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I was considering dropping Reddit and going back to StumbleUpon, because I realised that it is very hard to use reddit without making it another filter bubble,

by jclos 8y ago

I was considering dropping Reddit and going back to StumbleUpon, because I realised that it is very hard to use reddit without making it another filter bubble, which defeats the purpose of information discovery. Plus, the fact that SU doesn't have a toxic comment section makes it better imho. I am sad that it is gone.

tacostakohashi 8y ago
Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verification or something. That's all - not strong firstname / lastname identity like facebook, but also no throwaway accounts. 2) allow people to have a different alias for different subreddits, in a way that they stay separate and can't be easily linked. maybe that means one verification photo per subreddit, and all you really share across subreddits is your username / password. the thing of people looking through post history across different, unrelated subreddits and beating them up in response to their latest post is pretty toxic, and goes against real life where people tend to have a different persona in different contexts.
- jclos 8y ago
  To me it's the random jumping from site to site via browser extension that really made SU worth it. I can discover stuff through reddit, but the presence of a comment section kind of ruins it since I am not disciplined enough to ignore it. As to fixing reddit, I agree with your changes, but you'd run into the same issue all candidates for remplacement ran into: reddit delivers value through the network effect. You need users to get value. You need value to get users. Basically unless you can kickstart the replacement with a shitton of existing data, or unless reddit fucks up as much as digg did before, it's hard to compete.
  - tacostakohashi 8y ago
    Oh, right, another radical thought of mine - something that users would pay for. Even if it were just $1/month, one account per credit card only, it would serve as another little barrier to all the right people, and prevent throwaways and constant account deletion. Obviously for a commercial, advertiser-funded operation, it is all about more and more users and traffic and the quality of the content isn't a priority, but this eventually destroys everything. I'm imagining something much smaller, but potentially higher quality and self-sustaining. I guess I'm pretty much describing The Well, but hopefully cheaper and with more users, but not free and as many users as possible.
    - eli 8y ago
      That's half of what makes the Metafilter discussions so good (the other half is aggressive behind-the-scenes moderation)
    - brownbat 8y ago
      There used to be a mashup of random YouTube comments on one side, and random metafilter comments on the other testing, really validating, this theory. The difference was pretty stark. I could only find breadcrumbs: https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs-Youtube-comments https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs... An example might be archived somewhere...
- dghughes 8y ago
  YouTube is as bad or worse as reddit. The more you look at one topic the more it is shown to you. You end up in a feedback loop the same thing.
  - eropple 8y ago
    It's worse than that (and, I think, mendaciously so). YouTube tries to steer you towards the highest-viewed, most popular stuff on whatever very narrow vertical you're in...or a vertical that their algorithms have decided is nearby. Which is why you see people--mostly kids--going from videos about video games to videos about how the feminisms are taking away our video games to the feminisms are destroying Western society to straight-up white-supremacist agitprop. Reddit is by no means clean; they just don't care about, as opposed to actively facilitate, this stuff. But you're right in that there are deep problems on YouTube, too.
    - brownbat 8y ago
      Hmm, maybe it's bad in different ways for different viewers. For me, it seems so ruthlessly risk averse that if I watch one video, it fills my queue with every single thing that person ever made, to the detriment of other interests. Does YouTube assume all humanity is completely obsessive, based on some subset of frequent users who probably behave that way?
  - jandrese 8y ago
    Youtube's suggestion system filters you towards the most extremist videos. It's a big problem and one that they don't seem interested at all in solving.
- eip 8y ago
  > I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. Don't worry. They are pulling a Stumbleupon/Digg right now. Taking something that isn't broken and trying to fix it. The redesign is corporate suicide.
  - jclos 8y ago
    This is actually great. The only way a potentially viable alternative will succeed is if there is a mass migration from the main site, so I welcome their corporate suicide.
  - brownbat 8y ago
    Digg is actually pretty good now that it's 100% curated. Killing the community was one of the best moves they could have made.
    - eip 8y ago
      If their goal was to go from a top 50 website to a top 3000 website they certainly succeeded.
      - brownbat 8y ago
        I wouldn't want to confuse popularity with quality. Reality shows and daytime television are popular, that doesn't make them the best version of the art form. HN flies a little under the radar. I don't think that's a failing.
- subpixel 8y ago
  I live in a particular neighborhood in a particular large US city, and our subreddit is a really useful source of local info.
  - tacostakohashi 8y ago
    Yes! The subreddit for my large city is also pretty useful, by-and-large. It's things like that which are good about reddit, but could perhaps be improved upon - subreddits for cities, personalfinance, legaladvice, realestate, immigration - these serious topics could be even better by getting rid of the riff-raff.
- Yhippa 8y ago
  You know how there's a global NSFW tag that basically makes those posts not visible if you want? Would be cool if they had one for "memes".
