6 ms·

Blogs and forums stopped being a thing when Google flushed them out sometime between 2009-2012 (with the Panda update? I'm not an SEO guy so I wasn't really fol

by zhdc1 6y ago

Blogs and forums stopped being a thing when Google flushed them out sometime between 2009-2012 (with the Panda update? I'm not an SEO guy so I wasn't really following it at the time). Anyway, it felt like a bunch of places went from having active communities to stagnating or dying outright overnight. People forget just how much general innovation was being driven by these sites - Styleforum and AskAndy for men's fashion, BB.com for health and wellness (ignoring misc), Something Awful also comes to mind. Reddit was supposed to become the trusted alternative, but it just really hasn't happened.

angstrom 6y ago
I characterize Reddit as true neutral. It has the potential to be any alignment, but it's mostly the will of the moderator to impose what alignment any subreddit will be. It's the only place on the Internet that still has the feel occaisionally of the 90s/00s.
- afiori 6y ago
  Surely that is/was reddit's promise, but it does not live up to it.
  - angstrom 6y ago
    I think where it breaks down is when you have to run plugins that identify the kind of person a user is. I find that reduces the crapiness of the interactions if I can see someone is a POS without investing much time in finding that out. It's a step that shouldn't be necessary, but the faster that can be discerned the less I find myself second guessing their intent.
    - afiori 6y ago
      Actually that sound even more toxic... You could say that the current karma system is sort of supposed to be that, but at least it does not affect comments visibility as far as I know. Having a parallel unofficial social credit system looks like one thing that would just create unnecessary conflicts in communities that do not have a strong troll problem.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Reddit is a waste of time with its "answers locked after 6 months" policy. This also violates netiquette for those situations when necroposting is the appropriate thing to do.
- barrkel 6y ago
  Reddit is almost unreadable now, though. You have to click and click and click to expand things, and be careful not to click on the wrong thing which will take you to a different topic. I much, much, much prefer Reddit when it was more like HN, back when HN was modelled after Reddit & Digg. Today, any time I see a Reddit link, I exit immediately after I've gotten whatever information I require - and even that is rare.
  - slightwinder 6y ago
    old.reddit.com still works.
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      i.reddit.com is old and mobile friendly
    - rashkov 6y ago
      I’ve installed a browser extension to always redirect to old reddit. That helps a bit. Hope they keep it around.
keenmaster 6y ago
I’m not sure if the premise is correct here. What metric is Reddit being judged by? What if the various fashion subreddits, in aggregate, have more users, more content (both good and bad), and more innovation than websites like AskAndy? I suspect what you’re looking for is: 1. The intimate small town feel of the early internet, and 2. The higher average post quality (because of the type of person that both had internet and used forums back then) as measured by intellectuality, domain specificity, and demonstrated expertise. Reddit doesn’t display those qualities because of the tragedy of the commons phenomenon. Great content is interspersed with what is essentially “noob spam.” Even if it has a greater aggregate amount of quality content, it doesn’t have the same feel as older forums. Reddit can try to fix this by grouping people together into social clusters. If there is a subreddit with 2 million people, why not create many smaller “breakout” groups that coexist with the main thread? Of course, this is easier said than done, but I’m sure it’s possible to execute this idea well. I think VR meeting rooms will be the ultimate solution. They will be intimate by definition, and people will sort into their favorite social groups. An American scientist might join an international “scientist salon” and socialize with scientists everywhere from Germany to Japan. A bulletin would contain and display static text posts by the members of the salon. It would also display things like plebiscites and summaries of important meetings. You’d be able to bounce around different groups with a different subject matter any time you want. Some will have barriers to entry and identity verification, most won’t. Some groups will be purely social and defined more by the members than by any subject matter. Altogether that would make the internet feel more like a collection of physical spaces inhabited by communities of people. What I’m describing ideally shouldn’t be run by one corporation like Facebook or Reddit. The communities should be strung together by a shared backbone under an Internet 3.0. Visiting one should be like visiting a different website. We can use the formation of the original 2D internet as a template for how to proceed in creating a VR internet.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  1) there is no real "tragedy of the commons" in the general case. Google Elinor Ostrum to verify. Even Garret Hardin (originator of the concept) has conceded this, at least in part. The crux is that the "commons" as described by Hardin has essentially never existed in the form that he wrote about - things that are "commons"-like are actually always a complex mixture of law, tradition, culture and social sanctions governing their use. When people screw up "the commons", it's not because there are no mechanisms to prevent it, it is because these people have chosen to ignore them, and have made extra effort to do so. 2) You're seriously claiming that Reddit, a privately held company with sysadmins, subreddit moderation and user voting, could be a venue in which what happens is "a tragedy of the commons" (should such a thing actually exist)?
