5 ms·

Surprised no one said the obvious: Reddit. Find the right subreddit and you'll see high-ish quality posts on the topic. Javascript, Node.js, etc.

dvddgld 9y ago
There's a heap of good info and contacts there. Though the quality is far more varied, and generally goes down significantly once a sub hits a certain size. It seems to me that the less informed the majority of an audience is, the less effective a voting system is at incentivising insightful / productive discussion.
arka2147483647 9y ago
The problem with reddit is that there are a lot of "Shits and Giggles" reddits, and this tends to bleed into the "Serious" reddits. For example; someone is browsing r/funny and clicks a link or two and find themselves in r/programming, or whatever, but keeps acting as if they are in r/funny. And so your serious discussion is full of funny comments which someone has to clean up or let the discussion deteriorate.
- vadimberman 9y ago
  True, but in the good subreddits the downvotes are brutal enough to deter or drop the offending post to the bottom.
  - scheveningen 9y ago
    IMO, the downvotes are a big problem with reddit, unfortunately. If people actually followed reddiquette (downvoting posts that do not add to the discussion) the system would work great. However, a large majority of people will just downvote what they disagree with. There is no way to keep this behavior in check. What happens is that counterpoints that do not align with the majority 'party line' are rarely seen on reddit, and although the hive mind is often agreeable to me personally, I need to see dissenting viewpoints in order to get a nuanced understanding of any complex or opinionated issue. I've pretty much eliminated reddit from my life in favor of HN (this is my first post, actually) and Metafilter and I couldn't be happier.
    - toyg 9y ago
      You just haven’t noticed this phenomenon on HN yet. It’s a fact of life: a downvote button will eventually be used as a “disagree” button rather than some idealistic concept of what moderation should be. Even the most reasonable person has a trigger subject, be it gun laws, abortion, or vi vs emacs. If you think HN is somewhat immune, you’re in for a rude awakening at some point.
      - phkahler 9y ago
        HN in general also has a couple things that are trigger subjects. Areas there is little hope of making even a reasoned argument. I still like to burn a little karma sometimes ;-)
        paulddraper 9y ago
        HTTPS-everywhere, Net Neutrality, employee rights. And of course, Rust.
        mattmanser 9y ago
        It's more anything to do with women. That's HN's third rail.
      - sebazzz 9y ago
        The difference is that in HN you need to earn your downvote rights (which I have not yet). That should put up a bar for initial down voting, though I agree with you. Some posts of mine have been downvotes, but not for an obvious reason. This means I am more careful posting the next time.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      > There is no way to keep this behavior in check. Sure there is. For example, each user could be allocated a set number of 'downvotes to give' each day. If that limit were, say, 5, users would either 1) use them up very quickly if they didn't change their behavior, thus not able to downvote for the rest of the day or 2) change their behavior to use them more sparingly.
- always_good 9y ago
  To be fair, /r/programming is probably one of the most toxic subreddits itself. I've never found another subreddit where everyone is as unbearably angry and negative. Too many programmers suffer from social issues for a laissez faire community to be a fun place to frequent.
  - nsgi 9y ago
    Believe me, there are plenty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti... https://www.reddit.com/r/HateSubredditOfTheDay/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HateSubredditOfTheDay/
    - tortasaur 9y ago
      With the exception of /r/fatpeoplehate, those aren't the subreddits I think of when I think of hateful subreddits, as they are mainly low-subscriber fringe groups. The same sentiment that FPH had lives on in other "angry" subreddits that reach mass appeal (like /r/justneckbeardthings, and much of /r/blackpeopletwitter). I think a sentiment analysis of posts from the major subreddits would be an interesting read.
      - pasabagi 9y ago
        What's angry about /r/blackpeopletwitter? I don't think I've ever even seen a negative post there. It's mostly just funny.
  - betoharres 9y ago
    this was my first impression when I stumbled in /r/programming
DrAwdeOccarim 9y ago
Reddit is surprisingly bad for biotech. r/biotech is usually students asking how to get into biotech, and r/science doesn't allow news reports (non peer-reviewed things). So there isn't really "science news" kind of discussions; really quite disappointing. Would love to know of any people frequent that have rich commentary.
- baq 9y ago
  There's r/everythingscience but it's not what it should be. Hopefully this will change.
- spraak 9y ago
  You should check out DrAwdeOccarim's comment below for some biotech links
  - DrAwdeOccarim 9y ago
    I'm me.
zerostar07 9y ago
Its actually pretty rare outside programming-related, e g many science subs are really popsci garbage or students asking administrative questions
detaro 9y ago
The "find the right subreddit" isn't something that works universally though. Yes, there are good ones, but it seems almost random for which topics they exist and for which they don't. Even if they keep the memes and joke comments in check, many more are full of endless repeats of the same basics. E.g. I'm always surprised how many hobby-topics are dominated by "I just bought $thingEveryoneRecommends, here is a photo of it, and the box it came in!", with droves of comments of how awesome $thing is.

