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> But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. Have you

• 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.
      • zeraholladay 16y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean by informed abstainers, but if you mean informed abstainers of Reddit then I can speak for myself. I see Reddit as a self-aggrandizing media outlet. Members generally accept liberal values as status quo. Meaningful discussion imitates base prime time political discourse. Some of my specific gripes are: 1. Racism on Reddit is an acceptable subtext, as long as the subtext is funny. 2. Sexism on Reddit is acceptable as long as your mother, wife, or daughter are not directly considered. 3. Israel is wrong on Reddit. I know I'm painting a pretty nasty picture of a lot of people, and I apologize to those who don't deserve it, but I've seen group think plenty of times before in my life and Reddit is it.
        • StavrosK 16y ago
  • phlux 16y ago
    >Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded? Exactly; HN is very myopic - to the point of exhibiting aspergers. HN actually is too 'geek centric' -- whereby the community here is too focused on looking like the in crowd of the YC/FB alumn... (downvotes welcome)
    • cynicalkane 16y ago
      For the N-hundredth time, "aspergers" is not the same as being a nerd. It's an autism-spectrum condition that carries with it a substantial sensory integration disorder (among other things), which you'll notice most nerds don't posses.
      • phlux 16y ago
        point reinforced seeing as your reply was to my HN comment
        • jewbacca 16y ago
          How so? Yes, I understand it is geeky to protest a semantic inaccuracy for spite of which the intended meaning of the original point comes through. But you'll see the same thing on any forum (I've seen people who fail to capitalize the beginnings of sentences loose their shit at spelling errors), and I don't see how cynicalkane's not-unreasonable correction (continuing to use "Asperger's" as a synonym for "Nerd" does get a perpetuate its use as an unhealthy crutch for the socially-awkward neurotypical) trips anything but the most wildly flailing, meat-free interpretations of your protest. To your point itself, very few stories on the front page of HN at any given time have members of HN, or people you would accuse members of HN of playing fawning court to, as participants. Many of them have one or two comments that say "Seriously guys? This isn't Reddit." They're usually buried gray at the bottom, forgotten under a mound of productive discussion on whatever the topic is at hand.
      • yxhuvud 16y ago
        Exactly where in what you commented does he equal aspberger with being a nerd? He equates it with being myopic, not geeky.
  • _delirium 16y ago
    Even HN isn't that much different imo, especially outside its core competence of technical discussion (which is quite good). Discussions about economics, government, education, etc., on reddit and HN are about equally annoying to me (though I occasionally seem to fail to abstain from them at both places), with a lot of mob-mentality, up/down-voting based on agreement/disagreement, and not very well thought out knee-jerk responses. Reddit definitely has more non-serious discussion (e.g. long pun threads), but on the threads that are more serious, I don't see it as that much worse. The main difference seems to be a different political skew: Reddit has a lot of democratic-socialist types, while HN has a lot of libertarian types. On Reddit it's unlikely you'll be upvoted if you're right-of-center, but on HN it's unlikely you'll be upvoted if you're left-of-center. Conversely, you can get upvoted on Reddit for a generic "corporations suck" comment, and you can get upvoted on HN for a generic "unions suck" comment.
    • lukeschlather 16y ago
      The difference between Reddit and HN though is that a well-reasoned "corporations suck" comment will not get downvoted, while on Reddit a well-reasoned "unions suck" comment will get downvoted. Reddit has bouts of reasonableness, but I've never found a subreddit that is free of the mob. Except /r/dwarffortress.
      • kaens 16y ago
        on Reddit a well-reasoned "unions suck" comment will get downvoted. I'd imagine that would depend on what subreddit the thread was in. Frontpage? Yeah, probably. Then again, if it is well reasoned, there will also be people pointing out that the downvotes are frivolous, and agreeing with points and debating.
        • lukeschlather 16y ago
          That was not really the best example. I was playing off the parent's post. Reddit's biases overlap a fair amount with HN's. Pick a topic where HN and Reddit agree, and you will see the effect more clearly, since the HN crowd on Reddit otherwise serves as a bit of balance.
  • sounddust 16y ago
    Have you been anywhere else recently? Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded? No community is perfect, but I'd say that Metafilter is considerably more tolerant and open to a wide range of opinions on a subject. You can't downvote others if you disagree with them, and baseless attacks are simply deleted by moderators; it forces you to build a well-reasoned argument if you want to debate.
    • katovatzschyn 16y ago
      Metafilter is a great site, I go there often and think every highly of it- but it is at least one order of magnitude smaller than reddit.
• 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".