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Perhaps compared to HN. But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively

Perhaps compared to HN. But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. While a large proportion of the up/down-voting is from petty agreement, there is still a strong enough core of "productive discussion" voting to overcome it. Especially with knee-jerk outrage stories, there's as much skepticism as I've seen in any online community (and more apparent reservation in judgment than I see in many fairly reasonable people I know personally). There's a lot of good research that gets done (when possible), and it's usually voted above the froth very quickly. Sensationalism will almost always get called out hard. I really can't conceive of any way a forum (online or afk) with sufficient mass (with the accompanying noise, groupthink and trolling that any community of people will pick up) to accomplish the things that Reddit has/may yet could turn out any more reasonable.

ronnoch 16y ago
> But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. Have you been there recently? They're "contrarian" in the sense that they disagree with the non-Reddit mainstream, but they hardly respect contrarianism to their own views. I definitely would not call them "open-minded." (At least, not in the main subreddits. There are smaller, more intellectual communities within Reddit for which this is not as true.)
- katovatzschyn 16y ago
  > Have you been there recently? Have you been anywhere else recently? Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded? I am easy to criticize reddit, popular as it is on HN, but it is a surprising community for its large population, and as you say the smaller parts of it can be very good. One can find all the flaws with a thing that one wishes to but, in the end, if none are better it's still the best.
  - ronnoch 16y ago
    Sure, Reddit's problems are caused by its size, the same way that Digg's are caused by its size. But this does not make the groupthink, mob mentality etc. any less irritating.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - phlux 16y ago
      Honestly - I don't think that Digg's issues were necessarily size-specific as they were both architecture and community specific. Digg had a hell of a lot of momentum in the space - but they were too focused on trying to polarize interests around the articles that were submitted - and much much less focused on the community that was providing the interest. The beauty of reddit (much more a /. approach) was to provide as free a forum for the opinions on submissions. Digg really was submitter focused (which I believe to be too emulative of traditional media) - whereas reddit does an excellent job of the true meta discussions that would occur if you had a crowd in a public square that were presented a story on, say, a billboard and documenting the ensuing conversations. Reddit truly emulates how people in a quorum would act. Digg tried too hard to play both the publisher and consumer side of media, with too much publisher bias and we see where that got them.
    - jewbacca 16y ago
      We're having two discussions in parallel: on the objective value of Reddit given its circumstances, and on our own personal taste for using it. You're probably much better off in many ways for not visiting. I would like to know how informed abstainers see Reddit. I feel like given some contrived option to identify themselves with the heritage of their birth culture or nationality, or by their careers, or by where they would fit into traditional subcultures, very many Redditors would identify as Redditors, by interests and attitudes in common with a sufficient critical mass, even with dissent. The Colbert/Stewart rally, more than the individual acts of kindness, has fed a zeitgeist within Reddit that they are a community awakening to their own political power. Momentum is currently building to a campaign in protest against the TSA (which will probably fizzle, with much disillusionment for all). But I think 4chan has showed online subcultures with some chaotic convergence of will can increasingly effect the world outside their own community. And I can't conceive of any way a community, online or off, could come to be sufficiently large to find political feet, and turn out any better than Reddit has. Regarding HN: HN still has a higher signal-noise ratio, but as HN gets more popular (with many coming from Reddit, I presume -- and going the other way, as I did), I find that the difference between HN and applicable sub-reddits is dissolving. In particular, I feel like there was some suppression of humour on HN that has weakened since I arrived, which as lame as it seems was a not insignificant differentiating factor.
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  That's simply an overexaggeration. I wouldn't even say that reddit likes to go against the mainstream. Liberalism, pro-gay marriage, pro-pot. These things don't fit with the current law, but they certainly are not minority views in the broader public. Even then, go read /r/trees, it's full of people who are very sensible and will contradict other "Ents" if they're being stupid about their use of cannabis. They chastise other Democrats for having extreme views. It's cheap to sit on the sidelines and classify reddit. If you're only reading the headlines and not participating in the discussion then you're missing the point. Similarly, if you're only subscribed to the default subreddits, you're missing the truly good stuff. It's unbelievable how much GOOD content appears in the android, ubuntu, electronic music subreddits that people never see because they dismiss it they way you are.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  I disagree. Sure, it's susceptible to groupthink, but one comment by someone pointing this out is enough to turn the scales. I have never seen a single "don't downvote this guy, he's making a good point" not reverse the downvotes and lead to the person being upvoted (unless he wasn't making a good argument, but I've never seen that).
  - kaens 16y ago
    Do you read with no threshold, and read through entire threads? Read sorted by worst (or lowest or whatever it is)? I used to. I stopped when the noise got too annoying to sift through, but I would see good comments hidden to most people by downvotes more often than never. The "don't downvote this guy" reversal happens often, and it's really a very nice thing about the Reddit community, but a solid comment or argument is not guaranteed that treatment by any means, and sometimes that reversal doesn't actually work.
    - StavrosK 16y ago
      Sure, but the vast majority of the time I've seen (and done) it, it does work, and that's commendable. I firmly believe that redditors are a nudge away (if that) from great discussions, and a "he's making a good point" is enough to make redditors say "wait, I downvoted him because I disagree, not because his point is bad. Let me undo that".

