5 ms·

I’m a 13-year reddit user. The quality of the site going down is simply a symptom of its popularity. Think how dumb the average joe is, then realize that 50%

I’m a 13-year reddit user. The quality of the site going down is simply a symptom of its popularity. Think how dumb the average joe is, then realize that 50% of the population is dumber than him. You can still find intelligent discussion on reddit, you just have to do a lot more work filtering.

djohnston 8y ago
not sure why you're being downvoted, you're exactly right. if hn got a user base the size of reddit's overnight, you can be sure the quality of discussions would similarly degrade. the same is true for every social network (digital or otherwise) i've ever been a part of.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  HN has gotten worse since I started visiting ~2 years ago. That said, still some of the best comments.
  - peteretep 8y ago
    I have been here rather longer than you, and not noticed a decline in the time period you’ve identified. I do note however there seems to be a tendency in all communities for people to think it declined since they started using it.
    - nickpsecurity 8y ago
      People often react negatively to change in what they hold dear. It could just be that they all started using these communities, loved the experience at that time, the experience changed, and then they feel the "community" (not their experience) "declined over time." Might just be an instance of that more general tendency.
    - james_s_tayler 8y ago
      Probably the same phenomenon as when you first start a relationship or a job everything is wonderful because you just haven't had any negative reference experiences with the said entity yet. Then over time they accumulate and your view matures to one of "it's alright/not bad"
    - mikekchar 8y ago
      I started about 4 years ago. While I haven't really noticed much of a decline in comment quality, I think I have noticed a trend towards articles from large mainstream publications making it to the front page. Having said that, the front page as I write this is full of TechCrunch, so it is very possible this is confirmation bias ;-)
      - robertAngst 8y ago
        I agree
    - ddoolin 8y ago
      Similarly long-time HN user checking in. I think there's still a great amount of quality here, particularly posted material, but I have seen an uptick in the number of junk comments. I'm including comments that say something but are really saying nothing substantive, are blatantly reflexive, or lack depth of thought. Ad hominem and such are indeed still rare here, thankfully.
    - paulcole 8y ago
      I won’t join any club that would have me as a member.
    - Zarel 8y ago
      I feel like lately there's been more politics, in terms of news articles as well as comments along the lines of "boo Google" or "boo Facebook", and less new software, people announcing their personal projects with Show HN, interesting comp sci concepts, and that sort of thing. A good example is this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19140862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19140862 I don't remember seeing that kind of politics on HN in the past.
      - thirdsun 8y ago
        Counterpoint: I actually enjoy non-tech discussions on HN and your observations seem to indicate that I'm not the only one.
        Zarel 8y ago
        I mean, that's true of Reddit, too; the fact that memes are more common on Reddit now is directly because more people enjoy memes. Anyway, I don't really want to include a value judgment here; I'm just observing that it changed.
peteretep 8y ago
I think you’re exactly on the money. Popularity + weak moderation policies. Happens to almost all communities. Eventually enough assholes show up who are accommodated that it stops being fun.
_asummers 8y ago
I think a wonderful example of how Reddit can work amazingly is /r/askhistorians. They require academic sources for answers, and general expertise around all answers, at the expense of requiring heavy moderation. This does not apply for general topics (could not apply in /r/news for example), but if a community can be created around a specific topic, and that topic is amenable to this style of expertise filtering, it has been shown to work well.
wvenable 8y ago
I've been using reddit for 12 years and the quality of the site has gone down considerably in just the last few years. The trolling, bots, and hate speech seem to be rampant. There has been a concerted effort for certain ideological groups to take over popular subreddits like country and city specific subreddits to push a specific agenda. All this happens while plenty of other niche subreddits go on as usual. I'm subscribed to a bunch of subreddits with great communities. While popularity certainly has a huge role in the downfall, Reddit was already Internet-popular years ago. I think the problem now is that Reddit is being gamed pretty hard and they don't have the means to fix it. And it's not just a technological problem, it's a social one.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Reddit has become a platform to manipulate public opinion. I have witnessed some very strange things on Reddit where I presume a company, government agency or malicious groups take over a subject and comments to steer the opinion. It’s easy to spot. Personally I treat Reddit as a place for humor and occasional insight, but mostly humor.
  - kkarakk 8y ago
    i saw an interesting solution to chinese "shilling" on 4chan recently, just post a bunch of words that get a site filtered automatically by the great firewall of china. like "tiananmen massacre" and the like. ofc it being 4chan i don't know how reliable that information is
  - marktangotango 8y ago
    I’ve seen this as well, try posting anything negative about Monsanto or Epic Systems.
uncletaco 8y ago
> how dumb the median joe is FTFY, to bring a little reddit to this thread.
sureaboutthis 8y ago
This is what has happened to Stack Overflow. Especially once redditors started pointing to it.
waste_monk 8y ago
>Think how dumb the average joe is, then realize that 50% of the population is dumber than him. The median Joe.
- crowbahr 8y ago
  You'd expect a site dedicated to software engineers to have a better grasp on how a bell curve works. Even the median Joe in this case is relatively similar to most other Joe's because 2/3 of the population is within 1 standard deviation of intelligence.
  - sixQuarks 8y ago
    I beg to differ that this site is dedicated only to software engineers. There are lots of marketers, designers, and other "business" types that visit - I'd wager that half of the visitors don't know how to code. Therefore, my use of "average" is a pragmatic usage that gets the point across better, even if it's not technically correct.
Chris_Chambers 8y ago
Sorry for entering pedantry mode, but I think you mean the median joe.

