6 ms·

The problem with reddit is trolls and harrassment (as the article points out). I gave up on reddit a while ago, as it's just ridiculous. You can't have a reason

The problem with reddit is trolls and harrassment (as the article points out). I gave up on reddit a while ago, as it's just ridiculous. You can't have a reasonable conversation on a controversial subject the way you can on HN without it descending into personal attacks. Generally the moderators do sweet FA about this, although it depends on the subreddit.

nathancahill 11y ago
The key to using Reddit is unsubscribing from all of the default subreddits and then finding smaller, healthier subreddits for topics you're interested in.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  I only used reddit for a few subreddits I was interested in, but they all had the same problem. I guess the issue is that none of them were "healthy". However they are the subjects I was interested in.
  - nathancahill 11y ago
    Which ones, out of curiosity? I've found 20-100k subscribers to be the sweet spot: /r/coffee, /r/indieheads, /r/jailbreak, /r/longboarding, /r/vinyl, /r/skiing, /r/analog, /r/climbing
    - cpncrunch 11y ago
      cfs and lyme. Coffee and skiing aren't exactly controversial :)
Pxtl 11y ago
Exactly. Every social aggregator with a "libertarian" moderation policy eventually turns into 4chan. Reddit admins finally acted after making the news too many times for racism and illegal porn, but it's too little too late for their toxic culture. Some of the subs are still good, but the defaults hit rock bottom and kept on digging.
r721 11y ago
I think default subreddit moderators should be reddit employees (at least the highest ones), the current model doesn't quite work in my opinion. But that probably costs too much.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  I'm not sure you even need that. I think all that is required are a few rules like "no personal attacks". Wikipedia and HN work very well due to having a few basic rules like that which everyone follows. They would obviously need to have some kind of reporting mechanism which is followed up on. That could also be done by volunteers.
  - WalterSear 11y ago
    >Wikipedia and HN work very well due to having a few basic rules like that which everyone follows. Wikipedia is notorious for entrenched and highly partisan volunteer edit staff.
    - cpncrunch 11y ago
      >Wikipedia is notorious for entrenched and highly partisan volunteer edit staff. That's not really my experience. The main problem is newbies coming in and not understanding MEDRS and other policies. In fact, there should never be an issue with partisan editors because you can always get outside assistance (from admins, or from other editors outside the page in question). Anyway, that is a separate issue to the civility of discussion.
      - cookiecaper 11y ago
        I was an active WP editor for a couple of years before I gave up on it. If you're editing highly technical or boring stuff, it's going to be mostly fine. Anything that a normal person has an opinion on is a nightmare. WP is a giant turf war. Whoever has the most time to piss down the hole of uselessness wins, which means that minority viewpoints (meaning viewpoints that are held by a minority of WP's editors and admins, not necessarily viewpoints that are held by a minority of WP's readers) are not fairly represented, despite WP's obsession with "NPOV", and anyone who can afford a PR company has their page professionally managed to keep it as on-message as possible.

nathancahill 11y ago

The key to using Reddit is unsubscribing from all of the default subreddits and then finding smaller, healthier subreddits for topics you're interested in.

cpncrunch 11y ago
I only used reddit for a few subreddits I was interested in, but they all had the same problem. I guess the issue is that none of them were "healthy". However they are the subjects I was interested in.
- nathancahill 11y ago
  Which ones, out of curiosity? I've found 20-100k subscribers to be the sweet spot: /r/coffee, /r/indieheads, /r/jailbreak, /r/longboarding, /r/vinyl, /r/skiing, /r/analog, /r/climbing
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    cfs and lyme. Coffee and skiing aren't exactly controversial :)

Pxtl 11y ago

Exactly. Every social aggregator with a "libertarian" moderation policy eventually turns into 4chan. Reddit admins finally acted after making the news too many times for racism and illegal porn, but it's too little too late for their toxic culture. Some of the subs are still good, but the defaults hit rock bottom and kept on digging.

r721 11y ago

I think default subreddit moderators should be reddit employees (at least the highest ones), the current model doesn't quite work in my opinion. But that probably costs too much.

cpncrunch 11y ago
I'm not sure you even need that. I think all that is required are a few rules like "no personal attacks". Wikipedia and HN work very well due to having a few basic rules like that which everyone follows. They would obviously need to have some kind of reporting mechanism which is followed up on. That could also be done by volunteers.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  >Wikipedia and HN work very well due to having a few basic rules like that which everyone follows. Wikipedia is notorious for entrenched and highly partisan volunteer edit staff.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    >Wikipedia is notorious for entrenched and highly partisan volunteer edit staff. That's not really my experience. The main problem is newbies coming in and not understanding MEDRS and other policies. In fact, there should never be an issue with partisan editors because you can always get outside assistance (from admins, or from other editors outside the page in question). Anyway, that is a separate issue to the civility of discussion.
    - cookiecaper 11y ago
      I was an active WP editor for a couple of years before I gave up on it. If you're editing highly technical or boring stuff, it's going to be mostly fine. Anything that a normal person has an opinion on is a nightmare. WP is a giant turf war. Whoever has the most time to piss down the hole of uselessness wins, which means that minority viewpoints (meaning viewpoints that are held by a minority of WP's editors and admins, not necessarily viewpoints that are held by a minority of WP's readers) are not fairly represented, despite WP's obsession with "NPOV", and anyone who can afford a PR company has their page professionally managed to keep it as on-message as possible.