ronnoch 16y ago

> But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. Have you been there recently? They're "contrarian" in the sense that they disagree with the non-Reddit mainstream, but they hardly respect contrarianism to their own views. I definitely would not call them "open-minded." (At least, not in the main subreddits. There are smaller, more intellectual communities within Reddit for which this is not as true.)

katovatzschyn 16y ago
> Have you been there recently? Have you been anywhere else recently? Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded? I am easy to criticize reddit, popular as it is on HN, but it is a surprising community for its large population, and as you say the smaller parts of it can be very good. One can find all the flaws with a thing that one wishes to but, in the end, if none are better it's still the best.
- ronnoch 16y ago
  Sure, Reddit's problems are caused by its size, the same way that Digg's are caused by its size. But this does not make the groupthink, mob mentality etc. any less irritating.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - phlux 16y ago
    Honestly - I don't think that Digg's issues were necessarily size-specific as they were both architecture and community specific. Digg had a hell of a lot of momentum in the space - but they were too focused on trying to polarize interests around the articles that were submitted - and much much less focused on the community that was providing the interest. The beauty of reddit (much more a /. approach) was to provide as free a forum for the opinions on submissions. Digg really was submitter focused (which I believe to be too emulative of traditional media) - whereas reddit does an excellent job of the true meta discussions that would occur if you had a crowd in a public square that were presented a story on, say, a billboard and documenting the ensuing conversations. Reddit truly emulates how people in a quorum would act. Digg tried too hard to play both the publisher and consumer side of media, with too much publisher bias and we see where that got them.
  - jewbacca 16y ago
    We're having two discussions in parallel: on the objective value of Reddit given its circumstances, and on our own personal taste for using it. You're probably much better off in many ways for not visiting. I would like to know how informed abstainers see Reddit. I feel like given some contrived option to identify themselves with the heritage of their birth culture or nationality, or by their careers, or by where they would fit into traditional subcultures, very many Redditors would identify as Redditors, by interests and attitudes in common with a sufficient critical mass, even with dissent. The Colbert/Stewart rally, more than the individual acts of kindness, has fed a zeitgeist within Reddit that they are a community awakening to their own political power. Momentum is currently building to a campaign in protest against the TSA (which will probably fizzle, with much disillusionment for all). But I think 4chan has showed online subcultures with some chaotic convergence of will can increasingly effect the world outside their own community. And I can't conceive of any way a community, online or off, could come to be sufficiently large to find political feet, and turn out any better than Reddit has. Regarding HN: HN still has a higher signal-noise ratio, but as HN gets more popular (with many coming from Reddit, I presume -- and going the other way, as I did), I find that the difference between HN and applicable sub-reddits is dissolving. In particular, I feel like there was some suppression of humour on HN that has weakened since I arrived, which as lame as it seems was a not insignificant differentiating factor.
drivebyacct2 16y ago
That's simply an overexaggeration. I wouldn't even say that reddit likes to go against the mainstream. Liberalism, pro-gay marriage, pro-pot. These things don't fit with the current law, but they certainly are not minority views in the broader public. Even then, go read /r/trees, it's full of people who are very sensible and will contradict other "Ents" if they're being stupid about their use of cannabis. They chastise other Democrats for having extreme views. It's cheap to sit on the sidelines and classify reddit. If you're only reading the headlines and not participating in the discussion then you're missing the point. Similarly, if you're only subscribed to the default subreddits, you're missing the truly good stuff. It's unbelievable how much GOOD content appears in the android, ubuntu, electronic music subreddits that people never see because they dismiss it they way you are.
StavrosK 16y ago
I disagree. Sure, it's susceptible to groupthink, but one comment by someone pointing this out is enough to turn the scales. I have never seen a single "don't downvote this guy, he's making a good point" not reverse the downvotes and lead to the person being upvoted (unless he wasn't making a good argument, but I've never seen that).
- kaens 16y ago
  Do you read with no threshold, and read through entire threads? Read sorted by worst (or lowest or whatever it is)? I used to. I stopped when the noise got too annoying to sift through, but I would see good comments hidden to most people by downvotes more often than never. The "don't downvote this guy" reversal happens often, and it's really a very nice thing about the Reddit community, but a solid comment or argument is not guaranteed that treatment by any means, and sometimes that reversal doesn't actually work.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    Sure, but the vast majority of the time I've seen (and done) it, it does work, and that's commendable. I firmly believe that redditors are a nudge away (if that) from great discussions, and a "he's making a good point" is enough to make redditors say "wait, I downvoted him because I disagree, not because his point is bad. Let me undo that".