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Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism
- phlux 16y agoAs a redditor of going on nearly 5 years, this story brought me to tears (followed each of these events and participated in some) - and is personally my favorite YC spawn.
- skbohra123 16y agoAm I the only one here who doesn't know what's 4chan ?
- ronnoch 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan
- ComputerGuru 16y agoProbably not, but (and not to be snarky or anything... well, maybe just a little), you do know what Google and Wikipedia are.... right? I never understand the point of posts that ask knowledge that can be easily obtained (in both concise and verbose forms; with all the perspective and facts you could want) by just clicking on one of the top 5 results in Google.
- skbohra123 16y agoProbably the intent of such posts is to find out if I am outdated or what? If more people haven't heard about something discussed here I would be convinced that this isn't something to worry about.
- sage_joch 16y agoThe quote that comes to mind when I think of the reddit community: "Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... fuck with us."
- vaksel 16y agoi attribute that description to 4chan...reddit is kinda meh by comparison
- mitjak 16y agoBy comparison of what? Reddit is not composed of typical people mentioned above? Or do all regular folk gather round to share Impact captioned cartoons of homosexual sheep riding bicycles through fields of scrotums?
- vaksel 16y agoreddit's retaliation might be a slap on the wrist. 4chan's retaliation would involve ripping your head off and taking a dump. reddit is a lot more self controlled, 4 chaners fuck with people just because they can, reddit only tends to screw with the more mainstream evils
- jewbacca 16y ago4chan is Chaotic Neutral. Reddit is Neutral Good.
- redthrowaway 16y agoI'm not sure what it says about me that I really enjoy reducing complex individuals and groups to AD&D archetypes.
- archon810 16y agoThat sounds like 4chan as well.
- techbio 16y agoTheir enforcement of the Streisand Effect is quite impressive.
- panacea 16y agoreddit is made of people.
- zeraholladay 16y agoYeah, but you could say the same thing about the Nazi party and the civil rights movement in the United States. That statement is vacuous since I seriously doubt anyone reading this thought Reddit might be made of non-people. What's your point? EDIT: While I agree with your sentiment and my comment could be interpreted has harsh depending on the tone of voice, I've said this kind of thing before (x is made of people) and always wished I had clarified it more. So please think of it as more of an invitation rather than a challenge.
- tav 16y agoAm I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thing that "comments are generally downvoted by dozens or even hundreds of people with remarkable speed, pushing their noxious posts down into obscurity within minutes". But, since everyone can downvote — hell, I have even see non-controversial statements get downvoted heavily — the quality of dialogue often ends up being at the level of the lowest common denominator.
- Lewisham 16y agoReddit is not a place to have dialogue. Community-moderated areas just aren't very good at it. Even HN has been accused from suffering groupthink. If you want dialogue, forums, mailing lists or better yet, the real world (if you can find the community you need to discuss things with), is a better place to have it.
- heyitsnick 16y ago> If you want dialogue, forums, mailing lists or better yet, the real world (if you can find the community you need to discuss things with), is a better place to have it. Why?
- jewbacca 16y agoHmm... more specialized fora will have the more concentrated focus of intentionally-informed people who've gathered explicitly to discuss a topic. Too much off-topic noise will get you shunned, because people come there for the signal (Reddit, though I love it, is noise incarnate). With far fewer threads, people maintain a discussion rather than post and run. In far smaller communities, with active posters within Dunbar's number[0], will call you out on your shit or for bailing whenever you get shut down. --- [0] Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
- zackattack 16y agoJesus christ, these stories make me cry. I don't know if this is something I need to explore deeper, or if I'm simply torturing myself by reading them.
- archon810 16y agoTwinkles were abundant today near my facial area.
- jimbokun 16y agoAn oft cited reason for founding a company is to make the world better in some way. These 25 stories demonstrate that Reddit has undeniably accomplished that.
- josephd 16y agoAre you all forgeting the good deeds reported about in the article? Does that count for anything from an online community?
- revoltingx 16y agoChurches are the biggest donators in the world. Does that count for anything for them?
- thomasz 16y agoIs that true?
- revoltingx 16y agoSure, though because they don't have a common banner their cumulative effect is what's worth mentioning. Here's the first numbers table i found on google. though it's a bit old: http://www.zimbabwe.cc/html/charity-statistics-usa-example.html http://www.zimbabwe.cc/html/charity-statistics-usa-example.h... That's just in the U.S. Not to mention the centuries that they've been in existence.
- satori99 16y agoreddit is basically an IRC server for the web, with voting. The cleverst thing they have done is also entirely simple. By making all thread replies to your posts appear in your inbox as personal messages, and highlighting the orange icon, it successfully encourages users to make reasonably deep replies to those that bite. This seems to generate interesting thread content very quickly. My only gripe is the lack of resolution in the voting system (ala /.). Meme overload is a real problem when browsing reddit.
- redthrowaway 16y agoMeme overload is a significant problem on any large internet community that's web-centric in its outlook. From SA to 4chan to reddit, any community that thinks of itself as "the Internet" will employ memes as a means of self-confirmation.
- state_machine 16y ago"upboat" QED.
- heed 16y agoArguably none of the altruistic acts 'reddit' has performed are representative of the entire reddit population.