  - foobarchu 8y ago
    Quite a few subreddits do have the 'shitpost' tag, but it would be nice if that could be applied in a global fashion instead of being per-sub styling.
- pavs 8y ago
  how about a way to randomly visit Reddit/r/all links with the press of a button without having to deal with registration/participation/comments. or make comments optional. Similar to Stumbleupon iframe bar. Similar to Diggbar: http://blogoscoped.com/files/digg-bar-large.png http://blogoscoped.com/files/digg-bar-large.png
- drb91 8y ago
  I hate to be that guy, but each subreddit is different. This is arguably the main selling point of reddit vs other link aggregators like facebook. Grouping all into the same toxic culture is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
  - muppetman 8y ago
    Yea, the reddit I visit is wonderful. Full of helpful, technical people. I guess because I have zero interest in politics or anything even slightly political - I can't even describe what left wing vs right wing actually means, or which I am (I must be one, I suppose) I post/hangout in all technical forums (pfsense/proxmox/vim/android) and pretty much without exception people are lovely. Android gets a bit catty because people are very aligned to their favourite thing (Samsung etc) but I'd never call it a vile place.
    - not_kurt_godel 8y ago
      > I have zero interest in politics or anything even slightly political - I can't even describe what left wing vs right wing actually means Political apathy is toxic. You don't have to be obsessed with politics but it's everyone's civic duty to understand the basic principles and players of our political system. Low voter turnout and low-information voters were major factors in Trump's win. You may think you don't care about politics but it's practically guaranteed you are or will be affected in some way (probably negative) as a result of his election - even if you don't live in the US.
      - jngreenlee 8y ago
        That's a bad way to put things. You can disagree with the outcome of the 2016 election, but it was a _feature_ not a _bug_ of the system the US has in place. The voters who got their way are equal in their right to their preference as you are to yours.
        drb91 8y ago
        The feature/bug metaphor fails to take into account tradeoffs. Every political system has pros and cons, and which one you choose to describe the system reveals your politics. For instance: the voters are not equal in their right to preference. Delegates are equal in their right to preference. This means the person with the popular vote lost. So, do you value the republican vote or the democratic vote (government, not party)? There’s no objectively better option; it’s a pick-your-poison type deal.
- ythn 8y ago
  Just unsubscribe all subreddits, and only opt-in to interesting, niche communities. My feed got 10000x less toxic after I unsubbed from /r/politics, /r/news, and the like
  - jandrese 8y ago
    That's the opposite of solving the filter bubble problem though.
- jadedhacker 8y ago
  Hate to be that guy, but while people being somewhat shittier anonymously is a real thing, there are whole cadres of incredibly horrible people that will post horrible stuff under their real names and be proud of it. Losing anonymity means losing protections for actually vulnerable people. The shittiest people are often the ones with the most secure positions in society. I think our online personas are just a reflection of our culture. Our culture sucks, so our online personas suck.
  - krapp 8y ago
    > Losing anonymity means losing protections for actually vulnerable people. The shittiest people are often the ones with the most secure positions in society. Case in point - Google forcibly merging Google+ comments into Youtube comments. It didn't end trolling or harassment on the platform at all... people were are are perfectly willing to be vile under their real names, but it did expose a lot of people's personal information and real names to that cesspool against their will. Also, Usenet. A lot of people posted with headers including their real name or an email containing their real name, yet it wasn't exactly a bastion of civility because of it.
    - zerostar07 8y ago
      must be liberating how easy it is to be racist/troll etc under your real name in Youtube, because everybody else is doing it. Real name, fake name, pseudonymous or completely anonymous, it seems it doesn't matter - herd behaviour washes away everything.
      - krapp 8y ago
        The way I see it, the web being primarily text based makes empathy difficult, which makes irate and rude behavior easier. It's easy to forget that there are real people on the other side of these text boxes.
        zerostar07 8y ago
        i guess text has always been harsher thats why books are so interesting
- zerostar07 8y ago
  ugggh no way jose. no "real names" - "real people"- "let me shit all over you with my ego"-maniacs. rather keep reddit where even the trolls are anonymous
- MaxBarraclough 8y ago
  If users are required to show their faces, it would be rather difficult to stop people connecting their various subreddit-specific accounts.
gitgud 8y ago
But StumbleUpon did have a comments section right? Could have sworn there was some kind of voting system, which allowed reviews...
qop 8y ago
What makes you want to avoid your filter bubble? Sorry, not trying to be funny here, I want to understand why there are some people who seem passionate about consuming their Internet methodically and sort of like egalitarian, and other people are just content to delve deeper into their own idiosyncratic impulses. I kind of think of like polarization in consumption habits as like recursion, almost. Ya know, because like it seems like people who make that connection that they like to consume content they already agree with and they can consume from some source to get that stimulus, that they end up recycling those behaviors into all the different media they consume until some point where they reach like an island in what content they engage with. Anyways, do you have any idea? I'm just curious

