5 ms·

I find this sort of slightly gloating incredulity at just how "obvious" the things a company ought to be working on are to be surprising. You have almost none o

I find this sort of slightly gloating incredulity at just how "obvious" the things a company ought to be working on are to be surprising. You have almost none of the information required to make informed judgements about whether or not Reddit's product team is incompetent (maybe they're doing way better than they should be under the circumstances?), or whether they're focusing on the right things. There are definitely problems with the user experience, but framing it in absolute terms and kicking off with a sweeping statement about the perceived incompetence of some people who are presumably bright and talented is… weird.

tzjmetron 8y ago
Agreed.
debaserab2 8y ago
Reddit is a top 20 globally ranked site that does not come anywhere close to performing at the level of other sites that share a similar popularity. In my mind, they fail their users in three distinct and pretty basic ways: 1. Site reliability is still a regular issue (my perception is this is due to both infrastructure problem and show stopping application bugs). 2. Bad UX practices that get implemented that are documented all over this thread. This is a mostly new thing that seems to have started in the past few years. 3. Continuously underdeveloping or cutting back moderator tools and 3rd party integrations/applications. I am not judging the individuals that work at reddit, but the sum of their parts do not meet the expectations that most other sites of their popularity meet. This is, of course, from the eyes of someone who uses reddit - not someone selling ads on reddit.
- hopler 8y ago
  #visits isn't what matters when judging competency, amount of revenue/spending for the quality is. How much revenue do they have? They have only less than 1% of the valuation of Google
- georgespencer 8y ago
  > I am not judging the individuals that work at reddit I'm sure you don't mean to, but as an FYI, when you say: > It amazes me the kind of sheer incompetency their product team has demonstrated It does sound like you're judging the individuals. I totally agree with everything you said in this post, I just think the way to couch it is not by seeming to attack the competency of people who have business pressures / goals. Just my two cents.
  - debaserab2 8y ago
    Point taken, agreed, my choice of words was way harsher than it should have been.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Their product team have probably made exactly what they were instructed to ... I've severely cut back since the recent "you must use our app" UX took over, it's pretty terrible.
tachyonbeam 8y ago
It's hard to understand, as a programmer, how some website bugs that are obviously visible can remain unfixed for months and months. Presumably, the developers encounter these bugs themselves when using the site (assuming the developers use the site).
- Noumenon72 8y ago
  For me it's easier to understand as a working programmer, since my priorities are all set by management so I don't feel right working on things that bug me. Also little things I'd fix on my own in a second have lots of process around them.
hjort-e 8y ago
The site is literally down for me right now. Second time this week. Several high profile issues i encounter on a daily/weekly basis: - Sometimes you are "not logged in", but when you click the login button, it says welcome back and you're properly logged in. - Subreddits can change background color pagewide, which renders dark practically useless. - It's so resource intensive that simply scrolling will make a youtube video in another tab start lagging.
- sushid 8y ago
  > - Subreddits can change background color pagewide, which renders dark practically useless. Disable subreddit styles altogether to fix this problem. I have my complaints as well but this one you can't blame Reddit for. They wanted to do away with custom CSS on Subreddits but the community was very pro-css and thus they kept it. I personally like to keep it on by default and blacklist ones I find annoying.
beager 8y ago
My big issue is that I don’t think the product team should be a priority for reddit right now. I’m sure their product team is doing “fine” insofar as they’re setting a roadmap, delivering on a fairly predictable schedule, and doing traditional things like analytics, user research, usability testing, and so on. I would wager some really smart people actually. The issue as I see it though is that “product” will only get you so far if there are platform/community issues. Reddit has an opportunity to leverage their massive reach and throngs of volunteer moderators to build a strong voice for the internet. But I keep seeing the fringe game the system, large communities crushed under the weight of brigading and exploitation, and the stereotypes of edgy, immature users blot out any chance at real discourse. In my opinion you can’t UX/UI/user story your way out of that bag, and the execs at reddit have repeatedly and conspicuously refused to take on the responsibility of cultivating their platform for success. Instead, I think they’ve throw “product people” at it.
jahlove 8y ago
Have you gone back and looked at your predictions immediately after Facebook acquired Instagram? They're pretty interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840

tzjmetron 8y ago

Agreed.

