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I have moved from using reddit to frequenting a traditional forum where the content is ordered chronologically and that makes an insane difference to the qualit

I have moved from using reddit to frequenting a traditional forum where the content is ordered chronologically and that makes an insane difference to the quality of the conversation. You go from the most outrageous at the top to the most discussed at the top. All content gets a chance to be read. Even if it the first user find it uninteresting. On reddit, if what you post gets a downvote very quickly, you're basically done.

TulliusCicero 6y ago
Yes, Reddit basically encourages flashy comments. But the rub with traditional message boards is, that they don't scale well. Some subreddits have many, many thousands of active regular participants. It's hard for a single subforum to operate at that scale.
- starpilot 6y ago
  Isn't this the same as the algo-driven placement of HN stories and comments?
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    To a certain extent, yes, though my understanding is that HN's comment ranking algorithm is substantially different from Reddit's.
    - gibspaulding 6y ago
      Also, HN is more of a news feed than a forum, so it makes sense to favor newer posts over knowledge-base type threads. Makes me sort of want an HN forum though. Maybe limited to self posts and with a more chronological feed.
wott 6y ago
> I have moved from using reddit to frequenting a traditional forum where the content is ordered chronologically Chronologically by last update, otherwise you could always read /r/yoursub/new, but that's only chronologically by last original post. By last original post doesn't help much. For slow-moving subs, it doesn't change anything much; for fast-moving subs, it's okay-ish if you care about posts more than comments, but you still lack curation (however imperfect).
mdoms 6y ago
It's such a shame that most hobby-related content has moved to Reddit. Because of the way the algorithms work there are no long-running threads and recent content is heavily favoured. This is terrible for hobby boards because it means that content from long-timers gets drowned out by newbies asking the same questions over and over. In my experience hobby subreddits are completely dominated by inexperienced newbies giving one another the same cargo-cult advice. That, and straight up image posts with literally 0 value (for example the front page of /r/simracing at any given moment is usually about 30-50% pictures of just a steering wheel / rig from someone saying "got my new wheel/rig today"). The old days of forums were great for hobbyists because the long-running threads would stretch into the dozens or hundreds of pages of comments. Newbies could be directed to the longer threads or deep-linked directly to older comments. The format surfaced all posts, but did not favour recency - old threads could be revived (necro'd) or kept up top indefinitely. It wasn't perfect but it was a system that favoured long-timers over newbies.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  Reddit has "1 account for everything", Markdown editing, collapsible threaded conversation, and limited or no on profile pictures and signatures (much like HN). All of this amounts to a more seamless user flow that lets you quickly skim large amounts of conversation quickly. People switching to Reddit has less to do with "it's Reddit" and more to do with the UX of Reddit being better for what people tend to want to do on a forum. Discourse is OK and comes close in some places (has great Markdown editing for example), but "1 account for everything" alone is somewhat of a killer feature. It's a shame that Stackexchange didn't get OpenID to catch on anywhere other than Stackexchange. Could have been a big help in driving more attention to independent (and maybe even federated) platforms.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Some of my hobby forums have seen a resurgence in the past few years now that Reddit has consumed all of the low-effort posters.
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  I think it's mostly a problem of not having sub-subreddits. Any reasonable forum with - checks simracing - 168k members would have a dozen subforums for different reasons soas not to drown out the general forum. One might even be "post your rig" or "newbie questions".

TulliusCicero 6y ago

Yes, Reddit basically encourages flashy comments. But the rub with traditional message boards is, that they don't scale well. Some subreddits have many, many thousands of active regular participants. It's hard for a single subforum to operate at that scale.

starpilot 6y ago
Isn't this the same as the algo-driven placement of HN stories and comments?
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  To a certain extent, yes, though my understanding is that HN's comment ranking algorithm is substantially different from Reddit's.
  - gibspaulding 6y ago
    Also, HN is more of a news feed than a forum, so it makes sense to favor newer posts over knowledge-base type threads. Makes me sort of want an HN forum though. Maybe limited to self posts and with a more chronological feed.

wott 6y ago

> I have moved from using reddit to frequenting a traditional forum where the content is ordered chronologically Chronologically by last update, otherwise you could always read /r/yoursub/new, but that's only chronologically by last original post. By last original post doesn't help much. For slow-moving subs, it doesn't change anything much; for fast-moving subs, it's okay-ish if you care about posts more than comments, but you still lack curation (however imperfect).

mdoms 6y ago

It's such a shame that most hobby-related content has moved to Reddit. Because of the way the algorithms work there are no long-running threads and recent content is heavily favoured. This is terrible for hobby boards because it means that content from long-timers gets drowned out by newbies asking the same questions over and over. In my experience hobby subreddits are completely dominated by inexperienced newbies giving one another the same cargo-cult advice. That, and straight up image posts with literally 0 value (for example the front page of /r/simracing at any given moment is usually about 30-50% pictures of just a steering wheel / rig from someone saying "got my new wheel/rig today"). The old days of forums were great for hobbyists because the long-running threads would stretch into the dozens or hundreds of pages of comments. Newbies could be directed to the longer threads or deep-linked directly to older comments. The format surfaced all posts, but did not favour recency - old threads could be revived (necro'd) or kept up top indefinitely. It wasn't perfect but it was a system that favoured long-timers over newbies.

nerdponx 6y ago
Reddit has "1 account for everything", Markdown editing, collapsible threaded conversation, and limited or no on profile pictures and signatures (much like HN). All of this amounts to a more seamless user flow that lets you quickly skim large amounts of conversation quickly. People switching to Reddit has less to do with "it's Reddit" and more to do with the UX of Reddit being better for what people tend to want to do on a forum. Discourse is OK and comes close in some places (has great Markdown editing for example), but "1 account for everything" alone is somewhat of a killer feature. It's a shame that Stackexchange didn't get OpenID to catch on anywhere other than Stackexchange. Could have been a big help in driving more attention to independent (and maybe even federated) platforms.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Some of my hobby forums have seen a resurgence in the past few years now that Reddit has consumed all of the low-effort posters.
bcrosby95 6y ago
I think it's mostly a problem of not having sub-subreddits. Any reasonable forum with - checks simracing - 168k members would have a dozen subforums for different reasons soas not to drown out the general forum. One might even be "post your rig" or "newbie questions".