6 ms·

I mean, if you read the comments on many of the default subs, there is a clear undertone of those cultures. I don't believe that's an editorial statement, but r

I mean, if you read the comments on many of the default subs, there is a clear undertone of those cultures. I don't believe that's an editorial statement, but really a pretty accurate depiction of how many people (both inside and out) perceive the reddit community. It's sad.

Karunamon 11y ago
but really a pretty accurate depiction of how many people (both inside and out) perceive the reddit community. Shout something long enough and hard enough, and people will widely begin to believe it. Wired doing what they just did here is at least part of the reason that perception exists. Certain rabble-rousers within the community itself are another. It's an accusation. A smear. For it to be otherwise, there'd need to be proof, something sorely lacking from this meme.
- kaitai 11y ago
  But it's pretty easy for the average user to find offensive content on Reddit -- things that would upset them if they or one of their children was involved. An existence proof for ugly stuff on Reddit is trivial, while it's much harder to give an average user a feel for what ratio of content they find offensive vs not.
  - sonnyz 11y ago
    I think a lot of the offensive comments that are easy to find on Reddit can also be found on other popular sites, such as Youtube, Facebook, or comment sections on news sites.
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    So? That is an excellent argument for not including those subreddits in the default home page (for users who are not logged in) or /r/all. But you can find offensive things, or things you don't want your children to see, on just about any site (also, yes, your teens know about redtube).
  - johnward 11y ago
    If you make it easier for people to find the sub reddits then you get those people who are making the comments in the sub reddits now. It's a catch 22.
  - pdeuchler 11y ago
    You could very easily replace "reddit" with "the internet" and wow, all of the sudden it's like we've time traveled back to the early naughts with hysteria over kids having internet access
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  I have been a participating member of the community for years. I can see it myself, I'm not being shouted at. EDIT: Honestly, looking at everything that happened a few months ago with the blackouts and multiple events surrounding Ellen Pao, it's nothing but embarrasing how vocal some communities can be that cause many people there for good reasons to be silenced and unheard.
- notJim 11y ago
  I am neither shouting, nor being shouted at, but I use reddit a lot, and the large default subs are rampant with racism and sexism, and people defending the same. And when people from marginalized groups say hey, this is not cool, and you ignore them or call them rabble-rousers, that is exactly what you are doing.
  - diogenescynic 11y ago
    There are also a lot of rather large subs like /r/shit____says that serve as downvote brigades to harass people over their opinion. It's online-bullying at its worst.
    - mahouse 11y ago
      /r/shitredditsays is liberal-leaned and is supported by the administration.
      - eertami 11y ago
        >is supported by the administration. Well duh, hence why fatpeoplehate got banned and shitredditsays stays because they're pretty much the same subreddit, except the latter actually breaks the rules.
        mahouse 11y ago
        shitredditsays engages in open active vote manipulation, which is against the rules.
        SolaceQuantum 11y ago
        > fatpeoplehate got banned and shitredditsays stays because they're pretty much the same subreddit, except the latter actually breaks the rules. Except for that time that fatpeoplehate doxxed the staff at Imgur on reddit when Imgur no longer tolerated FPH posting images of fat people to laugh at on their servers.
emodendroket 11y ago
Hateful commentary on the Internet appears pretty much anywhere that allows commentary. I'm not entirely convinced Reddit is worse than, say, YouTube.
- baldfat 11y ago
  Oh read your local news comments. My news is full of racist comments. They blame everything on our Latino community and paint the city as a crime filled haven. To bad we had over $1,000,000,000 invested in our City and have had lower crime every year for the past 10 years.
  - eli 11y ago
    Sure, but I don't hang out in local news comment threads either.
  - striking 11y ago
    I am willing to believe a very small number of people take those seriously.
    - pdeuchler 11y ago
      You'd be horribly, horribly wrong too
  - jgrowl 11y ago
    This is a good point. It's the same way where I live, though most of the hate is directed towards black folks (KY). People with strong opinions (good or bad) will tend to be more vocal about it, and racists have very strong opinions. Therefore they will have a high visibility anywhere. The Southern Poverty Law Center might as well classify the air we breath to be racist because it is used as a platform for transmitting ideas. I still think we really need to create a distributed open reddit alternative based off of ipfs or something similar. Ideally all posts would be treated the same at a low level but different curation sites could be built on top. Users that wanted to be 'protected' from 'offensive' material could be while users that value free speech could look at unfiltered views.
multinglets 11y ago
"there is a clear undertone of those cultures." == "it sometimes seems that some redditors are not drinking the extreme left academian kool aid" And everyone knows that's what that means now. Downmod all you want. Everyone still knows it. Everyone. ;-)
- dang 11y ago
  "Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or declare that you'll probably get downvoted." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tomjen3 11y ago
Their mistake and their problem. Didn't we all learn in school that the one thing you didn't do to bullies was listen to them?
johnward 11y ago
Yeah but it's accurate about basically any community. It's not like reddit is overtly *ist compared, to say, youtube. Plus when you get out of the default subreddits that attract everyone there is a pretty good community.

