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Niche subreddits are informative and useful. You just have to unsubscribe from all the default reddits and find the niche stuff that interests you. Then your

Niche subreddits are informative and useful. You just have to unsubscribe from all the default reddits and find the niche stuff that interests you. Then your reddit front page becomes one of the most useful media pages on the internet.

8bitben 6y ago
I agree - if you take some time to really customize your subscriptions and interface options (read: ditch the new interface immediately for the classic one), reddit can be a very powerful 'dashboard for your interests' unlike most other sites. I guess the questions is if they can keep it that way and also monetize.
- geogra4 6y ago
  Yeah. The niche communities are really what keep me coming back. For example, r/fermentation is a fantastic community of people who make all different kinds of fermented foods and is a great place to go for advice or recipes. But the main subreddits? Useless
  - Florin_Andrei 6y ago
    The niche subs are on the right-hand side of the bell curve's tail. The main subs are in the thick middle of the curve. Same problem as with literally everything else in life.
jordache 6y ago
haha r/pics r/earthporn utterly useless
encom 6y ago
Yea, but those niche subreddits are getting rarer and rarer. There's some kind of goldilocks zone where subs are popular enough to be active with interesting content, but not popular enough to devolve into no-effort meme spam. Or possibly terrible moderation ruins the sub completely. Or the official Reddit fun-police shuts you down. I left that cess pool behind about a year ago, and I don't miss it.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  Same here. Reddit wouldn't be so bad if they literally didn't shut down every subreddit just because the psychotically loud minority said so. Plus it boggles my mind why they would do that. You are actively telling your users to go elsewhere. That's literally money and engagement walking out the door. And a lot of it. Now it's just memes, "The republicans are evil again...!", and "My mother who sold me to an african prince now wants a portion of the money he has, AITA?" The whole karma concept is garbage. The purpose for that was curating content and moderation. Not a "agree/disagree" button. Obviously it gets abused but slashdot and HN do it way better. Nobody can see your vote counts on HN and slashdot allows for more ways to mod something so that we can know it's not just the downvote train saying the comment is dumb but because of various other reason.
  - the_jeremy 6y ago
    Can you point out some subreddits they've shut down that are "money and engagement walking out the door"? The only subreddits I've heard of being shut down are as objectively racist and derogatory as you can get (or NSFL gore). Advertisers and mainstream users generally don't want to be associated with sites promoting those types of content.
    - throwaway45349 6y ago
      Anything conservative. The Donald was a hotbed of whackjobs, but it was also the biggest Trump forum online. They should be allowed to talk freely so the rest of us can laugh, rather than persuing the censorship route so advertisers don't leave.
      - enkid 6y ago
        It also was brigading people and doing a lot of things that were against reddit's policies. The subreddit moderators were stickying posts that supported white supremacy and were not actively policing users who threatened violence. At what point should they act against the community?
      - 6y ago
UncleOxidant 6y ago
r/covid19 is a great source of information, but the mods police it very heavily to keep it that way.
- lowdose 6y ago
  What have you read there that was such an insightful piece of information?
  - UncleOxidant 6y ago
    A lot of papers and clinical trial results are posted there. And given the technical nature of the content a lot of people in the medical field hang out there and comment. Much of it is a bit over my head, but it's a good for learning. For a sample, here are a couple of posts there today: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00835-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00835-2 Therapeutically administered ribonucleoside analogue MK-4482/EIDD-2801 blocks SARS-CoV-2 transmission in ferrets https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/get-ready-for-false-side-effects https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/ge... Get Ready for False Side Effects
  - byecomputer 6y ago
    Heads up, r/covid19 isn't r/Coronavirus, the latter being pretty vapid & sensational
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  yes because it's heavily moderated. and most of the removed content is .. unsurprisingly politics
  - UncleOxidant 6y ago
    Also people hawking various supplements that they claim can cure covid.
mxcrossb 6y ago
The problem with this strategy is you can’t discover new content so easily. They should just let you filter subs from popular, not have you create some cultivated set of subs.
- spicybbq 6y ago
  There's a way to view "all," (I think it's built-in) and then write a blacklist. Looking at my list, I am mostly filtering out subreddits for specific video games and TV shows I don't watch.
- a_f 6y ago
  You can do this in the browser extension Reddit Enhancement Suite. It allows me to block the subs I want so that browsing All or Popular become good for sometimes finding new subs
- HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
  Sync for reddit allows you to blacklist subs from r/all
495636483 6y ago
That's the worst of it. If I wouldn't need ... site:reddit.com so often, and need some reddit-exclusive communities, I would cut this cancer at dns level for good. Reddit is way to addictive for me to only take the good bits. At some point i _will click 'all' and hate myself for it later.
JetSpiegel 6y ago
Or just append .rss to the subreddit name and subscribe on your feed reader of choices. It's a allowlist, not a blocklist.