dvddgld 9y ago

There's a heap of good info and contacts there. Though the quality is far more varied, and generally goes down significantly once a sub hits a certain size. It seems to me that the less informed the majority of an audience is, the less effective a voting system is at incentivising insightful / productive discussion.

arka2147483647 9y ago

The problem with reddit is that there are a lot of "Shits and Giggles" reddits, and this tends to bleed into the "Serious" reddits. For example; someone is browsing r/funny and clicks a link or two and find themselves in r/programming, or whatever, but keeps acting as if they are in r/funny. And so your serious discussion is full of funny comments which someone has to clean up or let the discussion deteriorate.

vadimberman 9y ago
True, but in the good subreddits the downvotes are brutal enough to deter or drop the offending post to the bottom.
- scheveningen 9y ago
  IMO, the downvotes are a big problem with reddit, unfortunately. If people actually followed reddiquette (downvoting posts that do not add to the discussion) the system would work great. However, a large majority of people will just downvote what they disagree with. There is no way to keep this behavior in check. What happens is that counterpoints that do not align with the majority 'party line' are rarely seen on reddit, and although the hive mind is often agreeable to me personally, I need to see dissenting viewpoints in order to get a nuanced understanding of any complex or opinionated issue. I've pretty much eliminated reddit from my life in favor of HN (this is my first post, actually) and Metafilter and I couldn't be happier.
  - toyg 9y ago
    You just haven’t noticed this phenomenon on HN yet. It’s a fact of life: a downvote button will eventually be used as a “disagree” button rather than some idealistic concept of what moderation should be. Even the most reasonable person has a trigger subject, be it gun laws, abortion, or vi vs emacs. If you think HN is somewhat immune, you’re in for a rude awakening at some point.
    - phkahler 9y ago
      HN in general also has a couple things that are trigger subjects. Areas there is little hope of making even a reasoned argument. I still like to burn a little karma sometimes ;-)
      - paulddraper 9y ago
        HTTPS-everywhere, Net Neutrality, employee rights. And of course, Rust.
        mattmanser 9y ago
        It's more anything to do with women. That's HN's third rail.
    - sebazzz 9y ago
      The difference is that in HN you need to earn your downvote rights (which I have not yet). That should put up a bar for initial down voting, though I agree with you. Some posts of mine have been downvotes, but not for an obvious reason. This means I am more careful posting the next time.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    > There is no way to keep this behavior in check. Sure there is. For example, each user could be allocated a set number of 'downvotes to give' each day. If that limit were, say, 5, users would either 1) use them up very quickly if they didn't change their behavior, thus not able to downvote for the rest of the day or 2) change their behavior to use them more sparingly.
always_good 9y ago
To be fair, /r/programming is probably one of the most toxic subreddits itself. I've never found another subreddit where everyone is as unbearably angry and negative. Too many programmers suffer from social issues for a laissez faire community to be a fun place to frequent.
- nsgi 9y ago
  Believe me, there are plenty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti... https://www.reddit.com/r/HateSubredditOfTheDay/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HateSubredditOfTheDay/
  - tortasaur 9y ago
    With the exception of /r/fatpeoplehate, those aren't the subreddits I think of when I think of hateful subreddits, as they are mainly low-subscriber fringe groups. The same sentiment that FPH had lives on in other "angry" subreddits that reach mass appeal (like /r/justneckbeardthings, and much of /r/blackpeopletwitter). I think a sentiment analysis of posts from the major subreddits would be an interesting read.
    - pasabagi 9y ago
      What's angry about /r/blackpeopletwitter? I don't think I've ever even seen a negative post there. It's mostly just funny.
- betoharres 9y ago
  this was my first impression when I stumbled in /r/programming

DrAwdeOccarim 9y ago

Reddit is surprisingly bad for biotech. r/biotech is usually students asking how to get into biotech, and r/science doesn't allow news reports (non peer-reviewed things). So there isn't really "science news" kind of discussions; really quite disappointing. Would love to know of any people frequent that have rich commentary.

baq 9y ago
There's r/everythingscience but it's not what it should be. Hopefully this will change.
spraak 9y ago
You should check out DrAwdeOccarim's comment below for some biotech links
- DrAwdeOccarim 9y ago
  I'm me.

zerostar07 9y ago

Its actually pretty rare outside programming-related, e g many science subs are really popsci garbage or students asking administrative questions

detaro 9y ago

The "find the right subreddit" isn't something that works universally though. Yes, there are good ones, but it seems almost random for which topics they exist and for which they don't. Even if they keep the memes and joke comments in check, many more are full of endless repeats of the same basics. E.g. I'm always surprised how many hobby-topics are dominated by "I just bought $thingEveryoneRecommends, here is a photo of it, and the box it came in!", with droves of comments of how awesome $thing is.