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You know, I get this response every time I talk about this topic. I really dislike the "well no one is making you use / buy / watch / listen" to something. Peop

You know, I get this response every time I talk about this topic. I really dislike the "well no one is making you use / buy / watch / listen" to something. People can be critical of something they want to succeed. It happens a lot in certain game communities. What if I WANT to talk about politics, in a civil manner? Any sufficiently popular subreddit, just devolves into complete trash.

wutbrodo 10y ago
> You know, I get this response every time I talk about this topic. I really dislike the "well no one is making you use / buy / watch / listen" to something. People can be critical of something they want to succeed. It happens a lot in certain game communities. What if I WANT to talk about politics, in a civil manner? Any sufficiently popular subreddit, just devolves into complete trash. You're missing the point of e40's response (and others of its kind). It's not "stop whining, don't use it if you don't like it". It's informing you that there are still parts of Reddit you can get value out of if you change your usage patterns a little bit, instead of your blunt-instrument approach that leads to losing gems like (e.g.) /r/AskHistorians just because /r/politics is terrible. There's of course nothing _wrong_ with you deciding that Reddit overall isn't worth the effort, but there's nothing wrong with someone giving you an alternative in case you were unaware. When Reddit blew up in popularity, almost everyone I know who'd used it for a long time got sick of the default feed (both submissions and comments) and then at some point found out that being parsimonious in your subreddit subscriptions can give you a pretty high-quality feed. Reacting with defensiveness and hostility to someone giving you that advice in case you didn't know is frankly just bizarre.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
That's probably due to the nature of politics. It certainly tends to get a lot of people riled quite easily. What's that thing about polite company not talking about politics, religion, or sex. The average person, myself definitely included, probably doesn't have much worth listening to on the subject anyway. To paraphrase PJ O'Rourke: though there certainly are many political commentators who might be worth listing to. Under some circumstances. In a crisis. Maybe.
- overcast 10y ago
  It's just not politics, it's anything sufficiently popular to attract a large portion of the general public. Only niche categories, with a small group of passionate people work. Otherwise, it turns into a free for all.
  - pvdebbe 10y ago
    Agree. Only the small subreddits with a tight focus work for me.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  It's not just r/politics—that's just one example. r/programming is another good example. The community there is very hostile and actively downvote and hate on most new things that aren't C++/Java/.NET/Python sometimes. It's been stereotyped as a bunch of overly angry .NET/Java devs, not sure how accurate that is but the angry part is right. It's just a waste of time.
  - rjbwork 10y ago
    I think it's grown that way over time. Used to be very focused on functional and dynamic languages back in the day. Hell, Perl was the hot topic back in 2005-2007 era reddit.
    - overcast 10y ago
      Right, which just reinforces my initial statements above. Popularity breeds trash. Forums move from a small group of passionate users, to general population. This is where quality deteriorates quickly.
- guelo 10y ago
  One of the issues that makes political discussions extra toxic is that because there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent on propaganda using the most sophisticated psychological techniques available everybody is full of outrage-inducing hatreds against "the other side". This makes it really hard to have a constructive exchange of ideas without falling into a minefield of unexamined, implanted mental prejudices, even if you try really hard.
iamdave 10y ago
/r/politicaldiscussion was created as a response to the malarkey that has become /r/politics and they place an emphasis on civil, reasoned debate. May be worth your time.
- overcast 10y ago
  Thanks, just over Reddit in general. Quit about a year ago.
  - iamdave 10y ago
    Can't really say I blame you. Found any other interesting communities other than HN, obviously since we're both here?
    - overcast 10y ago
      Not really, spending my time on side projects, and hiking.
      - deathhand 10y ago
        I don't think this comment adds to the discussion at all. The comment is actually a great microcosm to the dearth of comment quality. 1)You would never know about this reply unless you sought it out. 2) Once you replied to it you said nothing of value to anyone. You even threw in an off topic item. Let me guess, you don't have a TV either? Perhaps you are a vegan.... This is what is flawed about comments. It becomes an ego circle jerk...Which is necessary to even generate comments in the first place ("oo look how much Karma I get") but ultimately destroys a conversation.
rndmize 10y ago
Not so (imo). The neutralpolitics subreddit has grown continually for some years now, especially in the last 12 months, and I'd say that the moderators are doing a solid job of maintaining appropriate discussion and keeping things where they were intended at the start: rational, sourced, with a heavy hand on emotional content and personal attacks. Similarly, I dropped r/gaming years ago, but r/games has been reliable enough and good enough for such a period that it's evolved into my default place I look for gaming news. (The League of Legends subreddit also does pretty well on content and moderation, for something running at the scale of some of the defaults). The problem I have with reddit, usually, is discovery - its difficult to find subreddits that are popular enough not to be dead, have the content I want, and are managed in good fashion to prevent the usual content/comment trash.
sn9 10y ago
As a very rough heuristic, it seems that subreddits with subscriber counts below about 10,000 seem to be able to maintain what makes them great (if they can be said to be great) without moderation. You have a much higher percentage of users who are deeply interested in the raison d'être of the subreddit. Beyond that, you either need moderation or have to make a new sub.

