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> In fact, I'd go as far as to say Reddit provides a model for how to create a more interesting, fairer web. A model that doesn't drag down other publishers in

> In fact, I'd go as far as to say Reddit provides a model for how to create a more interesting, fairer web. A model that doesn't drag down other publishers in the process. No, instead it drags down users who don't follow the hivemind and bolsters power hungry mods who set the narrative. Reddit, and it's system, is in my opinion the very opposite of fixing anything, unless you think echo chambers are good thing. > With Reddit, though, it's right there on the homepage. As I write this, the top item on the site - about a person conquering drug addiction - is there because 49,600 people felt it worth my attention. And a number of posts you don't see because they're either removed or because the algorithm holds them back. Also, the upvotes you see are not how many people have upvoted that post... That number is much different. > Under Reddit's upvote/downvote system, clickbait headlines often sink quickly, while long, descriptive titles, leading to genuinely insightful information, thrive. How much time has this author spend on reddit? Clickbait is upvoted just as easily, as long as it goes along with what the hivemind thinks on that moment. And long descriptive titles do indeed thrive - because almost no one reads the article and most discussions that follow are bases solely on the title of the article. Sigh so much wrong with the article, so much wishful thinking towards reddit..

mattmanser 9y ago
Yeah, he really hasn't seen the darkside to Reddit has he? And it can get really dark. I deleted an account I had there a while back and started again, with a very different set of subreddits, switching from fun to serious sub-reddits. It's like a totally different website. I shudder to think what a racist or misogynist's reddit looks like.
- code_duck 9y ago
  I tried that with Facebook and was surprised at how different the experience was, before they pigeonholed me and I started getting content and suggestions similar to my original account.
- chakalakasp 9y ago
  Help me ObiWan Kenonbi, you’re my only hope. What’s a good list of serious subreddits? I’ve found a small handful, but there are surprisingly few I could find that had genuinely compelling content or commentary.
  - Balero 9y ago
    It depends what you're interested in. If you go for some pretty narrowly focused ones, they tend to stick to the topic.
  - throwawaylolx 9y ago
    /r/DrugNerds, /r/TrueFilm, /r/MachineLearning, /r/SecurityAnalysis, /r/options, /r/CryptoTechnology As you can see, they're all very targeted to specific interests. However, I'd also be interested in learning about other good subreddits regardless of their focus. Which ones did you or anyone else find?
    - mattbuilds 9y ago
      I believe that is the real key to enjoying Reddit. Communities that are laser focused. Basically doing just one thing well. When a community is too big and too general I think the quality suffers.
      - FridgeSeal 9y ago
        That's the general consensus on Reddit. Becoming a default sub is widely regarded as a death knell for a subreddit. The best one are well focused, well moderated, large enough to not stagnate but without tipping over into 'lowest-common-denominator' mode.
      - sunstone 9y ago
        I was using Reddit before there were subreddits and the quality was excellent with a wide variety of topics. So rather than focus, the main problem is size. With size comes all the trolls, self-promoters and nation states all with motives other than good, honest content and discussion.
dageshi 9y ago
Peoples definition of clickbait differs, sometimes a genuinely interesting piece of information becomes clickbait once it's been posted for 10th time. But for a lot of people it's the first time they're seeing it, so it's not clickbait to them yet.
- matt4077 9y ago
  The phrase has become meaningless. It used to be “Five ideas that saved my life. #7 will Safe yours...” Today, on HN and elsewhere, people label any headline “clickbait” if it isn’t a neat and complete summary of the article’s content. Any suspense, or pun, or metaphor gets the dreaded monicker. Which is actually quite a change from just 5 years or so back. At the time where google was the main source for news publishers, and not social media, headlines went through a phase of being overly descriptive. They were trying to hit all the keywords people might search for. Back then, it was quite common to bemoan the death of the creative headline.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
Chardok 9y ago
If this article was 5-10 years ago, I would have agreed with most of it, but as it stands you are absolutely correct. The Reddit algorithm now is incredibly opaque with constant tinkerings that make me think the "voting" is more of a placebo button on the front page. In recent memory, there were a few incidents of /r/The_Donald fully populating the front page, all with 0 upvote scores, which came off suspiciously as if they were deeply messing with the voting system. Where it used to be a platform where you could be assured there would be minimal censorship, it is now commonplace to "shadowban" users who go against the narrative and the rules are arbitrarily enforced to ban subreddits. (Check out /r/shitredditsays for a subreddit that constantly breaks site rules but still stands unopposed) Reddit is obviously striving for constantly more advertising friendly platform and it has been demonstrated multiple times upvotes are easily bought and advertisers are constantly sneaking in posts disguised as users to do their "viral marketing" No, author, Reddit is moving right towards the direction of Facebook rapidly. It is only a matter of time before they begin to lock out content behind a login page, you can already see the transition today.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  >there were a few incidents of /r/The_Donald fully populating the front page, all with 0 upvote scores, which came off suspiciously as if they were deeply messing with the voting system. You know that reddit doesn't actually show you vote counts, right?
  - Chardok 9y ago
    What I meant was that the numbered score they had next to every post was 0, which is incredibly atypical for that to show up on the front page. And yes, Reddit removed the ability to see the number of upvotes/downvotes on any item a few years back. Just another way for them to obfuscate the actual results of a post.
    - sushid 9y ago
      Wasn't this when they were trying to ban /r/the_donald outright from /r/all? I feel like they were trying to penalize the "real" score but somehow kept that the same and accidentally set the "fake" score to zero instead.
dorfsmay 9y ago
Reddit has very dark subreddits, but: Reddit's based in interest (subreddits) YOU can choose, not in who you know, not on who knows you and uploaded their contact. Reddit doesn't tailor adds and content based on your purchasing history from your and your wife's credit cards Reddit doesn't limit your browsing to only the last 10 posts. Reddit can reset your password via one email, it never asks you to upload you picture and doesn't block you every 24 hours for no clear reason.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > Reddit has very dark subreddits, They've been doing a bit of work on this. There were a couple of pro-anorexia subs which got banned. There was a pro-self harm sub that got banned.
someone454 9y ago
The hive mind is alive and well on HN too: I cannot log in from my home internet connection. At some point I offended some tender soul and they banned me, rather than discuss their opposition to my views.