by jclos 8y ago

tacostakohashi 8y ago

Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verification or something. That's all - not strong firstname / lastname identity like facebook, but also no throwaway accounts. 2) allow people to have a different alias for different subreddits, in a way that they stay separate and can't be easily linked. maybe that means one verification photo per subreddit, and all you really share across subreddits is your username / password. the thing of people looking through post history across different, unrelated subreddits and beating them up in response to their latest post is pretty toxic, and goes against real life where people tend to have a different persona in different contexts.

jclos 8y ago
To me it's the random jumping from site to site via browser extension that really made SU worth it. I can discover stuff through reddit, but the presence of a comment section kind of ruins it since I am not disciplined enough to ignore it. As to fixing reddit, I agree with your changes, but you'd run into the same issue all candidates for remplacement ran into: reddit delivers value through the network effect. You need users to get value. You need value to get users. Basically unless you can kickstart the replacement with a shitton of existing data, or unless reddit fucks up as much as digg did before, it's hard to compete.
- tacostakohashi 8y ago
  Oh, right, another radical thought of mine - something that users would pay for. Even if it were just $1/month, one account per credit card only, it would serve as another little barrier to all the right people, and prevent throwaways and constant account deletion. Obviously for a commercial, advertiser-funded operation, it is all about more and more users and traffic and the quality of the content isn't a priority, but this eventually destroys everything. I'm imagining something much smaller, but potentially higher quality and self-sustaining. I guess I'm pretty much describing The Well, but hopefully cheaper and with more users, but not free and as many users as possible.
  - eli 8y ago
    That's half of what makes the Metafilter discussions so good (the other half is aggressive behind-the-scenes moderation)
  - brownbat 8y ago
    There used to be a mashup of random YouTube comments on one side, and random metafilter comments on the other testing, really validating, this theory. The difference was pretty stark. I could only find breadcrumbs: https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs-Youtube-comments https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs... An example might be archived somewhere...
dghughes 8y ago
YouTube is as bad or worse as reddit. The more you look at one topic the more it is shown to you. You end up in a feedback loop the same thing.
- eropple 8y ago
  It's worse than that (and, I think, mendaciously so). YouTube tries to steer you towards the highest-viewed, most popular stuff on whatever very narrow vertical you're in...or a vertical that their algorithms have decided is nearby. Which is why you see people--mostly kids--going from videos about video games to videos about how the feminisms are taking away our video games to the feminisms are destroying Western society to straight-up white-supremacist agitprop. Reddit is by no means clean; they just don't care about, as opposed to actively facilitate, this stuff. But you're right in that there are deep problems on YouTube, too.
  - brownbat 8y ago
    Hmm, maybe it's bad in different ways for different viewers. For me, it seems so ruthlessly risk averse that if I watch one video, it fills my queue with every single thing that person ever made, to the detriment of other interests. Does YouTube assume all humanity is completely obsessive, based on some subset of frequent users who probably behave that way?
- jandrese 8y ago
  Youtube's suggestion system filters you towards the most extremist videos. It's a big problem and one that they don't seem interested at all in solving.
eip 8y ago
> I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. Don't worry. They are pulling a Stumbleupon/Digg right now. Taking something that isn't broken and trying to fix it. The redesign is corporate suicide.
- jclos 8y ago
  This is actually great. The only way a potentially viable alternative will succeed is if there is a mass migration from the main site, so I welcome their corporate suicide.
- brownbat 8y ago
  Digg is actually pretty good now that it's 100% curated. Killing the community was one of the best moves they could have made.
  - eip 8y ago
    If their goal was to go from a top 50 website to a top 3000 website they certainly succeeded.
    - brownbat 8y ago
      I wouldn't want to confuse popularity with quality. Reality shows and daytime television are popular, that doesn't make them the best version of the art form. HN flies a little under the radar. I don't think that's a failing.
subpixel 8y ago
I live in a particular neighborhood in a particular large US city, and our subreddit is a really useful source of local info.
- tacostakohashi 8y ago
  Yes! The subreddit for my large city is also pretty useful, by-and-large. It's things like that which are good about reddit, but could perhaps be improved upon - subreddits for cities, personalfinance, legaladvice, realestate, immigration - these serious topics could be even better by getting rid of the riff-raff.
Yhippa 8y ago
You know how there's a global NSFW tag that basically makes those posts not visible if you want? Would be cool if they had one for "memes".
- foobarchu 8y ago
  Quite a few subreddits do have the 'shitpost' tag, but it would be nice if that could be applied in a global fashion instead of being per-sub styling.
pavs 8y ago