pkamb 6y ago
Don't discount Instagram killing many of those communities. So much easier to take a picture on your phone and post it to your Instagram page or story. Better dopamine rush, too, from a bunch of Like/Comment notifications rather than maybe a single forum reply hours later.
- passthejoe 6y ago
  Social media in general -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. -- have made it easier than a blog to get your thoughts onto the internet, and the extremely social nature of those services and the instant feedback and conversation they encourage (the social part) is very compelling. Even though the major blog platforms (Movable Type, WordPress, Blogger/Blogspot, etc.) had a social component in the form of comments, the big social media sites -- including Reddit -- took it up quite a few notches. People like the feedback and the conversation. Blogs can be much more of an island. Some like that, too.
naravara 6y ago
I think Reddit getting big also killed a lot of the old forums. The frictionlessness of joining a community made it hard to compete. And the general lack of personality to user profiles in Reddit avoided the "cool kid's clique" issue that happens with a lot of forums where everyone knows each other. I remember in the "dying days" of some of the forums I was on the conversation had largely devolved into reposting and discussing memes and things that were happening on Reddit. From there it's just a matter of time before the discussion moved to Reddit too. This fate perhaps could have been avoided if "Sign in with Google" type capabilities were more widely available at the time, or if we had a more universal login/forum scheme like Disqus back then, but they all came around too late.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > I remember in the "dying days" of some of the forums I was on the conversation had largely devolved into reposting and discussing memes and things that were happening on Reddit. I get the same sad feeling from Sasha Chua's weekly Emacs News these days, where half of the entries are now links to posts on Reddit's r/emacs. You can see the dwindling of any diverse ecosystem for discussion.
dvduval 6y ago
Yep, that seems about right. I have had two forums since 2002, and while they still have a small user base, everybody switched to Facebook and the like. Not sure if I blame Google as much in the case of forums. I have enjoyed seeing notifications in the browser added, as the browser is starting to have similar powers to apps. Of course, Apple is having none of that, as they love apps and the app store sales.
cirno 6y ago
This is exactly right. I had a blog for many months, shared it from my website and social media accounts, and it never showed up in Google search. After a couple months of speaking to an audience of 20 people, I decided it wasn't worth it. Meanwhile everything else I have tried shows up on the first page of results: Facebook page, Twitter account, Soundcloud, etc. Google heavily biases their results to two things: the top 1000 sites on the internet, and clickbait (callout posts and threads slandering someone rank like you wouldn't believe; no backlinks required). Maybe if you keep at your blog for 2+ years, manage to land a few HN frontpage story links, it might eventually show up. But who is going to invest that time and effort instead of just setting up a Facebook page instead?
- kaetemi 6y ago
  I've been thinking. It might be an interesting experiment to build an "average" search engine. Put average websites first. Drop down websites that get too popular.
- pmlnr 6y ago
  > After a couple months of speaking to an audience of 20 people, I decided it wasn't worth it Your reasons were wrong. Blogs, the old blogs and hobby websitrs the OP is talking about were made for fun, not for followers.
zone411 6y ago
Many thousands (maybe even millions) of still-relevant older posts on my company's forum are simply no longer even indexed by Google. I guess it's a part of the deep web now.
noizejoy 6y ago
One forum that seems to have bucked many trends is for music software: kvraudio.com[0] Started about 20 years ago, It’s totally vibrant, despite an old school UI. Some threads keep going for years. Sure, the signal to noise ratio isn’t always perfect either, but there’s still a continuing flow of golden nuggets of deeper industry information, helpful howto answers, and thoughtful commentary and feedback around music software. In some ways it’s a little like HN, but in some ways I find it superior, like baked in notifications and being able to mute those that are too annoying. It probably helps that it’s adjunct to arguably the best music software directory, with imperfect, yet useful taxonomy, and old school advertising that’s highly relevant to the community. [0] https://www.kvraudio.com/about-kvr https://www.kvraudio.com/about-kvr
medion 6y ago
Yep. I ran a great little community cycling forum from 2005 - met so many friends (real and virtual) over those years - then about 2011 or 2012 Google just dropped it. Our traffic fell off a cliff - now - the regulars stayed on for quite a while, but without an influx of new members and questions and discussions, things just died out - regular members need the stimulus of new members, even if it can be taxing moderating etc... Was actually a really disappointing decline in many ways. It really opened my eyes up to how much control we gave away, and how much content is now in these big walled garden silos. I can't help but get nostalgic.
jrochkind1 6y ago
> Blogs and forums stopped being a thing when Google flushed them out sometime between 2009-2012… Reddit was supposed to become the trusted alternative, Are you suggesting Google had a plan to promote reddit? or what do you mean by "was supposed to"?
- tome 6y ago
  Presumably that it was the business plan of Reddit to become the trusted alternative.

