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>These subreddits are big enough that their userbases are converging toward a statistically-normal sampling of the world population. How is this information re

>These subreddits are big enough that their userbases are converging toward a statistically-normal sampling of the world population. How is this information relevant to the experience of the user? If we transplant your explanation to any other user experience, does it work? "I don't go to Best Buy anymore. It's full of people shouting racist things, men talking about beating women, and general prejudice againt minorities." "Well, that's how the world is, mostly." Does that make you want to go back to Best Buy?

derefr 11y ago
That's a broken expectation; pretty much no other "business" has an unsharded, all-to-all visible userbase large enough to get these effects. (I can only think of one: Youtube.) The more direct comparison, to me, would be a city that has drug dealers and homeless people. Every city has them, because they live at the fringes of everything large enough to be called a "city." It's not a matter of choosing to live in some other city (not shopping at Best Buy, in your terminology); the only option for avoiding the pitfalls of city life is to avoid cities altogether.
- intopieces 11y ago
  >That's a broken expectation; pretty much no other "business" has an unsharded, all-to-all visible userbase large enough to get these effects. Telling your userbase that they shouldn't expect what they expect is rarely a successful strategy. Again, what does Reddit's unique position as an all-visible userbase have to do with the actual experience of the user? We can make excuses and explanations for why Reddit is the way it is, but that doesn't ultimately address the fact that Reddit, despite being massively popular now, also hosts content so horribly offensive that it risks alienating both common users and advertisers. Your city analogy doesn't quite fit. People who live in a city are often 'stuck' there for far more important reasons (money, family, culture) than the reasons people stick to a website. And we know it's easy for a website with a massive userbase to collapse, because we've seen it many times over the years.
  - brazzledazzle 11y ago
    Some things are social problems that can't be resolved with technology but I don't think reddit's casual racism and sexism is one of them. Borrow from HN: Add site-wide flags for content you consider unacceptable that only users with $x comment karma can use. Borrow from Dota 2: If a user is flagged enough don't shadow ban them, just make their comments invisible to everyone except those who are also flagged. They can make their terrible comments to and with each other.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      Fantastic, power users dominating over everyone else. Fantastic, another tool for the perpetually offended to abuse en masse. Doubly broken.
      - brazzledazzle 11y ago
        HN is going to provide the ability to counter-flag as well as moderator intervention in cases of abuse. If your power users are abusing their flagging privilege they lose it.
        Karunamon 11y ago
        That will probably work on Hacker News. That will almost certainly not work on Reddit. The scales involved are just not even in the same universe as each other, and that's before any discussion of the corruption or other problems on the latter site.
        15155 11y ago
        Expectations are different, IMO, as well. HN is not a free speech zone and does not even try to be one. reddit, inc. executives have previously stated that reddit is a place for free speech.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Again, the user does not care. The user sees blatant racism and sexism being tolerated, and in some cases celebrated, think the place is full of that, and leaves, never to return again. You don't see how this is a problem for Reddit?
  - derefr 11y ago
    Oh, I certainly do see how it's a problem; but it will be a problem with anything trying to compete with, or replace, Reddit just as much. I'm not too concerned with whether Reddit lives or dies; that's up to their PR department. I'm concerned, instead, with the user attitude of attempting to move on to the "next big community" to avoid the problems with the last. If Reddit dies, and the thing after it dies, and the thing after that dies—I hope we eventually stop and look at what we're doing and realize that there's no point in this "grass is greener" pursuit of a utopian community, when these problems eventually face every community at scale. At some point, I hope we just sit down and try to maintain the community we've got (turning it into a society), rather than thinking that rebuilding it with slightly different rules but the same microcosm of people will help.
    - intopieces 11y ago
      >At some point, I hope we just sit down and try to maintain the community we've got (turning it into a society), rather than thinking that rebuilding it with slightly different rules but the same microcosm of people will help. I think this is accomplished with the ability to create new Subreddits. To my mind, the best way to separate the nasty parts of Reddit with the profitable ones is heavy moderation for the defaults, free reign for the non-defaults, and charge money for access to private subreddits. If a particular subreddit draws too much controversy, force it private.

