5 ms·

reddit is 75% teenagers. You might get human thoughts, but you won't find high quality ones unless you filter carefully. (Teenagers, and yes I was one and I re

by ars 7y ago

reddit is 75% teenagers. You might get human thoughts, but you won't find high quality ones unless you filter carefully. (Teenagers, and yes I was one and I remember, usually have an inflated sense of their own abilities and knowledge, and they write that way.) What I wish we could bring back is usenet and/or mailing lists. Or at least highly targeted forums, where people spend years curating relationships, and sharing knowledge.

skyyler 7y ago
Did those forums go away? Or are new ones not being made?
- ghaff 7y ago
  Yes. For all intents and purposes they went away. And there are mostly no equivalent discussion boards (beyond narrow mostly invite only mailing lists) that allow only the sort of people (for better or worse) who had access to the relatively early Internet. Some large companies, students and staff at elite universities, and so forth. Mind you it wasn’t perfect. But people tended to be posting under their own names associated with institutions. And the masses were kept out if they were even aware.
- in3d 7y ago
  Unfortunately they are less popular but they didn’t go away. They offer more features than Reddit and have more real communities and discussions. Add “forum” or similar to to your searches.
- snaky 7y ago
  Forums are alive and well. Take XDA for example.
zozbot234 7y ago
> What I wish we could bring back is usenet and/or mailing lists. Let's shoot for a more feasible goal: bring back Gmane.org and let web forums federate to it if they so choose, not just mailing lists. That's the closest we can get to what the old Usenet was like.
deadbunny 7y ago
> reddit is 75% teenagers. You might get human thoughts, but you won't find high quality ones unless you filter carefully. Pot, kettle, etc... > What I wish we could bring back is usenet and/or mailing lists. Or at least highly targeted forums, where people spend years curating relationships, and sharing knowledge. You are describing the non default subreddits.
rchaud 7y ago
I think that depends on how you use Reddit. You're right, there are lots of teens on there, but I'm not subscribed to the subreddits they frequent, nor do I browse r/all, which is the equivalent of Youtube's "Trending" tab. r/webdev for instance is one of the subs I'm subscribed to, and the culture there is not really meme or inside joke-oriented like a lot of the entertainment-type subs are. The other day I was googling info related to legal review of real estate documents, and my top search results were all keyword-heavy content mill articles that weren't helpful at all. I decided to do the same search with "site:reddit.com" added, and the information was much better, as you're often hearing people's stories of working with lawyers when buying property. It was very helpful to get this kind of 'organic' information instead of the 'corporatized' version that's really a lead-up to their sales pitch.

by ars 7y ago

skyyler 7y ago

Did those forums go away? Or are new ones not being made?

ghaff 7y ago
Yes. For all intents and purposes they went away. And there are mostly no equivalent discussion boards (beyond narrow mostly invite only mailing lists) that allow only the sort of people (for better or worse) who had access to the relatively early Internet. Some large companies, students and staff at elite universities, and so forth. Mind you it wasn’t perfect. But people tended to be posting under their own names associated with institutions. And the masses were kept out if they were even aware.
in3d 7y ago
Unfortunately they are less popular but they didn’t go away. They offer more features than Reddit and have more real communities and discussions. Add “forum” or similar to to your searches.
snaky 7y ago
Forums are alive and well. Take XDA for example.

zozbot234 7y ago

> What I wish we could bring back is usenet and/or mailing lists. Let's shoot for a more feasible goal: bring back Gmane.org and let web forums federate to it if they so choose, not just mailing lists. That's the closest we can get to what the old Usenet was like.

deadbunny 7y ago

> reddit is 75% teenagers. You might get human thoughts, but you won't find high quality ones unless you filter carefully. Pot, kettle, etc... > What I wish we could bring back is usenet and/or mailing lists. Or at least highly targeted forums, where people spend years curating relationships, and sharing knowledge. You are describing the non default subreddits.

rchaud 7y ago

I think that depends on how you use Reddit. You're right, there are lots of teens on there, but I'm not subscribed to the subreddits they frequent, nor do I browse r/all, which is the equivalent of Youtube's "Trending" tab. r/webdev for instance is one of the subs I'm subscribed to, and the culture there is not really meme or inside joke-oriented like a lot of the entertainment-type subs are. The other day I was googling info related to legal review of real estate documents, and my top search results were all keyword-heavy content mill articles that weren't helpful at all. I decided to do the same search with "site:reddit.com" added, and the information was much better, as you're often hearing people's stories of working with lawyers when buying property. It was very helpful to get this kind of 'organic' information instead of the 'corporatized' version that's really a lead-up to their sales pitch.