- marknutter 16y agoI actually find reddit to be somewhat nauseating. Call me cynical, but I can't help but think the Reddit community performs every kind act with an air of smug, self-centerdness you often find in creepy church youth groups or after school specials. I started visiting reddit because digg's links started sucking, and now I visit HN primarily because reddit is no longer about good links either. It's a maassive geek circle jerk where people share semi amusing images, write self-affirming posts, and run every meme known to man into the ground. Reddit's new slogan about sums it up: "The Voice of the Internet." That's a lofty claim. Anyways, the same thing is bound to happen to HN at some point. The problem with social news sites is that they all get worse as the user base grows. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for helping people. But reddit was a link aggregator at one point, and it has been disappointing to see that side of it melt away over the years.
- drivebyacct2 16y agoI will call you cynical. How can you sit there and say that? You have no examples of them doing this for self-serving purposes and quite frankly, the volume and repetition of their generosity is so great that it is bewildering to think that they are doing it for self serving purposes. And who gives a shit if I get off on helping people? Isn't it a good thing that I feel good about helping people? Isn't that in line with a sense of humanity? edit: Additionally, remove /r/pics, /r/funny, /r/atheism and add the more obscure tech subreddits. There is plenty of tech content that comes through in /r/programming and /r/javascript that shows up before it shows up here. It is a link aggregator. Please take the 5 minutes, make an account and setup your subreddits correctly. I think you could be very pleasantly surprised.
- marknutter 16y agoI said I have no problem with people helping others - I'm not a sociopath. It's the whole "look, everyone, at how awesome we are" circle jerk that I find nauseating. Besides, I think reddit has performed an equal number of acts of vengeance as they have acts of altruism and have nailed the wrong person in more than one instance - perhaps that's worthy of a blog post. At least 4chan admits what it is. Again, my issue isn't that reddit is an active community, it's that it has turned from a link sharing site to a larger, more work friendly version of 4chan with an incredibly inflated sense of self-righteousness. And to be sure, I'm no reddit noob, I've had an account for 3 years and spent a lot of time cultivating my subreddits. It is a matter of opinion, I realize, but overall it has become a pretty poor source of good web content these days, for me anyhow.
- BornInTheUSSR 16y agoHmm, this spontaneity might just be channeled into a start up idea. Imagine a site predicated on a community of users pitching in a buck a month or more to fund some life-changing event for a random or deserving person.
- state_machine 16y agoBut this kind of thing exists: charities and fundraisers are nothing new. The fact that it is their reddit taking action, and not some church group or NGO, is probably what motivates at least some of the participants.
- revoltingx 16y agoReddit and its community blows balls. There are churches out there who contribute in much bigger ways and get less publicity. What a bunch of self serving douchebags. I'm sure they contribute online, but what will they do when someone in need approaches them in the street? This kind of behavior is disgusting.
- limedaring 16y agoSeriously? You hear of a group of people who do good things, and your response is, "Well, they don't do as well as this other group that does good things!" They did some really great things, and your response is "disgusting". Sad.
- revoltingx 16y agoWTF, that's not at all what I said. All I said they're a bunch of self serving douchebags and that churches do this kind of stuff all the time without any praise. Most of these 'deeds' are pretty worthless. The fact that clicking a button and making a donation makes people feel good, while actual people are starving around the corner. I then see these same type of people on the streets refusing to even spare change. This is what disgusts me. Idiot.
- incogneato 16y agoI would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that Reddit constantly bashes that "other group" and never gives them credit when it's due.
- limedaring 16y agoWhich negates their own achievements?
- aberkowitz 16y agoPeople tend to be fascinated when a system does things it is not created to do. Reddit's primary purpose is to share and comment on links whereas churches are founded to spread goodwill in a community.
- scythe 16y agoIt's altruism, but it isn't astonishing in it's volume. I'm sure that of any suitably large group of people, the total dollar amount of donations to worthy causes will be well into the tens of thousands, which is basically what reddit's done here. You might call them kind of naive for doing things only about those causes that manage to get popular on reddit -- while reddit has some well-publicized random acts of kindness the overall impact of what they've done is pretty tiny. Would some of those thousands of dollars have been better spent fighting malaria? I really can't say. Is it impressive to donate only to those causes that are presented in such a fashion as to jerk at the proverbial heart-strings? I should think not. Is reddit above the rest of the Internet in its altruism? I would say perhaps not, but they're a good and valuable net community. There are many instances of Internet activism accomplishing something good, both inside and outside of reddit, and I would say that reddit's accomplishments are nothing short of pretty good.
- olalonde 16y agoHow about a HN gift exchange this Christmas? Anyone else would be in?
- pavs 16y agoDon't hold your breath.
- incogneato 16y agopretty cool. too bad about that rally though, they had a bunch of dildos and communists and a killer on stage singing about peace.
- davidw 16y agoI'm quite sick of reddit, to be honest. Many people there take delight in taking snarky, content-free swipes at others' hard work. Maybe that is fun when you're 16, but it gets old after you've aged some.
- jrockway 16y agoNever underestimate the capabilities of people who don't feel like working at work. I think the whole not doing anything for weeks at a time make people want to compensate somehow, and this is the result. Sending birthday cards to 90-year-olds and buying people new LCDs. Very nice.
- radu_floricica 16y agoJust an observation for those here who haven't spent a lot of time on reddit: the main page is _much_ more superficial then what you can get if you make an effort. When you're logged in you can subscribe and unsubscribe from subreddits. Once you get rid of pictures, wtf, politics and a couple more things already look a lot more mature... and then you can start looking for more obscure but rewarding ones. A good example of what a smallish sub-forum can do, take a look at http://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/ http://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/. This is a topic I'm interested in, but there are literally thousands of subreddits, smaller or bigger.
- db42 16y agowaiting to see similar list for HN :)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]