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Despite my love for reddit, I can't go on it anymore due to the recent changes they made. I never log into reddit, so I automatically see /r/popular when going

Despite my love for reddit, I can't go on it anymore due to the recent changes they made. I never log into reddit, so I automatically see /r/popular when going to the site. /r/popular was added about a week ago to filter out certain subreddits that would reach the front page. Some filters include, "Subreddits that are large and dedicated to specific games are heavily filtered, as well as specific sports, and narrowly focused politically related subreddits, etc." Yet, this past week, all I see on the front page are political posts & subreddits that are left leaning. Not to start a political argument, but, reddit makes it clear that they are filtering out posts that include conservative views. All I see are posts making fun of POTUS through memes, or how he caused a problem. Politics aside, I just don't see how reddit will last if their political agenda outweighs their ability to provide a site which allows for sharing of information and discussion. I don't want the front page to consist of highly opinionated political posts, since their reasoning behind /r/popular was to "filter out" focused political groups. If you want evidence, look at the internet archive time machine for reddit starting this past week, around the 17th of February.

braveo 10y ago
Anyone who thinks about it at all understands that reddit gets manipulated pretty heavily. And for what it's worth, I stopped using FB and stay in specific subreddits now in large part due to the politics surrounding Trump. I'm a left leaning moderate who got really sick and tired of all the outlandish gif/memes running through FB that completely mischaracterized BOTH candidates, and then the lefts response on reddit just ... disappointed is probably the best word I can think of (I am left leaning, after all). In truth I only ever had 13 friends on FB and I know all of them in real life (And talk to them on a regular basis) so quitting FB wasn't really a big deal as I hardly used it except to post something I thought was amusing. And with reddit I just stick to things like /r/programming, /r/printSF, etc. Even in /r/programming I've gotten irritated when I see people take completely unrelated topics and inject politics (trump hate) into it. I guess the long and the short of it is that I understand completely, and I think your observations are fairly accurate.
problems 10y ago
Yeah, not only the political bias they're permitting and encouraging is truly astounding but the /r/popular thing really re-introduced memes to the front page again too. There's so much junk showing up there now that it's practically unusable on most nights unless what you really wanted to see was people complaining about Trump in shitty single image meme format.
jamiepenney 10y ago
/r/popular is filtered by looking at the most popular filters that people have used on /r/all - and it turns out that heaps of people have /r/the_donald filtered out. Lots of people also filter the League of Legends sub, so that gets removed from /r/popular. Data is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5ubthi/top_subreddits_filtered_from_rpopular_oc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5ubthi/top...
- vinhboy 10y ago
  I remember going through that thread and seeing all these people refusing to accept the data. On what they call a "leftist" site, they question how an extremely toxic alt-right subreddit could be so heavily blocked. It's ironic that in a `dataisbeautiful` subreddit, people ignore the data.
thekevan 10y ago
Also, r/politics is just basically an anti-Trump subreddit now. Long also, it was a neutral political news reporting sub with a policy for not editorializing the titles of submissions. Bias, no matter which side of the aisle it strays to, is just a turn off.
- bobdole1234 10y ago
  You don't need to editorialize the headlines, the administration has been a complete shitshow. They don't even spell check, in an age where that just happens for you. That's a special flavor of sloppy. Given the number of grammar nazi's on reddit, what did you think would happen?
  - gfody 10y ago
    the spelling errors are deliberate, it adds authenticity.
- MulliMulli 10y ago
  You might like /r/NeutralPolitics/
dflock 10y ago
Why don't you just login, then...? All of that just goes away when you only subscribe to quality subreddits that interest you.
RikNieu 10y ago
I have actually started going to Digg again. It's actually quite good in comparison to Reddit lately.
- braveo 10y ago
  hmmm, that's interesting, I may have to take a look at it again. I was a part of the original mass exodus from Digg to reddit back when men were men, reddit was pissing off the lisp community, and reddit was mostly technical. That damned bar Digg introduced was horrible. But I've always had a soft spot for Digg, I think I'll check it out again.
pier25 10y ago
Just login to the site and pick the subreddits you want to see?
jgoewert 10y ago
/r/popular isn't filtering with any bias to the left. The problem is that /r/the_donald has destroyed every other conservative or republican subreddit. Even /r/conspiracy has a forced policy against anything anti-45. /r/conservative used to be a fair place for fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. Now, the rules are set up that criticizing 45 in any way or form is an bannable offense. Want to talk about how spending tens of millions a month just to transport 45 and all his family around is a complete waste of money? Ban. So, the quality of the posts faded and therefore users who are sick of it have walked away and those subreddits have diminished in popularity. If you can have a discussion, why go to a place where someone is just going to unintelligibly scream at you? Insular policies are to fault.
- zakk 10y ago
  45?
  - anamoulous 10y ago
    45th president
    - zakk 10y ago
      So why is he calling President Trump 45? HN is a place for serious discussion, I think we should call people by their name.
      - cafard 10y ago
        I suspect as a follow-on from the days of "Bush 43", in which case it made at least a little sense to say Bush 41 and Bush 43, and not leave the listener wondering whether he had missed an "H.".
      - anamoulous 10y ago
        Some people like to use shorthands that are common in DC. This is why you'll hear people enunciate POTUS as "POTE-US". Additionally you will occasionally hear people refer to Obama as "44"... if you are looking for the merger of these two, see President Obama's new twitter handle: https://twitter.com/potus44 https://twitter.com/potus44 People on internet message boards like to use lingo. I don't know how many times I've seen people use journalism lingo on HN, dek, graf, kicker, etc. It's not usually necessary but I think it makes people feel cool or send some signal...