djohnston 8y ago

not sure why you're being downvoted, you're exactly right. if hn got a user base the size of reddit's overnight, you can be sure the quality of discussions would similarly degrade. the same is true for every social network (digital or otherwise) i've ever been a part of.

robertAngst 8y ago
HN has gotten worse since I started visiting ~2 years ago. That said, still some of the best comments.
- peteretep 8y ago
  I have been here rather longer than you, and not noticed a decline in the time period you’ve identified. I do note however there seems to be a tendency in all communities for people to think it declined since they started using it.
  - nickpsecurity 8y ago
    People often react negatively to change in what they hold dear. It could just be that they all started using these communities, loved the experience at that time, the experience changed, and then they feel the "community" (not their experience) "declined over time." Might just be an instance of that more general tendency.
  - james_s_tayler 8y ago
    Probably the same phenomenon as when you first start a relationship or a job everything is wonderful because you just haven't had any negative reference experiences with the said entity yet. Then over time they accumulate and your view matures to one of "it's alright/not bad"
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    I started about 4 years ago. While I haven't really noticed much of a decline in comment quality, I think I have noticed a trend towards articles from large mainstream publications making it to the front page. Having said that, the front page as I write this is full of TechCrunch, so it is very possible this is confirmation bias ;-)
    - robertAngst 8y ago
      I agree
  - ddoolin 8y ago
    Similarly long-time HN user checking in. I think there's still a great amount of quality here, particularly posted material, but I have seen an uptick in the number of junk comments. I'm including comments that say something but are really saying nothing substantive, are blatantly reflexive, or lack depth of thought. Ad hominem and such are indeed still rare here, thankfully.
  - paulcole 8y ago
    I won’t join any club that would have me as a member.
  - Zarel 8y ago
    I feel like lately there's been more politics, in terms of news articles as well as comments along the lines of "boo Google" or "boo Facebook", and less new software, people announcing their personal projects with Show HN, interesting comp sci concepts, and that sort of thing. A good example is this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19140862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19140862 I don't remember seeing that kind of politics on HN in the past.
    - thirdsun 8y ago
      Counterpoint: I actually enjoy non-tech discussions on HN and your observations seem to indicate that I'm not the only one.
      - Zarel 8y ago
        I mean, that's true of Reddit, too; the fact that memes are more common on Reddit now is directly because more people enjoy memes. Anyway, I don't really want to include a value judgment here; I'm just observing that it changed.

peteretep 8y ago

I think you’re exactly on the money. Popularity + weak moderation policies. Happens to almost all communities. Eventually enough assholes show up who are accommodated that it stops being fun.

_asummers 8y ago

I think a wonderful example of how Reddit can work amazingly is /r/askhistorians. They require academic sources for answers, and general expertise around all answers, at the expense of requiring heavy moderation. This does not apply for general topics (could not apply in /r/news for example), but if a community can be created around a specific topic, and that topic is amenable to this style of expertise filtering, it has been shown to work well.

wvenable 8y ago

I've been using reddit for 12 years and the quality of the site has gone down considerably in just the last few years. The trolling, bots, and hate speech seem to be rampant. There has been a concerted effort for certain ideological groups to take over popular subreddits like country and city specific subreddits to push a specific agenda. All this happens while plenty of other niche subreddits go on as usual. I'm subscribed to a bunch of subreddits with great communities. While popularity certainly has a huge role in the downfall, Reddit was already Internet-popular years ago. I think the problem now is that Reddit is being gamed pretty hard and they don't have the means to fix it. And it's not just a technological problem, it's a social one.

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
Reddit has become a platform to manipulate public opinion. I have witnessed some very strange things on Reddit where I presume a company, government agency or malicious groups take over a subject and comments to steer the opinion. It’s easy to spot. Personally I treat Reddit as a place for humor and occasional insight, but mostly humor.
- kkarakk 8y ago
  i saw an interesting solution to chinese "shilling" on 4chan recently, just post a bunch of words that get a site filtered automatically by the great firewall of china. like "tiananmen massacre" and the like. ofc it being 4chan i don't know how reliable that information is
- marktangotango 8y ago
  I’ve seen this as well, try posting anything negative about Monsanto or Epic Systems.

uncletaco 8y ago

> how dumb the median joe is FTFY, to bring a little reddit to this thread.

sureaboutthis 8y ago

This is what has happened to Stack Overflow. Especially once redditors started pointing to it.

waste_monk 8y ago

>Think how dumb the average joe is, then realize that 50% of the population is dumber than him. The median Joe.

crowbahr 8y ago
You'd expect a site dedicated to software engineers to have a better grasp on how a bell curve works. Even the median Joe in this case is relatively similar to most other Joe's because 2/3 of the population is within 1 standard deviation of intelligence.
- sixQuarks 8y ago
  I beg to differ that this site is dedicated only to software engineers. There are lots of marketers, designers, and other "business" types that visit - I'd wager that half of the visitors don't know how to code. Therefore, my use of "average" is a pragmatic usage that gets the point across better, even if it's not technically correct.

Chris_Chambers 8y ago

Sorry for entering pedantry mode, but I think you mean the median joe.