro

I didn't know that shadow-banning was a thing... like hiding the fact that they are hiding it? that's an /r/assholedesign right there.

There are posts linked to dev.to, though... see: reddit.com/domain/dev.to/

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itsasine profile image
ItsASine (Kayla)

The thing about those is that the mod of whatever subreddit they were posted to might have whitelisted the post. Shadowbanning puts every post in the mod queue.

Some mods never look at the queue or authorize posts from it while others do. Posting to an active sub can help with that, but it really is on the whims of the mods.

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ivanalejandro0 profile image
Ivan Alejandro

Oh, that makes sense, thanks for the explanation.

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perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

I think we're shadow-banned everywhere - including here. Hahaha. Wait, that isn't normal? 😃

Reddit wants to keep it's people - on Reddit - and so, since Dev.to - is much better than Reddit (for certain things), it makes sense that they wouldn't want people to migrate. However, they don't block Discord links - which seems like a bigger danger to them.

You should probably write a Reddit post about it - but just don't link to Dev.to

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nickytonline profile image
Nick Taylor

In case you're not aware @ben, @jess or @peter.👆

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Actually yeah, we were pretty aware. We've had this happen in the past and we've gone through hoops to try to remedy it, only to have it happen again. We never find out, we don't know what the deal is. We get different answers every time.

The annoying part is that users submit their stuff to Reddit and they don't get upvotes. It really sucks. We should remove that from some of our instructions on where you might want to submit posts.

The reason we're not overly concerned:

  • Most of the community finds us from other sources, and this has never been overly impactful in the grand scheme of things
  • Not getting Reddit traffic can be seen as a positive. Not all Redditors are obnoxious trolls, but it is a large hangout spot for obnoxious trolls.

We'll look into this again.

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joelnet profile image
JavaScript Joel

Not all Redditors are obnoxious trolls, but it is a large hangout spot for obnoxious trolls.

This has been my experience and why I don't post articles on reddit anymore.

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cbid2 profile image
Christine Belzie

Not getting Reddit traffic can be seen as a positive. Not all Redditors are obnoxious trolls, but it is a large hangout spot for obnoxious trolls.

I agree @ben, and love the shade you threw in there lol 😆

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mustapha profile image
Mustapha Aouas

Same for me, always getting no upvotes at all. I'm curious to know why it's shadow-banned tho.

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ffff_jay profile image
Jay

A large portion of their daily users are technology ones. They don't want the competition, Reddit are snakes and have always been snakes. I recommend you stop using that time-sink.

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bennypowers profile image
Benny Powers 🇮🇱🇨🇦

IIRC posting your own content to reddit is against their terms.

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gajus profile image
Gajus Kuizinas

It is not. Also this comment is ill-spirited. You are making a false claim and leaving the burden of fact checking on the reader. "IIRC" might work in a real-life conversation; it doesn't translate to a written dialogue where you have infinite time to check before posting or stop yourself from posting if in doubt.

Reddit rules regarding self-promotion can be found here reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion.

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ssimontis profile image
Scott Simontis

I don't think he was intentionally trying to make a false statement or involved in some deep conspiracy to spread disinformation and brainwash the general populace of this website. You could have chosen to just say "Actually I looked it up here and that isn't the case, although you were kind of close because excessive self promotion can be an issue."

He did no harm, he was offering a hypothesis...please try and be more respectful if you choose to call someone out for being wrong. This community is all about respect among members and creating a safe space to discuss the aspects of development we love, and above all, to educate each other.

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simbo1905 profile image
Simon Massey

Personally I don't use reddit as when I tried to post good things this sort of thing happened to me. Every couple of years I think I might be missing out and take a look and think ”meh”. Can anyone tell me what I might be missing out on to motivate me to try again?

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gajus profile image
Gajus Kuizinas

As a content creator, you are missing out on big audience sizes. dev.to generated 2.2k views in 24 hours. Reddit generated 3.5k views in the first hour. That being said, it is true that Reddit comment threads often include personal attack and mocking comments. I deal with that by just being polite in return, providing the bare minimum response if one is needed (if something is technically inaccurately misrepresented about the contents of the article), and move on to other conversations.

As a content consumer, you are not missing out on much. Same content in one form or another reaches other networks.

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darksmile92 profile image
Robin Kretzschmar

How did this happen?

And more important, why is this the case?
I know you just recognized it, but since you have more experience with reddit than me, do you have any clue why this happened?

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gajus profile image
Gajus Kuizinas

My experience with Reddit as a mod is limited. I use it just to announce my articles. I have posted this article hoping it will reach someone who is better integrated into Reddit hierarchy and can answer your questions.

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darksmile92 profile image
Robin Kretzschmar

Ah great, hopefully we get some answers :)

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ssimontis profile image
Scott Simontis

All I know is I came here because this community was far more supportive and positive than a lot of the Reddit communities. Maybe I just chose terrible subreddits, but there was a lot of downvoting simply because people disagreed with you and their are some mods who are ego-tripping hardcore. It wasn't worth my time to post there, my posts trying to share insight or help people got lost in the deluge of 50 people getting angry that someone wouldn't do their homework for them everyday.

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Jordan Kicklighter • Edited

Is it just a particular sub, or all of reddit?

edit: missed the part where you clearly stated it happened in several places. I wasn't aware reddit would ban domains site-wide.

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edong profile image
Eric Dong

Still noticing this in 2024

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xanozoid profile image
XANOZOID

You could, perhaps, make a post and then add a comment to your dev.to link? Or maybe that actually shadows the comment within the post... Oh well.

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Nikita Sobolev

The same here.

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Vinicius Stock

I have experienced the same thing. I usually share my dev.to articles in reddit, but when I shared my latest one it had no views.