braveo 10y ago

Anyone who thinks about it at all understands that reddit gets manipulated pretty heavily. And for what it's worth, I stopped using FB and stay in specific subreddits now in large part due to the politics surrounding Trump. I'm a left leaning moderate who got really sick and tired of all the outlandish gif/memes running through FB that completely mischaracterized BOTH candidates, and then the lefts response on reddit just ... disappointed is probably the best word I can think of (I am left leaning, after all). In truth I only ever had 13 friends on FB and I know all of them in real life (And talk to them on a regular basis) so quitting FB wasn't really a big deal as I hardly used it except to post something I thought was amusing. And with reddit I just stick to things like /r/programming, /r/printSF, etc. Even in /r/programming I've gotten irritated when I see people take completely unrelated topics and inject politics (trump hate) into it. I guess the long and the short of it is that I understand completely, and I think your observations are fairly accurate.

problems 10y ago

Yeah, not only the political bias they're permitting and encouraging is truly astounding but the /r/popular thing really re-introduced memes to the front page again too. There's so much junk showing up there now that it's practically unusable on most nights unless what you really wanted to see was people complaining about Trump in shitty single image meme format.

jamiepenney 10y ago

/r/popular is filtered by looking at the most popular filters that people have used on /r/all - and it turns out that heaps of people have /r/the_donald filtered out. Lots of people also filter the League of Legends sub, so that gets removed from /r/popular. Data is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5ubthi/top_subreddits_filtered_from_rpopular_oc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5ubthi/top...

vinhboy 10y ago
I remember going through that thread and seeing all these people refusing to accept the data. On what they call a "leftist" site, they question how an extremely toxic alt-right subreddit could be so heavily blocked. It's ironic that in a `dataisbeautiful` subreddit, people ignore the data.

thekevan 10y ago

Also, r/politics is just basically an anti-Trump subreddit now. Long also, it was a neutral political news reporting sub with a policy for not editorializing the titles of submissions. Bias, no matter which side of the aisle it strays to, is just a turn off.

bobdole1234 10y ago
You don't need to editorialize the headlines, the administration has been a complete shitshow. They don't even spell check, in an age where that just happens for you. That's a special flavor of sloppy. Given the number of grammar nazi's on reddit, what did you think would happen?
- gfody 10y ago
  the spelling errors are deliberate, it adds authenticity.
MulliMulli 10y ago
You might like /r/NeutralPolitics/

dflock 10y ago

Why don't you just login, then...? All of that just goes away when you only subscribe to quality subreddits that interest you.

RikNieu 10y ago

I have actually started going to Digg again. It's actually quite good in comparison to Reddit lately.

braveo 10y ago
hmmm, that's interesting, I may have to take a look at it again. I was a part of the original mass exodus from Digg to reddit back when men were men, reddit was pissing off the lisp community, and reddit was mostly technical. That damned bar Digg introduced was horrible. But I've always had a soft spot for Digg, I think I'll check it out again.

pier25 10y ago

Just login to the site and pick the subreddits you want to see?

jgoewert 10y ago

/r/popular isn't filtering with any bias to the left. The problem is that /r/the_donald has destroyed every other conservative or republican subreddit. Even /r/conspiracy has a forced policy against anything anti-45. /r/conservative used to be a fair place for fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. Now, the rules are set up that criticizing 45 in any way or form is an bannable offense. Want to talk about how spending tens of millions a month just to transport 45 and all his family around is a complete waste of money? Ban. So, the quality of the posts faded and therefore users who are sick of it have walked away and those subreddits have diminished in popularity. If you can have a discussion, why go to a place where someone is just going to unintelligibly scream at you? Insular policies are to fault.

zakk 10y ago
45?
- anamoulous 10y ago
  45th president
  - zakk 10y ago
    So why is he calling President Trump 45? HN is a place for serious discussion, I think we should call people by their name.
    - cafard 10y ago
      I suspect as a follow-on from the days of "Bush 43", in which case it made at least a little sense to say Bush 41 and Bush 43, and not leave the listener wondering whether he had missed an "H.".
    - anamoulous 10y ago
      Some people like to use shorthands that are common in DC. This is why you'll hear people enunciate POTUS as "POTE-US". Additionally you will occasionally hear people refer to Obama as "44"... if you are looking for the merger of these two, see President Obama's new twitter handle: https://twitter.com/potus44 https://twitter.com/potus44 People on internet message boards like to use lingo. I don't know how many times I've seen people use journalism lingo on HN, dek, graf, kicker, etc. It's not usually necessary but I think it makes people feel cool or send some signal...