wutbrodo 10y ago

> You know, I get this response every time I talk about this topic. I really dislike the "well no one is making you use / buy / watch / listen" to something. People can be critical of something they want to succeed. It happens a lot in certain game communities. What if I WANT to talk about politics, in a civil manner? Any sufficiently popular subreddit, just devolves into complete trash. You're missing the point of e40's response (and others of its kind). It's not "stop whining, don't use it if you don't like it". It's informing you that there are still parts of Reddit you can get value out of if you change your usage patterns a little bit, instead of your blunt-instrument approach that leads to losing gems like (e.g.) /r/AskHistorians just because /r/politics is terrible. There's of course nothing _wrong_ with you deciding that Reddit overall isn't worth the effort, but there's nothing wrong with someone giving you an alternative in case you were unaware. When Reddit blew up in popularity, almost everyone I know who'd used it for a long time got sick of the default feed (both submissions and comments) and then at some point found out that being parsimonious in your subreddit subscriptions can give you a pretty high-quality feed. Reacting with defensiveness and hostility to someone giving you that advice in case you didn't know is frankly just bizarre.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

That's probably due to the nature of politics. It certainly tends to get a lot of people riled quite easily. What's that thing about polite company not talking about politics, religion, or sex. The average person, myself definitely included, probably doesn't have much worth listening to on the subject anyway. To paraphrase PJ O'Rourke: though there certainly are many political commentators who might be worth listing to. Under some circumstances. In a crisis. Maybe.

overcast 10y ago
It's just not politics, it's anything sufficiently popular to attract a large portion of the general public. Only niche categories, with a small group of passionate people work. Otherwise, it turns into a free for all.
- pvdebbe 10y ago
  Agree. Only the small subreddits with a tight focus work for me.
sotojuan 10y ago
It's not just r/politics—that's just one example. r/programming is another good example. The community there is very hostile and actively downvote and hate on most new things that aren't C++/Java/.NET/Python sometimes. It's been stereotyped as a bunch of overly angry .NET/Java devs, not sure how accurate that is but the angry part is right. It's just a waste of time.
- rjbwork 10y ago
  I think it's grown that way over time. Used to be very focused on functional and dynamic languages back in the day. Hell, Perl was the hot topic back in 2005-2007 era reddit.
  - overcast 10y ago
    Right, which just reinforces my initial statements above. Popularity breeds trash. Forums move from a small group of passionate users, to general population. This is where quality deteriorates quickly.
guelo 10y ago
One of the issues that makes political discussions extra toxic is that because there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent on propaganda using the most sophisticated psychological techniques available everybody is full of outrage-inducing hatreds against "the other side". This makes it really hard to have a constructive exchange of ideas without falling into a minefield of unexamined, implanted mental prejudices, even if you try really hard.

iamdave 10y ago

/r/politicaldiscussion was created as a response to the malarkey that has become /r/politics and they place an emphasis on civil, reasoned debate. May be worth your time.

overcast 10y ago
Thanks, just over Reddit in general. Quit about a year ago.
- iamdave 10y ago
  Can't really say I blame you. Found any other interesting communities other than HN, obviously since we're both here?
  - overcast 10y ago
    Not really, spending my time on side projects, and hiking.
    - deathhand 10y ago
      I don't think this comment adds to the discussion at all. The comment is actually a great microcosm to the dearth of comment quality. 1)You would never know about this reply unless you sought it out. 2) Once you replied to it you said nothing of value to anyone. You even threw in an off topic item. Let me guess, you don't have a TV either? Perhaps you are a vegan.... This is what is flawed about comments. It becomes an ego circle jerk...Which is necessary to even generate comments in the first place ("oo look how much Karma I get") but ultimately destroys a conversation.

rndmize 10y ago

Not so (imo). The neutralpolitics subreddit has grown continually for some years now, especially in the last 12 months, and I'd say that the moderators are doing a solid job of maintaining appropriate discussion and keeping things where they were intended at the start: rational, sourced, with a heavy hand on emotional content and personal attacks. Similarly, I dropped r/gaming years ago, but r/games has been reliable enough and good enough for such a period that it's evolved into my default place I look for gaming news. (The League of Legends subreddit also does pretty well on content and moderation, for something running at the scale of some of the defaults). The problem I have with reddit, usually, is discovery - its difficult to find subreddits that are popular enough not to be dead, have the content I want, and are managed in good fashion to prevent the usual content/comment trash.

sn9 10y ago

As a very rough heuristic, it seems that subreddits with subscriber counts below about 10,000 seem to be able to maintain what makes them great (if they can be said to be great) without moderation. You have a much higher percentage of users who are deeply interested in the raison d'être of the subreddit. Beyond that, you either need moderation or have to make a new sub.