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If people haven't tried looking for smaller subreddits or more controlled subreddits then I'd highly encourage them to. Reddit may have a huge amount of low eff

by IanCal 10y ago

If people haven't tried looking for smaller subreddits or more controlled subreddits then I'd highly encourage them to. Reddit may have a huge amount of low effort content and frankly highly disturbing content, but some of the subreddits are absolutely fantastic. I'm not really into history but https://reddit.com/r/askhistorians https://reddit.com/r/askhistorians is a treasure trove of fascinating information, with well sourced and detailed answers to the kind of questions non-history buffs might want to ask. Reddit, with good moderation, is a world apart from what you see if you visit the main page. On a side note, it's also a great place to go and see discussions around things you highly disagree with. It might help to understand the motivations of "the other side".

bane 10y ago
It's important to think of reddit more like a new Usenet. It's a collection of communities, not one monolithic thing. You find the ones you like and discard the rest. Something like HN could theoretically just be a /r/HN (in fact there is a Hackernews subreddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/).
areyousure 10y ago
I don't know about the quality of moderation in r/AskHistorians however. I read a recent answer there whose first sentence was the opposite of reality. Thinking of how I could demonstrate this easily and effectively, where any person could follow up easily and see what's right, I posted a comment saying it contradicted the second sentence of the Wikipedia article on the topic. My comment was automatically banned by the auto-moderator because it had a link to Wikipedia and no other links. I tried reading the subreddit rules before posting, but it's pretty hard to find this rule -- indeed, it is not explicitly stated as far as I can tell.
- IanCal 10y ago
  > My comment was automatically banned by the auto-moderator because it had a link to Wikipedia and no other links. I tried reading the subreddit rules before posting, but it's pretty hard to find this rule -- indeed, it is not explicitly stated as far as I can tell. It is at least currently in the subreddit rules page, as linked to on the main site. "Wikipedia, or any other single tertiary resource, used by itself not a suitable basis for a comment in this subreddit." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules In general on reddit, if you've had a comment removed and think it's not right then message the moderators.
  - areyousure 10y ago
    The comment I was responding to was written by a moderator, who saw my comment and edited their comment to hedge their incorrect claim. They messaged me but my comment was not reinstated. I don't think that a subreddit that bans links to Wikipedia can be considered a good source of information.
    - ganset 10y ago
      This is incredible. Did you spend more than 10 seconds even reading the sidebar? To post an answer on /r/AskHistorians you have to have a degree in the field in question or proven experience in the field. I don't think that people who consider Wikipedia the end-all-be-all knowledgebase should be considered for anything.
      - areyousure 10y ago
        I did read the sidebar. [The Hacker News guidelines contain the following text: Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."] I was not posting an answer. I was correcting an error in an answer, and I thought that showing that it contradicted Wikipedia was productive. (The automated implementation of the subreddit rules disagreed.) I thought it would be great if my comment resulted in either the answer or the Wikipedia article being edited so that they were in line; this objective was vaguely achieved.
    - IanCal 10y ago
      > I don't think that a subreddit that bans links to Wikipedia can be considered a good source of information. I don't believe it does as I recently posted a comment with a wikipedia link. It does, however require more authoritative sources than wikipedia, mine did at least have several other corroborating sources. Perhaps the auto-mod is set to remove comments without at least one non-wiki link. They encourage people who would otherwise have linked just to wikipedia to hunt out the sources that claim comes from and use those instead. I hope they put in a note in their comment or said thanks at least, I'd hope for more there.

by IanCal 10y ago

bane 10y ago

It's important to think of reddit more like a new Usenet. It's a collection of communities, not one monolithic thing. You find the ones you like and discard the rest. Something like HN could theoretically just be a /r/HN (in fact there is a Hackernews subreddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/).

areyousure 10y ago

I don't know about the quality of moderation in r/AskHistorians however. I read a recent answer there whose first sentence was the opposite of reality. Thinking of how I could demonstrate this easily and effectively, where any person could follow up easily and see what's right, I posted a comment saying it contradicted the second sentence of the Wikipedia article on the topic. My comment was automatically banned by the auto-moderator because it had a link to Wikipedia and no other links. I tried reading the subreddit rules before posting, but it's pretty hard to find this rule -- indeed, it is not explicitly stated as far as I can tell.

IanCal 10y ago
> My comment was automatically banned by the auto-moderator because it had a link to Wikipedia and no other links. I tried reading the subreddit rules before posting, but it's pretty hard to find this rule -- indeed, it is not explicitly stated as far as I can tell. It is at least currently in the subreddit rules page, as linked to on the main site. "Wikipedia, or any other single tertiary resource, used by itself not a suitable basis for a comment in this subreddit." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules In general on reddit, if you've had a comment removed and think it's not right then message the moderators.
- areyousure 10y ago
  The comment I was responding to was written by a moderator, who saw my comment and edited their comment to hedge their incorrect claim. They messaged me but my comment was not reinstated. I don't think that a subreddit that bans links to Wikipedia can be considered a good source of information.
  - ganset 10y ago
    This is incredible. Did you spend more than 10 seconds even reading the sidebar? To post an answer on /r/AskHistorians you have to have a degree in the field in question or proven experience in the field. I don't think that people who consider Wikipedia the end-all-be-all knowledgebase should be considered for anything.
    - areyousure 10y ago
      I did read the sidebar. [The Hacker News guidelines contain the following text: Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."] I was not posting an answer. I was correcting an error in an answer, and I thought that showing that it contradicted Wikipedia was productive. (The automated implementation of the subreddit rules disagreed.) I thought it would be great if my comment resulted in either the answer or the Wikipedia article being edited so that they were in line; this objective was vaguely achieved.
  - IanCal 10y ago
    > I don't think that a subreddit that bans links to Wikipedia can be considered a good source of information. I don't believe it does as I recently posted a comment with a wikipedia link. It does, however require more authoritative sources than wikipedia, mine did at least have several other corroborating sources. Perhaps the auto-mod is set to remove comments without at least one non-wiki link. They encourage people who would otherwise have linked just to wikipedia to hunt out the sources that claim comes from and use those instead. I hope they put in a note in their comment or said thanks at least, I'd hope for more there.