6 ms·

Wait, how did it work before adding the subs? A single board like HN, but without any specific topics? It seems crazy. I can't imagine Reddit without subs.

0xffff2 9y ago
Yes. That was a long time ago. The total volume of reddit at that time was probably smaller than even a moderately larger subreddit today.
- mercer 9y ago
  Seeing the 'average' number of upvotes rise steadily was a really strange experience for me. Hearing people in my various social groups talk about reddit though, was really strange, and sometimes it still feels strange how I can mention reddit to people with the assumption that at least they've heard of it and understand the basic concept.
david-gpu 9y ago
Reddit back in 2005-2006 was a lot like HN, but smaller. No pictures, no memes. Lots of stuff about lisp, functional programming, etc. Many early users came from Slashdot. Some folks complain about the Digg debacle and how that negatively affected the Reddit userbase, but IMO what truly fucked Reddit as a tech news source was the introduction of images.
brandmeyer 9y ago
Actually, it was very much like HN is today, or as /r/programming is today. As an ordinary user, I thought that the creation of subreddits was a clever solution to the Eternal September Problem. The initial pool of users were folks that were sniped away from Slashdot and Digg. There was quite a bit of frustration about the editorship of Slashdot, and having a system that was effectively user-edited was quite attractive. But as the readership grew, a wider array of material started showing up, frequently accompanied by the typical grumbling about relevance. The solution was to split off new user groups into more specialized subgroups. The initial set of subreddits were effectively curated by Reddit itself, based on the categories of stuff that was showing up in practice. User-generated subreddits didn't come until later.
- fnord123 9y ago
  >The solution was to split off new user groups into more specialized subgroups. The initial set of subreddits were effectively curated by Reddit itself, based on the categories of stuff that was showing up in practice. User-generated subreddits didn't come until later. Everyone wanted tags for posts (myself included), and when they announced subreddits, there was a lot of belly aching. I thought the choice of using subreddits was a technical one to make the site more easily partitionable but they gussied up the reasoning behind the concept of communities. I think they made the right choice.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
wyldfire 9y ago
When I first started using reddit, there were no accounts/logins and no comments! Just vote buttons for each story. Truly "reddit" as in "I read this [and it was interesting so I'm sharing it here]". Slashdot without all of the noise.
- petepete 9y ago
  The best things about HN and (a narrow, personalised) Reddit are the comments. A knowledgeable, enthusiastic community provides lots of background, alternative views, tit bits of related info and random facts. Without comments and discussion most of the value is gone.
  - wyldfire 9y ago
    Oh, agreed! At very first blush I thought comments would sully reddit's simple essence, but I very quickly realized how wrong I was when I grew to really appreciate the comments and the discussion. I mentioned this merely as a historical footnote to show how far reddit's come.
nostromo 9y ago
> I can't imagine Reddit without subs. Reddit didn't even have comments at first! https://web.archive.org/web/20050804002153/http://www.reddit.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050804002153/http://www.reddit...

0xffff2 9y ago

Yes. That was a long time ago. The total volume of reddit at that time was probably smaller than even a moderately larger subreddit today.

mercer 9y ago
Seeing the 'average' number of upvotes rise steadily was a really strange experience for me. Hearing people in my various social groups talk about reddit though, was really strange, and sometimes it still feels strange how I can mention reddit to people with the assumption that at least they've heard of it and understand the basic concept.

david-gpu 9y ago

Reddit back in 2005-2006 was a lot like HN, but smaller. No pictures, no memes. Lots of stuff about lisp, functional programming, etc. Many early users came from Slashdot. Some folks complain about the Digg debacle and how that negatively affected the Reddit userbase, but IMO what truly fucked Reddit as a tech news source was the introduction of images.

brandmeyer 9y ago

Actually, it was very much like HN is today, or as /r/programming is today. As an ordinary user, I thought that the creation of subreddits was a clever solution to the Eternal September Problem. The initial pool of users were folks that were sniped away from Slashdot and Digg. There was quite a bit of frustration about the editorship of Slashdot, and having a system that was effectively user-edited was quite attractive. But as the readership grew, a wider array of material started showing up, frequently accompanied by the typical grumbling about relevance. The solution was to split off new user groups into more specialized subgroups. The initial set of subreddits were effectively curated by Reddit itself, based on the categories of stuff that was showing up in practice. User-generated subreddits didn't come until later.

fnord123 9y ago
>The solution was to split off new user groups into more specialized subgroups. The initial set of subreddits were effectively curated by Reddit itself, based on the categories of stuff that was showing up in practice. User-generated subreddits didn't come until later. Everyone wanted tags for posts (myself included), and when they announced subreddits, there was a lot of belly aching. I thought the choice of using subreddits was a technical one to make the site more easily partitionable but they gussied up the reasoning behind the concept of communities. I think they made the right choice.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

wyldfire 9y ago

When I first started using reddit, there were no accounts/logins and no comments! Just vote buttons for each story. Truly "reddit" as in "I read this [and it was interesting so I'm sharing it here]". Slashdot without all of the noise.

petepete 9y ago
The best things about HN and (a narrow, personalised) Reddit are the comments. A knowledgeable, enthusiastic community provides lots of background, alternative views, tit bits of related info and random facts. Without comments and discussion most of the value is gone.
- wyldfire 9y ago
  Oh, agreed! At very first blush I thought comments would sully reddit's simple essence, but I very quickly realized how wrong I was when I grew to really appreciate the comments and the discussion. I mentioned this merely as a historical footnote to show how far reddit's come.

nostromo 9y ago

> I can't imagine Reddit without subs. Reddit didn't even have comments at first! https://web.archive.org/web/20050804002153/http://www.reddit.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050804002153/http://www.reddit...