by zhdc1 6y ago

angstrom 6y ago

I characterize Reddit as true neutral. It has the potential to be any alignment, but it's mostly the will of the moderator to impose what alignment any subreddit will be. It's the only place on the Internet that still has the feel occaisionally of the 90s/00s.

afiori 6y ago
Surely that is/was reddit's promise, but it does not live up to it.
- angstrom 6y ago
  I think where it breaks down is when you have to run plugins that identify the kind of person a user is. I find that reduces the crapiness of the interactions if I can see someone is a POS without investing much time in finding that out. It's a step that shouldn't be necessary, but the faster that can be discerned the less I find myself second guessing their intent.
  - afiori 6y ago
    Actually that sound even more toxic... You could say that the current karma system is sort of supposed to be that, but at least it does not affect comments visibility as far as I know. Having a parallel unofficial social credit system looks like one thing that would just create unnecessary conflicts in communities that do not have a strong troll problem.
BlueTemplar 6y ago
Reddit is a waste of time with its "answers locked after 6 months" policy. This also violates netiquette for those situations when necroposting is the appropriate thing to do.
barrkel 6y ago
Reddit is almost unreadable now, though. You have to click and click and click to expand things, and be careful not to click on the wrong thing which will take you to a different topic. I much, much, much prefer Reddit when it was more like HN, back when HN was modelled after Reddit & Digg. Today, any time I see a Reddit link, I exit immediately after I've gotten whatever information I require - and even that is rare.
- slightwinder 6y ago
  old.reddit.com still works.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    i.reddit.com is old and mobile friendly
  - rashkov 6y ago
    I’ve installed a browser extension to always redirect to old reddit. That helps a bit. Hope they keep it around.

keenmaster 6y ago

I’m not sure if the premise is correct here. What metric is Reddit being judged by? What if the various fashion subreddits, in aggregate, have more users, more content (both good and bad), and more innovation than websites like AskAndy? I suspect what you’re looking for is: 1. The intimate small town feel of the early internet, and 2. The higher average post quality (because of the type of person that both had internet and used forums back then) as measured by intellectuality, domain specificity, and demonstrated expertise. Reddit doesn’t display those qualities because of the tragedy of the commons phenomenon. Great content is interspersed with what is essentially “noob spam.” Even if it has a greater aggregate amount of quality content, it doesn’t have the same feel as older forums. Reddit can try to fix this by grouping people together into social clusters. If there is a subreddit with 2 million people, why not create many smaller “breakout” groups that coexist with the main thread? Of course, this is easier said than done, but I’m sure it’s possible to execute this idea well. I think VR meeting rooms will be the ultimate solution. They will be intimate by definition, and people will sort into their favorite social groups. An American scientist might join an international “scientist salon” and socialize with scientists everywhere from Germany to Japan. A bulletin would contain and display static text posts by the members of the salon. It would also display things like plebiscites and summaries of important meetings. You’d be able to bounce around different groups with a different subject matter any time you want. Some will have barriers to entry and identity verification, most won’t. Some groups will be purely social and defined more by the members than by any subject matter. Altogether that would make the internet feel more like a collection of physical spaces inhabited by communities of people. What I’m describing ideally shouldn’t be run by one corporation like Facebook or Reddit. The communities should be strung together by a shared backbone under an Internet 3.0. Visiting one should be like visiting a different website. We can use the formation of the original 2D internet as a template for how to proceed in creating a VR internet.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
1) there is no real "tragedy of the commons" in the general case. Google Elinor Ostrum to verify. Even Garret Hardin (originator of the concept) has conceded this, at least in part. The crux is that the "commons" as described by Hardin has essentially never existed in the form that he wrote about - things that are "commons"-like are actually always a complex mixture of law, tradition, culture and social sanctions governing their use. When people screw up "the commons", it's not because there are no mechanisms to prevent it, it is because these people have chosen to ignore them, and have made extra effort to do so. 2) You're seriously claiming that Reddit, a privately held company with sysadmins, subreddit moderation and user voting, could be a venue in which what happens is "a tragedy of the commons" (should such a thing actually exist)?

pkamb 6y ago

Don't discount Instagram killing many of those communities. So much easier to take a picture on your phone and post it to your Instagram page or story. Better dopamine rush, too, from a bunch of Like/Comment notifications rather than maybe a single forum reply hours later.