derefr 11y ago

That's a broken expectation; pretty much no other "business" has an unsharded, all-to-all visible userbase large enough to get these effects. (I can only think of one: Youtube.) The more direct comparison, to me, would be a city that has drug dealers and homeless people. Every city has them, because they live at the fringes of everything large enough to be called a "city." It's not a matter of choosing to live in some other city (not shopping at Best Buy, in your terminology); the only option for avoiding the pitfalls of city life is to avoid cities altogether.

intopieces 11y ago
>That's a broken expectation; pretty much no other "business" has an unsharded, all-to-all visible userbase large enough to get these effects. Telling your userbase that they shouldn't expect what they expect is rarely a successful strategy. Again, what does Reddit's unique position as an all-visible userbase have to do with the actual experience of the user? We can make excuses and explanations for why Reddit is the way it is, but that doesn't ultimately address the fact that Reddit, despite being massively popular now, also hosts content so horribly offensive that it risks alienating both common users and advertisers. Your city analogy doesn't quite fit. People who live in a city are often 'stuck' there for far more important reasons (money, family, culture) than the reasons people stick to a website. And we know it's easy for a website with a massive userbase to collapse, because we've seen it many times over the years.
- brazzledazzle 11y ago
  Some things are social problems that can't be resolved with technology but I don't think reddit's casual racism and sexism is one of them. Borrow from HN: Add site-wide flags for content you consider unacceptable that only users with $x comment karma can use. Borrow from Dota 2: If a user is flagged enough don't shadow ban them, just make their comments invisible to everyone except those who are also flagged. They can make their terrible comments to and with each other.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Fantastic, power users dominating over everyone else. Fantastic, another tool for the perpetually offended to abuse en masse. Doubly broken.
    - brazzledazzle 11y ago
      HN is going to provide the ability to counter-flag as well as moderator intervention in cases of abuse. If your power users are abusing their flagging privilege they lose it.
      - Karunamon 11y ago
        That will probably work on Hacker News. That will almost certainly not work on Reddit. The scales involved are just not even in the same universe as each other, and that's before any discussion of the corruption or other problems on the latter site.
        15155 11y ago
        Expectations are different, IMO, as well. HN is not a free speech zone and does not even try to be one. reddit, inc. executives have previously stated that reddit is a place for free speech.
s73v3r 11y ago
Again, the user does not care. The user sees blatant racism and sexism being tolerated, and in some cases celebrated, think the place is full of that, and leaves, never to return again. You don't see how this is a problem for Reddit?
- derefr 11y ago
  Oh, I certainly do see how it's a problem; but it will be a problem with anything trying to compete with, or replace, Reddit just as much. I'm not too concerned with whether Reddit lives or dies; that's up to their PR department. I'm concerned, instead, with the user attitude of attempting to move on to the "next big community" to avoid the problems with the last. If Reddit dies, and the thing after it dies, and the thing after that dies—I hope we eventually stop and look at what we're doing and realize that there's no point in this "grass is greener" pursuit of a utopian community, when these problems eventually face every community at scale. At some point, I hope we just sit down and try to maintain the community we've got (turning it into a society), rather than thinking that rebuilding it with slightly different rules but the same microcosm of people will help.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    >At some point, I hope we just sit down and try to maintain the community we've got (turning it into a society), rather than thinking that rebuilding it with slightly different rules but the same microcosm of people will help. I think this is accomplished with the ability to create new Subreddits. To my mind, the best way to separate the nasty parts of Reddit with the profitable ones is heavy moderation for the defaults, free reign for the non-defaults, and charge money for access to private subreddits. If a particular subreddit draws too much controversy, force it private.