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I agree it's not perfect but we seriously need a reddit alternative. The community there is simply too toxic and I've had to quit it. If there were a HN like co

I agree it's not perfect but we seriously need a reddit alternative. The community there is simply too toxic and I've had to quit it. If there were a HN like community centered around regular news aggregation I would be sooo happy. As is, it's impossible to find a news feed I trust anymore. Google news is infiltrated with fake clickbait nonsense, and I wont even get started on Facebook.

azernik 9y ago
Since this is project is coming out of the voat.co community, I expect the community will be more toxic than Reddit's, not less. EDIT: The article implies a connection, but as cracell pointed out, there is in fact no association, even historical or in personnel.
- cracell 9y ago
  Lead developer says it has nothing to do with voat here https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/5qhz99/votenco_a_realtime_reddit_alternative_that_doesnt/dczh192/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/5qhz99/... 'The whole thing is based on voting which is why it has "vote" in it. It has nothing to do with voat.co. I guarantee that'
  - Melk 9y ago
    No thanks.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - azernik 9y ago
    Ah. The article drew a connection, which is why I assumed that. But googling the founders, it appears you are correct.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Voat has a couple of issues. First, it took in a lot of people from banned subreddits (/r/coontown, fatpeoplehate, etc.) Unlike the great Digg 4.0 to Reddit migration, they didn't a huge chunk of Reddit. They just got the most controversial. Second, It tried to be a full Reddit clone with tons of subverses. Reddit started out with just a few categories and slowly expanded out to user generated subreddits. That has to grow slowly over time with your userbase. Since Voat started with that, it has a ton of abandoned subverses that one one posts in anymore. Voat is a pretty bad cespool of hatred right now. There's occasionally good stuff on there, but a lot of it is conservative garbage. People who have tried to turn it around are so outnumbered that they just leave. With that said, Voat is open source (written in C# I believe), just like Reddit.
  - sf_rob 9y ago
    The problem is a "Reddit alternative" will naturally attract the groups that no longer feel at home on Reddit. It seems inevitable that any alternative will be more toxic and/or hyper-moderated.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Scott Alexander recently covered this phenomenon here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative-the-eternal-struggle/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative... (see in particular section III of the article)
    - mowenz 9y ago
      Voat is actually far less moderated, though, and honestly, almost nothing is censored there.
    - CM30 9y ago
      As will almost any site specifically marketed as an alternative to a major one. You market your site as a freer, more fair alternative to another social site, and yes, you'll likely draw in the people that were hated/seen as controversial on the original. See also a lot of Twitter alternatives (like Gab) if you want other examples.
giarc 9y ago
I think the problem is that anytime a group gets that large, it's going to have pockets of toxic users. So unless the plan is to forever jump ship from one product to the next, best bet is to find yourself smaller subreddits to make your home.
xxxssszzz 9y ago
Don't see how this even on the way to being a viable alternative. It appears to have started by already replicating many of the same toxic subs and doesn't appear to be doing anything systematically different which could help prevent build a less toxic community.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> The community there is simply too toxic and I've had to quit it. Which community? There are thousands of subreddits. Are you talking about the people who use the default front-page subreddits?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ehsankia 9y ago
  All of 4chan is one community. All of Twitch is one community. All of reddit is one community. Youtube sucks because it has videos that pander to kids. Twitter sucks because it because it's because talking about their mundane life. Facebook sucks because it's people sharing fake news. In social media, whenever you're having a bad time, it's most like your fault. When you say X sucks, You're really saying that your friends / the people you're following / the communities you visit suck.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    That's like saying a nation is one community. It's not. It (usually) shares a language and some common values, but otherwise there's greater diversity within a nation than between nations. Still, there's a lot of truth in "When you say X sucks, You're really saying that your friends / the people you're following / the communities you visit suck". It literally takes seconds to join or leave an on-line community. On the Internet it's more true than anywhere else that you get the communities you deserve.
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      FYI That's OPs point. They are saying all those social media sites are the same to prove the point that they aren't. As evidenced by their next paragraph.
- nailer 9y ago
  I use the front page because I'm interested in what's popular. But someone's angry "f--k (politician here)" rant isn't my idea of entertainment, even if I don't like the politician, likewise various violence/creepy stuff that makes the front page. Reddit doesn't let me block subs.
nailer 9y ago
I have no idea if it's entertaining and they want me to sign up before I can know. No thanks.