debaserab2 8y ago

Reddit is a top 20 globally ranked site that does not come anywhere close to performing at the level of other sites that share a similar popularity. In my mind, they fail their users in three distinct and pretty basic ways: 1. Site reliability is still a regular issue (my perception is this is due to both infrastructure problem and show stopping application bugs). 2. Bad UX practices that get implemented that are documented all over this thread. This is a mostly new thing that seems to have started in the past few years. 3. Continuously underdeveloping or cutting back moderator tools and 3rd party integrations/applications. I am not judging the individuals that work at reddit, but the sum of their parts do not meet the expectations that most other sites of their popularity meet. This is, of course, from the eyes of someone who uses reddit - not someone selling ads on reddit.

hopler 8y ago
#visits isn't what matters when judging competency, amount of revenue/spending for the quality is. How much revenue do they have? They have only less than 1% of the valuation of Google
georgespencer 8y ago
> I am not judging the individuals that work at reddit I'm sure you don't mean to, but as an FYI, when you say: > It amazes me the kind of sheer incompetency their product team has demonstrated It does sound like you're judging the individuals. I totally agree with everything you said in this post, I just think the way to couch it is not by seeming to attack the competency of people who have business pressures / goals. Just my two cents.
- debaserab2 8y ago
  Point taken, agreed, my choice of words was way harsher than it should have been.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Their product team have probably made exactly what they were instructed to ... I've severely cut back since the recent "you must use our app" UX took over, it's pretty terrible.

tachyonbeam 8y ago

It's hard to understand, as a programmer, how some website bugs that are obviously visible can remain unfixed for months and months. Presumably, the developers encounter these bugs themselves when using the site (assuming the developers use the site).

Noumenon72 8y ago
For me it's easier to understand as a working programmer, since my priorities are all set by management so I don't feel right working on things that bug me. Also little things I'd fix on my own in a second have lots of process around them.

hjort-e 8y ago

The site is literally down for me right now. Second time this week. Several high profile issues i encounter on a daily/weekly basis: - Sometimes you are "not logged in", but when you click the login button, it says welcome back and you're properly logged in. - Subreddits can change background color pagewide, which renders dark practically useless. - It's so resource intensive that simply scrolling will make a youtube video in another tab start lagging.

sushid 8y ago
> - Subreddits can change background color pagewide, which renders dark practically useless. Disable subreddit styles altogether to fix this problem. I have my complaints as well but this one you can't blame Reddit for. They wanted to do away with custom CSS on Subreddits but the community was very pro-css and thus they kept it. I personally like to keep it on by default and blacklist ones I find annoying.

beager 8y ago

My big issue is that I don’t think the product team should be a priority for reddit right now. I’m sure their product team is doing “fine” insofar as they’re setting a roadmap, delivering on a fairly predictable schedule, and doing traditional things like analytics, user research, usability testing, and so on. I would wager some really smart people actually. The issue as I see it though is that “product” will only get you so far if there are platform/community issues. Reddit has an opportunity to leverage their massive reach and throngs of volunteer moderators to build a strong voice for the internet. But I keep seeing the fringe game the system, large communities crushed under the weight of brigading and exploitation, and the stereotypes of edgy, immature users blot out any chance at real discourse. In my opinion you can’t UX/UI/user story your way out of that bag, and the execs at reddit have repeatedly and conspicuously refused to take on the responsibility of cultivating their platform for success. Instead, I think they’ve throw “product people” at it.

jahlove 8y ago

Have you gone back and looked at your predictions immediately after Facebook acquired Instagram? They're pretty interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840