8bitben 6y ago

I agree - if you take some time to really customize your subscriptions and interface options (read: ditch the new interface immediately for the classic one), reddit can be a very powerful 'dashboard for your interests' unlike most other sites. I guess the questions is if they can keep it that way and also monetize.

geogra4 6y ago
Yeah. The niche communities are really what keep me coming back. For example, r/fermentation is a fantastic community of people who make all different kinds of fermented foods and is a great place to go for advice or recipes. But the main subreddits? Useless
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  The niche subs are on the right-hand side of the bell curve's tail. The main subs are in the thick middle of the curve. Same problem as with literally everything else in life.

jordache 6y ago

haha r/pics r/earthporn utterly useless

encom 6y ago

Yea, but those niche subreddits are getting rarer and rarer. There's some kind of goldilocks zone where subs are popular enough to be active with interesting content, but not popular enough to devolve into no-effort meme spam. Or possibly terrible moderation ruins the sub completely. Or the official Reddit fun-police shuts you down. I left that cess pool behind about a year ago, and I don't miss it.

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
Same here. Reddit wouldn't be so bad if they literally didn't shut down every subreddit just because the psychotically loud minority said so. Plus it boggles my mind why they would do that. You are actively telling your users to go elsewhere. That's literally money and engagement walking out the door. And a lot of it. Now it's just memes, "The republicans are evil again...!", and "My mother who sold me to an african prince now wants a portion of the money he has, AITA?" The whole karma concept is garbage. The purpose for that was curating content and moderation. Not a "agree/disagree" button. Obviously it gets abused but slashdot and HN do it way better. Nobody can see your vote counts on HN and slashdot allows for more ways to mod something so that we can know it's not just the downvote train saying the comment is dumb but because of various other reason.
- the_jeremy 6y ago
  Can you point out some subreddits they've shut down that are "money and engagement walking out the door"? The only subreddits I've heard of being shut down are as objectively racist and derogatory as you can get (or NSFL gore). Advertisers and mainstream users generally don't want to be associated with sites promoting those types of content.
  - throwaway45349 6y ago
    Anything conservative. The Donald was a hotbed of whackjobs, but it was also the biggest Trump forum online. They should be allowed to talk freely so the rest of us can laugh, rather than persuing the censorship route so advertisers don't leave.
    - enkid 6y ago
      It also was brigading people and doing a lot of things that were against reddit's policies. The subreddit moderators were stickying posts that supported white supremacy and were not actively policing users who threatened violence. At what point should they act against the community?
    - 6y ago

UncleOxidant 6y ago

r/covid19 is a great source of information, but the mods police it very heavily to keep it that way.

lowdose 6y ago
What have you read there that was such an insightful piece of information?
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  A lot of papers and clinical trial results are posted there. And given the technical nature of the content a lot of people in the medical field hang out there and comment. Much of it is a bit over my head, but it's a good for learning. For a sample, here are a couple of posts there today: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00835-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00835-2 Therapeutically administered ribonucleoside analogue MK-4482/EIDD-2801 blocks SARS-CoV-2 transmission in ferrets https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/get-ready-for-false-side-effects https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/ge... Get Ready for False Side Effects
- byecomputer 6y ago
  Heads up, r/covid19 isn't r/Coronavirus, the latter being pretty vapid & sensational
cblconfederate 6y ago
yes because it's heavily moderated. and most of the removed content is .. unsurprisingly politics
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  Also people hawking various supplements that they claim can cure covid.

mxcrossb 6y ago

The problem with this strategy is you can’t discover new content so easily. They should just let you filter subs from popular, not have you create some cultivated set of subs.

spicybbq 6y ago
There's a way to view "all," (I think it's built-in) and then write a blacklist. Looking at my list, I am mostly filtering out subreddits for specific video games and TV shows I don't watch.
a_f 6y ago
You can do this in the browser extension Reddit Enhancement Suite. It allows me to block the subs I want so that browsing All or Popular become good for sometimes finding new subs
HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
Sync for reddit allows you to blacklist subs from r/all

495636483 6y ago

That's the worst of it. If I wouldn't need ... site:reddit.com so often, and need some reddit-exclusive communities, I would cut this cancer at dns level for good. Reddit is way to addictive for me to only take the good bits. At some point i _will click 'all' and hate myself for it later.

JetSpiegel 6y ago

Or just append .rss to the subreddit name and subscribe on your feed reader of choices. It's a allowlist, not a blocklist.