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I'm particularly perplexed by [location] sub-reddits. No one uses the FAQs, search, or Yelp. Everyone wants to post a daily request for a good place for a drink

I'm particularly perplexed by [location] sub-reddits. No one uses the FAQs, search, or Yelp. Everyone wants to post a daily request for a good place for a drink, and a good hike, for just about every city on the planet. The annoyances in those threads seem to keep other participants away. It'd be nice to have a forum, message board, etc for people who are willing to try one tick more than the masses.

seattle_spring 7y ago
The Seattle subreddits are so bad about this. There's one with ~200k subscribers that is basically only sunset pictures and requests for good food. There's another one with ~100k subscribers with slightly better submissions, but every comment thread has the same 10 people brigading from a THIRD Seattle sub that focuses on alt-right politics.
- IronWolve 7y ago
  The 2nd sub was created due to the primary sub pushing left-wing politics during the elections and just kept going farther left with approved/trending posts. Then the 2nd sub became right reactionary and pushed all the news the main sub would exclude due to leftist politics, pissing off the people who fled the primary sub due to politics. The posters are a small subset of the readers, if you think only 10 posters are conservative in one of the largest cities in the US, you are mistaken. The sub says Seattle Metro area which includes many conservative cities in King County. Maybe when people read /r/seattle they dont want to read about more lawsuits the local government and state government have against conservatives, gun owners and business owners. The sub has become a damn PR sub for left wing politics. I read more Seattle based tech news on HN now. HN seems to at least balanced compared to reddit. (mostly, ymmv)
  - seattle_spring 7y ago
    > if you think only 10 posters are conservative in one of the largest cities in the US, you are mistaken What I said was that there are 10 people who are the most prolific posters, and they insist on posting right-wing inflammatory garbage regardless of the actual topic. Thread on the best restaurant? Guy 2 of 10 comes in and posts about the homeless. Guy 4 somehow ties it to gun rights. Thread about transit? Better make it about Hillary's emails somehow! And hey, let's throw gun rights into the mix again.
tidepod12 7y ago
It's not just the constant "anyone have good ____ recommendations?" posts. For whatever reason, there is a tendency for local subreddits seem to be much more vitriolic than most places on reddit (and that's saying something). Threads about local happenings or even something as simple as posting a picture of the skyline seems to bring immediate, intense ire from some always-lurking posters. And God help you if you post an article about local politics. r/Austin is particularly bad about this, but I've frequented several other city subreddits and noticed the same.
- hnick 7y ago
  That's probably because most people don't care one way or the other and skip the whole thing. Anyone who cares enough to frequent a sub about their home town probably has fairly intense feelings for better or worse. That will naturally lead to strong emotions and clashes. Pretty much Web 2.0 in a nutshell.
- viraptor 7y ago
  r/Melbourne sounds relatively nice in that case. It has some terrible people of course, but it's largely: old photos of the city, road accidents, "what did just fly over Xyz", sky/weather photos, train fault info, funny stuff.
- joenot443 7y ago
  /r/toronto is awful for this. For a city of generally polite, kind people, the denizens of its most popular forum come off as downright miserable.
hnick 7y ago
This is a culture issue and is only ever really fixed with moderation in my experience. It happens to a lot of gaming subs too. Those of us who want decent discussion get sick of answering the same questions ("Use the [terrible] search function!!") but the mods seem scared to look too harsh and drive away newer users, or turn the sub into a ghost town when there's not much else to talk about.

seattle_spring 7y ago

The Seattle subreddits are so bad about this. There's one with ~200k subscribers that is basically only sunset pictures and requests for good food. There's another one with ~100k subscribers with slightly better submissions, but every comment thread has the same 10 people brigading from a THIRD Seattle sub that focuses on alt-right politics.

IronWolve 7y ago
The 2nd sub was created due to the primary sub pushing left-wing politics during the elections and just kept going farther left with approved/trending posts. Then the 2nd sub became right reactionary and pushed all the news the main sub would exclude due to leftist politics, pissing off the people who fled the primary sub due to politics. The posters are a small subset of the readers, if you think only 10 posters are conservative in one of the largest cities in the US, you are mistaken. The sub says Seattle Metro area which includes many conservative cities in King County. Maybe when people read /r/seattle they dont want to read about more lawsuits the local government and state government have against conservatives, gun owners and business owners. The sub has become a damn PR sub for left wing politics. I read more Seattle based tech news on HN now. HN seems to at least balanced compared to reddit. (mostly, ymmv)
- seattle_spring 7y ago
  > if you think only 10 posters are conservative in one of the largest cities in the US, you are mistaken What I said was that there are 10 people who are the most prolific posters, and they insist on posting right-wing inflammatory garbage regardless of the actual topic. Thread on the best restaurant? Guy 2 of 10 comes in and posts about the homeless. Guy 4 somehow ties it to gun rights. Thread about transit? Better make it about Hillary's emails somehow! And hey, let's throw gun rights into the mix again.

tidepod12 7y ago

It's not just the constant "anyone have good ____ recommendations?" posts. For whatever reason, there is a tendency for local subreddits seem to be much more vitriolic than most places on reddit (and that's saying something). Threads about local happenings or even something as simple as posting a picture of the skyline seems to bring immediate, intense ire from some always-lurking posters. And God help you if you post an article about local politics. r/Austin is particularly bad about this, but I've frequented several other city subreddits and noticed the same.

hnick 7y ago
That's probably because most people don't care one way or the other and skip the whole thing. Anyone who cares enough to frequent a sub about their home town probably has fairly intense feelings for better or worse. That will naturally lead to strong emotions and clashes. Pretty much Web 2.0 in a nutshell.
viraptor 7y ago
r/Melbourne sounds relatively nice in that case. It has some terrible people of course, but it's largely: old photos of the city, road accidents, "what did just fly over Xyz", sky/weather photos, train fault info, funny stuff.
joenot443 7y ago
/r/toronto is awful for this. For a city of generally polite, kind people, the denizens of its most popular forum come off as downright miserable.

hnick 7y ago

This is a culture issue and is only ever really fixed with moderation in my experience. It happens to a lot of gaming subs too. Those of us who want decent discussion get sick of answering the same questions ("Use the [terrible] search function!!") but the mods seem scared to look too harsh and drive away newer users, or turn the sub into a ghost town when there's not much else to talk about.