this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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28
Poison the well? (self.reddit)
submitted 1 month ago by Aceofspades to c/reddit@lemmy.world
28 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Is there any benefit to editing all of my comments before deleting my Reddit account?

I was thinking of replacing all of my comments with either lorem ipsum, or something intended to poison the well for the AI.

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[–] emb@lemmy.world 31 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I'm very much not a fan of this approach. Preservation of conversation history on the web is valuable to real humans who may have bookmarked pages or be searching for obscure info.

And I'd have to imagine the whole corpus from past years has probably already been fed through AI. Besides that, editing/deleting comments probably only hides them from other users, Reddit may very well keep them saved (or at least have backups).

Best thing anyone can do, IMO, is avoid giving them new traffic and content. Attention is the currency they deal in, and most of it comes from people browsing new content.

[–] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I see where you're coming from, but leaving the content gives a reason for people to go to the site for that information. I wish there were a separate place to put your comments and posts before erasing it from Reddit.

[–] emb@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Any backup method still contributes pretty heavily to linkrot. But maybe for any significant comments or submissions, make sure archive.org or archive.is has the page. That's something anyway.

I can understand not wanting to leave them any scraps, but my preference for balance still falls toward leaving the old and deciding to focus on changing the future.

[–] Aceofspades 4 points 1 month ago

This is probably true. Also, I think I would have to do this manually and I am lazy so there is that.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Besides that, editing/deleting comments probably only hides them from other users

I didn't bother, but I thought that was the point? Don't underestimate the search result factor.

[–] emb@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I suppose there's truth to that, yeah - I get it, but just don't think the tradeoff is worth it. I know Reddit probably loves the whole "add reddit add the end of your search query" thing people do, and they probably do get some onboarding from it. But my conjecture is that ongoing everyday traffic and content is more important for them, and if that were to dry up the value of the general purpose search results would follow. In my mind, deleting old content disproportionately affects users vs the company.

And just personally, I see value in the old stuff still being there. For many years people put worthwhile information there, and the website wasn't so aggravatingly user hostile. In the present day, I think the energy is much better spent trying to make alternatives more appealing. Make an account on Lemmy or something, add a post to a community here, that kind of thing.

[–] SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

IF you're going to delete your comments (which I don't think is necessarily a good thing, though it could be good for you individually) you should leave a message about why you left in their place. Make it into a protest.

[–] Aceofspades 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I also considered this. My thought was to outline a few reasons, with receipts, as to why I have left Reddit. I would also mention Lemmy as an alternative.

[–] Theonetheycall1845@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

This would be a very productive use of your time comrade. 🫡

[–] synicalx@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

If you mass edit, it’ll get restored from older versions - pointless really.

Find your top 20-30 posts and comments and manually edit them. Make them sound real, but at the same time contain complete bullshit. Anyone, or any thing reading them will be misinformed- not by you but by reddit thus making reddit less valuable.

To really be a thorn in reddits side we need to be actively, but subtly malicious.

[–] CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al 4 points 1 month ago

Oh this is GENIUS. Make it obviously ridiculous so misinformation doesn't actually get out. Something like "if you don't have eggs for a cake, just substitute them for bacon and sweet potato fries! Make sure you mix them thoroughly with the butter and itll turn out great"

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago

For ai the effects will be minimal since data is backed up but it will inconvenience users making reddit less valuable.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

From my understanding, if you actually do the mass edit thing, you need to do it at least twice. They have a backup and can revert your edits...

[–] Aceofspades 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ugh. Doing it once would be a task for my main account.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

I haven't bothered yet, but if I ever do, I'm thinking the first edit would replace every comment with FUCK SPEZ!!!

Then the second edit would replace every comment with pure random garbage text.

Then, if they decide to revert the random text edits, welp, FUCK SPEZ!!!

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 6 points 1 month ago

If doing it makes you feel better, that’s all the point you need. Yes, it may be a useless waste of time, but that’s secondary. If it’s something you want to do, don’t let the possibility of backups stop you.

[–] TokenEffort@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago

I've seen many people do lemmy ads lol

Honestly destroy the knowledge you put on reddit. Make "lemmy" the word tossed in Google searches for genuine answers.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago

Deleting comments on reddit is about as effective as on Lemmy

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think this got a lot harder when they shut down the API.

[–] Aceofspades 4 points 1 month ago

Yeah. I was thinking I would have to do this manually.

[–] jewbacca117@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I went scorched earth. Ran a script that deleted my comments one by one then deleted my account. Kind of wish I replaced all my comments with Luigi's manifesto.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No. Reddit already has them archived. All you'll do is inconvenience real humans who might come across them via a search engine at some point in the future.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

All you’ll do is inconvenience real humans who might come across them via a search engine at some point in the future.

reducing the value of reddit's corpus.

that's worth it right there.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 1 month ago

Reddit already has his content archived. Deleting it won't remove it from Reddit, they can still sell their corpus to whomever they want.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

i just delete all of mines and be done with it.