mattmanser 9y ago

Yeah, he really hasn't seen the darkside to Reddit has he? And it can get really dark. I deleted an account I had there a while back and started again, with a very different set of subreddits, switching from fun to serious sub-reddits. It's like a totally different website. I shudder to think what a racist or misogynist's reddit looks like.

code_duck 9y ago
I tried that with Facebook and was surprised at how different the experience was, before they pigeonholed me and I started getting content and suggestions similar to my original account.
chakalakasp 9y ago
Help me ObiWan Kenonbi, you’re my only hope. What’s a good list of serious subreddits? I’ve found a small handful, but there are surprisingly few I could find that had genuinely compelling content or commentary.
- Balero 9y ago
  It depends what you're interested in. If you go for some pretty narrowly focused ones, they tend to stick to the topic.
- throwawaylolx 9y ago
  /r/DrugNerds, /r/TrueFilm, /r/MachineLearning, /r/SecurityAnalysis, /r/options, /r/CryptoTechnology As you can see, they're all very targeted to specific interests. However, I'd also be interested in learning about other good subreddits regardless of their focus. Which ones did you or anyone else find?
  - mattbuilds 9y ago
    I believe that is the real key to enjoying Reddit. Communities that are laser focused. Basically doing just one thing well. When a community is too big and too general I think the quality suffers.
    - FridgeSeal 9y ago
      That's the general consensus on Reddit. Becoming a default sub is widely regarded as a death knell for a subreddit. The best one are well focused, well moderated, large enough to not stagnate but without tipping over into 'lowest-common-denominator' mode.
    - sunstone 9y ago
      I was using Reddit before there were subreddits and the quality was excellent with a wide variety of topics. So rather than focus, the main problem is size. With size comes all the trolls, self-promoters and nation states all with motives other than good, honest content and discussion.

dageshi 9y ago

Peoples definition of clickbait differs, sometimes a genuinely interesting piece of information becomes clickbait once it's been posted for 10th time. But for a lot of people it's the first time they're seeing it, so it's not clickbait to them yet.

matt4077 9y ago
The phrase has become meaningless. It used to be “Five ideas that saved my life. #7 will Safe yours...” Today, on HN and elsewhere, people label any headline “clickbait” if it isn’t a neat and complete summary of the article’s content. Any suspense, or pun, or metaphor gets the dreaded monicker. Which is actually quite a change from just 5 years or so back. At the time where google was the main source for news publishers, and not social media, headlines went through a phase of being overly descriptive. They were trying to hit all the keywords people might search for. Back then, it was quite common to bemoan the death of the creative headline.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

Chardok 9y ago

If this article was 5-10 years ago, I would have agreed with most of it, but as it stands you are absolutely correct. The Reddit algorithm now is incredibly opaque with constant tinkerings that make me think the "voting" is more of a placebo button on the front page. In recent memory, there were a few incidents of /r/The_Donald fully populating the front page, all with 0 upvote scores, which came off suspiciously as if they were deeply messing with the voting system. Where it used to be a platform where you could be assured there would be minimal censorship, it is now commonplace to "shadowban" users who go against the narrative and the rules are arbitrarily enforced to ban subreddits. (Check out /r/shitredditsays for a subreddit that constantly breaks site rules but still stands unopposed) Reddit is obviously striving for constantly more advertising friendly platform and it has been demonstrated multiple times upvotes are easily bought and advertisers are constantly sneaking in posts disguised as users to do their "viral marketing" No, author, Reddit is moving right towards the direction of Facebook rapidly. It is only a matter of time before they begin to lock out content behind a login page, you can already see the transition today.

ryanlol 9y ago
>there were a few incidents of /r/The_Donald fully populating the front page, all with 0 upvote scores, which came off suspiciously as if they were deeply messing with the voting system. You know that reddit doesn't actually show you vote counts, right?
- Chardok 9y ago
  What I meant was that the numbered score they had next to every post was 0, which is incredibly atypical for that to show up on the front page. And yes, Reddit removed the ability to see the number of upvotes/downvotes on any item a few years back. Just another way for them to obfuscate the actual results of a post.
  - sushid 9y ago
    Wasn't this when they were trying to ban /r/the_donald outright from /r/all? I feel like they were trying to penalize the "real" score but somehow kept that the same and accidentally set the "fake" score to zero instead.

dorfsmay 9y ago

Reddit has very dark subreddits, but: Reddit's based in interest (subreddits) YOU can choose, not in who you know, not on who knows you and uploaded their contact. Reddit doesn't tailor adds and content based on your purchasing history from your and your wife's credit cards Reddit doesn't limit your browsing to only the last 10 posts. Reddit can reset your password via one email, it never asks you to upload you picture and doesn't block you every 24 hours for no clear reason.

DanBC 9y ago
> Reddit has very dark subreddits, They've been doing a bit of work on this. There were a couple of pro-anorexia subs which got banned. There was a pro-self harm sub that got banned.

someone454 9y ago

The hive mind is alive and well on HN too: I cannot log in from my home internet connection. At some point I offended some tender soul and they banned me, rather than discuss their opposition to my views.