Karunamon 11y ago

but really a pretty accurate depiction of how many people (both inside and out) perceive the reddit community. Shout something long enough and hard enough, and people will widely begin to believe it. Wired doing what they just did here is at least part of the reason that perception exists. Certain rabble-rousers within the community itself are another. It's an accusation. A smear. For it to be otherwise, there'd need to be proof, something sorely lacking from this meme.

kaitai 11y ago
But it's pretty easy for the average user to find offensive content on Reddit -- things that would upset them if they or one of their children was involved. An existence proof for ugly stuff on Reddit is trivial, while it's much harder to give an average user a feel for what ratio of content they find offensive vs not.
- sonnyz 11y ago
  I think a lot of the offensive comments that are easy to find on Reddit can also be found on other popular sites, such as Youtube, Facebook, or comment sections on news sites.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  So? That is an excellent argument for not including those subreddits in the default home page (for users who are not logged in) or /r/all. But you can find offensive things, or things you don't want your children to see, on just about any site (also, yes, your teens know about redtube).
- johnward 11y ago
  If you make it easier for people to find the sub reddits then you get those people who are making the comments in the sub reddits now. It's a catch 22.
- pdeuchler 11y ago
  You could very easily replace "reddit" with "the internet" and wow, all of the sudden it's like we've time traveled back to the early naughts with hysteria over kids having internet access
LesZedCB 11y ago
I have been a participating member of the community for years. I can see it myself, I'm not being shouted at. EDIT: Honestly, looking at everything that happened a few months ago with the blackouts and multiple events surrounding Ellen Pao, it's nothing but embarrasing how vocal some communities can be that cause many people there for good reasons to be silenced and unheard.
notJim 11y ago
I am neither shouting, nor being shouted at, but I use reddit a lot, and the large default subs are rampant with racism and sexism, and people defending the same. And when people from marginalized groups say hey, this is not cool, and you ignore them or call them rabble-rousers, that is exactly what you are doing.
- diogenescynic 11y ago
  There are also a lot of rather large subs like /r/shit____says that serve as downvote brigades to harass people over their opinion. It's online-bullying at its worst.
  - mahouse 11y ago
    /r/shitredditsays is liberal-leaned and is supported by the administration.
    - eertami 11y ago
      >is supported by the administration. Well duh, hence why fatpeoplehate got banned and shitredditsays stays because they're pretty much the same subreddit, except the latter actually breaks the rules.
      - mahouse 11y ago
        shitredditsays engages in open active vote manipulation, which is against the rules.
      - SolaceQuantum 11y ago
        > fatpeoplehate got banned and shitredditsays stays because they're pretty much the same subreddit, except the latter actually breaks the rules. Except for that time that fatpeoplehate doxxed the staff at Imgur on reddit when Imgur no longer tolerated FPH posting images of fat people to laugh at on their servers.

emodendroket 11y ago

Hateful commentary on the Internet appears pretty much anywhere that allows commentary. I'm not entirely convinced Reddit is worse than, say, YouTube.

baldfat 11y ago
Oh read your local news comments. My news is full of racist comments. They blame everything on our Latino community and paint the city as a crime filled haven. To bad we had over $1,000,000,000 invested in our City and have had lower crime every year for the past 10 years.
- eli 11y ago
  Sure, but I don't hang out in local news comment threads either.
- striking 11y ago
  I am willing to believe a very small number of people take those seriously.
  - pdeuchler 11y ago
    You'd be horribly, horribly wrong too
- jgrowl 11y ago
  This is a good point. It's the same way where I live, though most of the hate is directed towards black folks (KY). People with strong opinions (good or bad) will tend to be more vocal about it, and racists have very strong opinions. Therefore they will have a high visibility anywhere. The Southern Poverty Law Center might as well classify the air we breath to be racist because it is used as a platform for transmitting ideas. I still think we really need to create a distributed open reddit alternative based off of ipfs or something similar. Ideally all posts would be treated the same at a low level but different curation sites could be built on top. Users that wanted to be 'protected' from 'offensive' material could be while users that value free speech could look at unfiltered views.

multinglets 11y ago

"there is a clear undertone of those cultures." == "it sometimes seems that some redditors are not drinking the extreme left academian kool aid" And everyone knows that's what that means now. Downmod all you want. Everyone still knows it. Everyone. ;-)

dang 11y ago
"Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or declare that you'll probably get downvoted." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tomjen3 11y ago

Their mistake and their problem. Didn't we all learn in school that the one thing you didn't do to bullies was listen to them?

johnward 11y ago

Yeah but it's accurate about basically any community. It's not like reddit is overtly *ist compared, to say, youtube. Plus when you get out of the default subreddits that attract everyone there is a pretty good community.