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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Dog-piling is when someone expresses an opinion and people swarm in the comments telling the OC how wrong they are and how right they are. Typically the person getting dogpiled is downvoted into oblivion in the process. Note that I'm not talking about anything controversial in their opinion or the comment being trolling in any way; just any general disagreement with the groupthink.

Brief example:

User 1:  There are lots of factors at play here, not just money.  There's X, Y, Z, and those are all independent from money.
  |____> User 2: No, it's money.  It's always money
  |______>  User 4: Right?  How can anyone think it's anything *but* money?  Some people!
  |____> User 3: Yes, well, X, Y, and Z wouldn't be a problem if not for capitalism, so it's definitely money, and you're wrong.
  |____> User 5: It all boils down to money; always does.
  |____> User 6: Of course it's money.  Only a capitalist bootlicker would think otherwise.
  |____> User 7: Go back to Reddit, troll.
  |____> User 8: You're so close, but it's money.  
  ...
  |____> User 999: (Same as the last 998 comments; contributes nothing except attacking the opinion for being different)

None of that adds anything to the discussion; they're not engaging on the subject, just attacking the opinion because it differs.

That behavior does not seem healthy to me and seems like it's almost designed to discourage anyone from expressing any opinion that's not part of the established group think. Again, I am not talking about trolls here, just any kind of differing opinions.

Should that kind of behavior be discouraged? If so, as a mod, what would be the best way to address it? After the 2nd or 3rd dogpile comment, start removing subsequent ones that are just piling on?

It's definitely a people problem, so I'm curious what would be a gentle but firm way to deal with it.

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I see where you're coming from. I feel that joke comments that detail a whole thread I'd like to have discussion in is extremely frustrating. I sometimes wish they'd be banned, they're not adding anything to the post, except... Maybe it's helpful to people from becoming utterly hopeless and cynical.

I've thought about your point a decent amount of time for a few years and my thoughts are: people will people. It's for moderation teams to set rules and lead by example and clean up messes, if users refuse to self mod. Sometimes dogpiling is that, other times just disagreement that agrees with someone else's reasoning. Other times, it's just validation seeking because people have no firm seld-identity and/or core beliefs. Maybe they'll develop them if something really resonates, all exceptions acknowledged and considered. We don't learn from being correct very often. We do by being incorrect, or finding exceptions that ~~flour~~ flout our ideals.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

You're asking a great question! I don't see any easy answers though

[-] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I mean, considering that for literally years, dog-piling was both engaged in and practically encouraged by moderation, it would seem like a step in the right direction.

The solution is to stop using moderation as a cudgel to create echo chambers. Specifically, c/World, c/Politics, and c/Political_Memes were explicitly filtered to a specific view of American politics by moderation over the course of 2023-2024. Squid was particularly notable for regularly flaming people to then ban them.

Moderation needs to be held to a real standard, but has continued to be used in an incredibly editorial fashion.

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this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
24 points (76.1% liked)

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