4 ms·

I really detest Reddit tbh (to be honest). It is just a continuous circle jerk of the common denominator making jokes and puns to appeal to the common denominat

I really detest Reddit tbh (to be honest). It is just a continuous circle jerk of the common denominator making jokes and puns to appeal to the common denominator. People keep saying "that's just the default subreddits, try other subreddits!". But the entire site is build on the premise of collecting karma and getting awarded for appealing to as many people as possible. How else can you do this than to post content which appeals to the common denominator? It's like people continuously patting themselves on their back for being so witty. Having said that, if you are really so inclined to browse social media on your boss's clock and instead of looking at the real deal you have to cover it up by pretending to be working - you should sort your priorities.

bennyg 11y ago
Sure, that happens. But Reddit has so much more to offer - case in point being the fellow that programmed Solitaire as an intern at Microsoft coming in and giving his personal story as a comment. Reddit is full of shitposts and otherwise terrible things, but no more so than any other "social media" type of site.
- markdown 11y ago
  For anyone who missed it: https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3zfadv/til_that_microsoft_solitaire_was_developed_by_a/cylwpua https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3zfadv/til_th... Others dropped in as well... like the girlfriend who designed some of the card art, as well as a roommate or neighbour.
adamnemecek 11y ago
Make an account and subscribe to subs that you are interested in. It's so much better than twitter for staying up to date with things.
- ryan-allen 11y ago
  +1 on this, once you get away from the front page there is quite a lot of good content for every imaginable topic!
beefsack 11y ago
Avoid the default subscriptions, they're absolute garbage. Reddit subcommunities, especially technical ones, have some fantastic discussion in them.
edem 11y ago
Why on Earth you want to appeal to anyone? Karma on Reddit has zero worth. If you want to gather reputation on StackOverflow I can understand it. But on Reddit? No reason. I actually only read the Clojure and the DwarfFortress subreddits and I never experienced anything like that.
- ry_ry 11y ago
  People like levelling up.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
hmmmm1 11y ago
Hacker News is a basically just a reddit subredit. I really don't see any difference.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Right now, karma on Reddit is worth even less than it is on HN. Comment votes don't count towards your primary score! That said, it's a weird position. HN is pretty much the same in structure as Reddit, only with (intentionally) worse UI. It doesn't make discussions shit. Yes, the common advice of "try other subreddits" is the key. Many topical subreddits have HN-quality discussions on them, and are frequented by experts in their particular domains. Those subreddits are probably one of the most trustworthy places on the Internet. You just have to check them out instead of judging everything in light of areas meant for the general population.
- Jach 11y ago
  What happens on those subreddits when someone comes along, or whether anyone comes along, and leaves a pointless "+1" or "This." or a joke in the vein of 'Reddit humor'? I don't use Reddit so I'm curious what a proponent thinks. HN has been in decline for at least 5 years (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696 -- it had a very high start) but it's still resistant to a lot of typical reddit culture. (As for bad UI I say a lot is just taste -- I think having all comments, and all comments expanded, is great. Maybe Reddit has a user preference for that though...)
  - StevePerkins 11y ago
    > HN has been in decline for at least 5 years... I find it curiously amusing that EVERY online community is "in decline" at all times. I discovered Usenet and IRC back in September, 1993. An epoch known in Internet cultural history as Eternal September (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September). The Internet has literally been in decline since I discovered it! Back in the day, even in its prime, every other comment on Slashdot was a meta discussion of how badly Slashdot was declining. Reddit started out as a site for top-level post content only. When they added support for comments, 10 years ago, the VERY FIRST comment in Reddit history was a claim that Reddit was going downhill! (https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/17913/reddit_now_supports_comments/?sort=old https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/17913/reddit_no...) I believe that the "sweet spot" for on online community is one to three months after you've discovered it. Just long enough to get comfortable with its internal cultural cues and quirks and in-jokes, and feel like an insider. Once that point is reached, familiarity immediately starts shifting into contempt. You're never quite able to recapture that novel feeling of initial discover and inclusion, and so it feels like decline whether it is or not.

bennyg 11y ago

Sure, that happens. But Reddit has so much more to offer - case in point being the fellow that programmed Solitaire as an intern at Microsoft coming in and giving his personal story as a comment. Reddit is full of shitposts and otherwise terrible things, but no more so than any other "social media" type of site.

markdown 11y ago
For anyone who missed it: https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3zfadv/til_that_microsoft_solitaire_was_developed_by_a/cylwpua https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3zfadv/til_th... Others dropped in as well... like the girlfriend who designed some of the card art, as well as a roommate or neighbour.

adamnemecek 11y ago

Make an account and subscribe to subs that you are interested in. It's so much better than twitter for staying up to date with things.

ryan-allen 11y ago
+1 on this, once you get away from the front page there is quite a lot of good content for every imaginable topic!

beefsack 11y ago

Avoid the default subscriptions, they're absolute garbage. Reddit subcommunities, especially technical ones, have some fantastic discussion in them.

edem 11y ago

Why on Earth you want to appeal to anyone? Karma on Reddit has zero worth. If you want to gather reputation on StackOverflow I can understand it. But on Reddit? No reason. I actually only read the Clojure and the DwarfFortress subreddits and I never experienced anything like that.

ry_ry 11y ago
People like levelling up.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

hmmmm1 11y ago

Hacker News is a basically just a reddit subredit. I really don't see any difference.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Right now, karma on Reddit is worth even less than it is on HN. Comment votes don't count towards your primary score! That said, it's a weird position. HN is pretty much the same in structure as Reddit, only with (intentionally) worse UI. It doesn't make discussions shit. Yes, the common advice of "try other subreddits" is the key. Many topical subreddits have HN-quality discussions on them, and are frequented by experts in their particular domains. Those subreddits are probably one of the most trustworthy places on the Internet. You just have to check them out instead of judging everything in light of areas meant for the general population.

Jach 11y ago
What happens on those subreddits when someone comes along, or whether anyone comes along, and leaves a pointless "+1" or "This." or a joke in the vein of 'Reddit humor'? I don't use Reddit so I'm curious what a proponent thinks. HN has been in decline for at least 5 years (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696 -- it had a very high start) but it's still resistant to a lot of typical reddit culture. (As for bad UI I say a lot is just taste -- I think having all comments, and all comments expanded, is great. Maybe Reddit has a user preference for that though...)
- StevePerkins 11y ago
  > HN has been in decline for at least 5 years... I find it curiously amusing that EVERY online community is "in decline" at all times. I discovered Usenet and IRC back in September, 1993. An epoch known in Internet cultural history as Eternal September (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September). The Internet has literally been in decline since I discovered it! Back in the day, even in its prime, every other comment on Slashdot was a meta discussion of how badly Slashdot was declining. Reddit started out as a site for top-level post content only. When they added support for comments, 10 years ago, the VERY FIRST comment in Reddit history was a claim that Reddit was going downhill! (https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/17913/reddit_now_supports_comments/?sort=old https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/17913/reddit_no...) I believe that the "sweet spot" for on online community is one to three months after you've discovered it. Just long enough to get comfortable with its internal cultural cues and quirks and in-jokes, and feel like an insider. Once that point is reached, familiarity immediately starts shifting into contempt. You're never quite able to recapture that novel feeling of initial discover and inclusion, and so it feels like decline whether it is or not.