azernik 9y ago

Since this is project is coming out of the voat.co community, I expect the community will be more toxic than Reddit's, not less. EDIT: The article implies a connection, but as cracell pointed out, there is in fact no association, even historical or in personnel.

cracell 9y ago
Lead developer says it has nothing to do with voat here https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/5qhz99/votenco_a_realtime_reddit_alternative_that_doesnt/dczh192/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/5qhz99/... 'The whole thing is based on voting which is why it has "vote" in it. It has nothing to do with voat.co. I guarantee that'
- Melk 9y ago
  No thanks.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- azernik 9y ago
  Ah. The article drew a connection, which is why I assumed that. But googling the founders, it appears you are correct.
djsumdog 9y ago
Voat has a couple of issues. First, it took in a lot of people from banned subreddits (/r/coontown, fatpeoplehate, etc.) Unlike the great Digg 4.0 to Reddit migration, they didn't a huge chunk of Reddit. They just got the most controversial. Second, It tried to be a full Reddit clone with tons of subverses. Reddit started out with just a few categories and slowly expanded out to user generated subreddits. That has to grow slowly over time with your userbase. Since Voat started with that, it has a ton of abandoned subverses that one one posts in anymore. Voat is a pretty bad cespool of hatred right now. There's occasionally good stuff on there, but a lot of it is conservative garbage. People who have tried to turn it around are so outnumbered that they just leave. With that said, Voat is open source (written in C# I believe), just like Reddit.
- sf_rob 9y ago
  The problem is a "Reddit alternative" will naturally attract the groups that no longer feel at home on Reddit. It seems inevitable that any alternative will be more toxic and/or hyper-moderated.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Scott Alexander recently covered this phenomenon here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative-the-eternal-struggle/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative... (see in particular section III of the article)
  - mowenz 9y ago
    Voat is actually far less moderated, though, and honestly, almost nothing is censored there.
  - CM30 9y ago
    As will almost any site specifically marketed as an alternative to a major one. You market your site as a freer, more fair alternative to another social site, and yes, you'll likely draw in the people that were hated/seen as controversial on the original. See also a lot of Twitter alternatives (like Gab) if you want other examples.

giarc 9y ago

I think the problem is that anytime a group gets that large, it's going to have pockets of toxic users. So unless the plan is to forever jump ship from one product to the next, best bet is to find yourself smaller subreddits to make your home.

xxxssszzz 9y ago

Don't see how this even on the way to being a viable alternative. It appears to have started by already replicating many of the same toxic subs and doesn't appear to be doing anything systematically different which could help prevent build a less toxic community.

pavel_lishin 9y ago

> The community there is simply too toxic and I've had to quit it. Which community? There are thousands of subreddits. Are you talking about the people who use the default front-page subreddits?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ehsankia 9y ago
All of 4chan is one community. All of Twitch is one community. All of reddit is one community. Youtube sucks because it has videos that pander to kids. Twitter sucks because it because it's because talking about their mundane life. Facebook sucks because it's people sharing fake news. In social media, whenever you're having a bad time, it's most like your fault. When you say X sucks, You're really saying that your friends / the people you're following / the communities you visit suck.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  That's like saying a nation is one community. It's not. It (usually) shares a language and some common values, but otherwise there's greater diversity within a nation than between nations. Still, there's a lot of truth in "When you say X sucks, You're really saying that your friends / the people you're following / the communities you visit suck". It literally takes seconds to join or leave an on-line community. On the Internet it's more true than anywhere else that you get the communities you deserve.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    FYI That's OPs point. They are saying all those social media sites are the same to prove the point that they aren't. As evidenced by their next paragraph.
nailer 9y ago
I use the front page because I'm interested in what's popular. But someone's angry "f--k (politician here)" rant isn't my idea of entertainment, even if I don't like the politician, likewise various violence/creepy stuff that makes the front page. Reddit doesn't let me block subs.

nailer 9y ago

I have no idea if it's entertaining and they want me to sign up before I can know. No thanks.