how about a way to randomly visit Reddit/r/all links with the press of a button without having to deal with registration/participation/comments. or make comments optional. Similar to Stumbleupon iframe bar. Similar to Diggbar: http://blogoscoped.com/files/digg-bar-large.png http://blogoscoped.com/files/digg-bar-large.png
drb91 8y ago
I hate to be that guy, but each subreddit is different. This is arguably the main selling point of reddit vs other link aggregators like facebook. Grouping all into the same toxic culture is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
- muppetman 8y ago
  Yea, the reddit I visit is wonderful. Full of helpful, technical people. I guess because I have zero interest in politics or anything even slightly political - I can't even describe what left wing vs right wing actually means, or which I am (I must be one, I suppose) I post/hangout in all technical forums (pfsense/proxmox/vim/android) and pretty much without exception people are lovely. Android gets a bit catty because people are very aligned to their favourite thing (Samsung etc) but I'd never call it a vile place.
  - not_kurt_godel 8y ago
    > I have zero interest in politics or anything even slightly political - I can't even describe what left wing vs right wing actually means Political apathy is toxic. You don't have to be obsessed with politics but it's everyone's civic duty to understand the basic principles and players of our political system. Low voter turnout and low-information voters were major factors in Trump's win. You may think you don't care about politics but it's practically guaranteed you are or will be affected in some way (probably negative) as a result of his election - even if you don't live in the US.
    - jngreenlee 8y ago
      That's a bad way to put things. You can disagree with the outcome of the 2016 election, but it was a _feature_ not a _bug_ of the system the US has in place. The voters who got their way are equal in their right to their preference as you are to yours.
      - drb91 8y ago
        The feature/bug metaphor fails to take into account tradeoffs. Every political system has pros and cons, and which one you choose to describe the system reveals your politics. For instance: the voters are not equal in their right to preference. Delegates are equal in their right to preference. This means the person with the popular vote lost. So, do you value the republican vote or the democratic vote (government, not party)? There’s no objectively better option; it’s a pick-your-poison type deal.
ythn 8y ago
Just unsubscribe all subreddits, and only opt-in to interesting, niche communities. My feed got 10000x less toxic after I unsubbed from /r/politics, /r/news, and the like
- jandrese 8y ago
  That's the opposite of solving the filter bubble problem though.
jadedhacker 8y ago
Hate to be that guy, but while people being somewhat shittier anonymously is a real thing, there are whole cadres of incredibly horrible people that will post horrible stuff under their real names and be proud of it. Losing anonymity means losing protections for actually vulnerable people. The shittiest people are often the ones with the most secure positions in society. I think our online personas are just a reflection of our culture. Our culture sucks, so our online personas suck.
- krapp 8y ago
  > Losing anonymity means losing protections for actually vulnerable people. The shittiest people are often the ones with the most secure positions in society. Case in point - Google forcibly merging Google+ comments into Youtube comments. It didn't end trolling or harassment on the platform at all... people were are are perfectly willing to be vile under their real names, but it did expose a lot of people's personal information and real names to that cesspool against their will. Also, Usenet. A lot of people posted with headers including their real name or an email containing their real name, yet it wasn't exactly a bastion of civility because of it.
  - zerostar07 8y ago
    must be liberating how easy it is to be racist/troll etc under your real name in Youtube, because everybody else is doing it. Real name, fake name, pseudonymous or completely anonymous, it seems it doesn't matter - herd behaviour washes away everything.
    - krapp 8y ago
      The way I see it, the web being primarily text based makes empathy difficult, which makes irate and rude behavior easier. It's easy to forget that there are real people on the other side of these text boxes.
      - zerostar07 8y ago
        i guess text has always been harsher thats why books are so interesting
zerostar07 8y ago
ugggh no way jose. no "real names" - "real people"- "let me shit all over you with my ego"-maniacs. rather keep reddit where even the trolls are anonymous
MaxBarraclough 8y ago
If users are required to show their faces, it would be rather difficult to stop people connecting their various subreddit-specific accounts.

gitgud 8y ago

But StumbleUpon did have a comments section right? Could have sworn there was some kind of voting system, which allowed reviews...

qop 8y ago

What makes you want to avoid your filter bubble? Sorry, not trying to be funny here, I want to understand why there are some people who seem passionate about consuming their Internet methodically and sort of like egalitarian, and other people are just content to delve deeper into their own idiosyncratic impulses. I kind of think of like polarization in consumption habits as like recursion, almost. Ya know, because like it seems like people who make that connection that they like to consume content they already agree with and they can consume from some source to get that stimulus, that they end up recycling those behaviors into all the different media they consume until some point where they reach like an island in what content they engage with. Anyways, do you have any idea? I'm just curious