passthejoe 6y ago
Social media in general -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. -- have made it easier than a blog to get your thoughts onto the internet, and the extremely social nature of those services and the instant feedback and conversation they encourage (the social part) is very compelling. Even though the major blog platforms (Movable Type, WordPress, Blogger/Blogspot, etc.) had a social component in the form of comments, the big social media sites -- including Reddit -- took it up quite a few notches. People like the feedback and the conversation. Blogs can be much more of an island. Some like that, too.

naravara 6y ago

I think Reddit getting big also killed a lot of the old forums. The frictionlessness of joining a community made it hard to compete. And the general lack of personality to user profiles in Reddit avoided the "cool kid's clique" issue that happens with a lot of forums where everyone knows each other. I remember in the "dying days" of some of the forums I was on the conversation had largely devolved into reposting and discussing memes and things that were happening on Reddit. From there it's just a matter of time before the discussion moved to Reddit too. This fate perhaps could have been avoided if "Sign in with Google" type capabilities were more widely available at the time, or if we had a more universal login/forum scheme like Disqus back then, but they all came around too late.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> I remember in the "dying days" of some of the forums I was on the conversation had largely devolved into reposting and discussing memes and things that were happening on Reddit. I get the same sad feeling from Sasha Chua's weekly Emacs News these days, where half of the entries are now links to posts on Reddit's r/emacs. You can see the dwindling of any diverse ecosystem for discussion.

dvduval 6y ago

Yep, that seems about right. I have had two forums since 2002, and while they still have a small user base, everybody switched to Facebook and the like. Not sure if I blame Google as much in the case of forums. I have enjoyed seeing notifications in the browser added, as the browser is starting to have similar powers to apps. Of course, Apple is having none of that, as they love apps and the app store sales.

cirno 6y ago

This is exactly right. I had a blog for many months, shared it from my website and social media accounts, and it never showed up in Google search. After a couple months of speaking to an audience of 20 people, I decided it wasn't worth it. Meanwhile everything else I have tried shows up on the first page of results: Facebook page, Twitter account, Soundcloud, etc. Google heavily biases their results to two things: the top 1000 sites on the internet, and clickbait (callout posts and threads slandering someone rank like you wouldn't believe; no backlinks required). Maybe if you keep at your blog for 2+ years, manage to land a few HN frontpage story links, it might eventually show up. But who is going to invest that time and effort instead of just setting up a Facebook page instead?

kaetemi 6y ago
I've been thinking. It might be an interesting experiment to build an "average" search engine. Put average websites first. Drop down websites that get too popular.
pmlnr 6y ago
> After a couple months of speaking to an audience of 20 people, I decided it wasn't worth it Your reasons were wrong. Blogs, the old blogs and hobby websitrs the OP is talking about were made for fun, not for followers.

zone411 6y ago

Many thousands (maybe even millions) of still-relevant older posts on my company's forum are simply no longer even indexed by Google. I guess it's a part of the deep web now.

noizejoy 6y ago

One forum that seems to have bucked many trends is for music software: kvraudio.com[0] Started about 20 years ago, It’s totally vibrant, despite an old school UI. Some threads keep going for years. Sure, the signal to noise ratio isn’t always perfect either, but there’s still a continuing flow of golden nuggets of deeper industry information, helpful howto answers, and thoughtful commentary and feedback around music software. In some ways it’s a little like HN, but in some ways I find it superior, like baked in notifications and being able to mute those that are too annoying. It probably helps that it’s adjunct to arguably the best music software directory, with imperfect, yet useful taxonomy, and old school advertising that’s highly relevant to the community. [0] https://www.kvraudio.com/about-kvr https://www.kvraudio.com/about-kvr

medion 6y ago

Yep. I ran a great little community cycling forum from 2005 - met so many friends (real and virtual) over those years - then about 2011 or 2012 Google just dropped it. Our traffic fell off a cliff - now - the regulars stayed on for quite a while, but without an influx of new members and questions and discussions, things just died out - regular members need the stimulus of new members, even if it can be taxing moderating etc... Was actually a really disappointing decline in many ways. It really opened my eyes up to how much control we gave away, and how much content is now in these big walled garden silos. I can't help but get nostalgic.

jrochkind1 6y ago

> Blogs and forums stopped being a thing when Google flushed them out sometime between 2009-2012… Reddit was supposed to become the trusted alternative, Are you suggesting Google had a plan to promote reddit? or what do you mean by "was supposed to"?

tome 6y ago
Presumably that it was the business plan of Reddit to become the trusted alternative.