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I haven't been over to Reddit in a while. Is this really what it's like now? I remember when I left, /r/programming read pretty much like HN does now, with an

I haven't been over to Reddit in a while. Is this really what it's like now? I remember when I left, /r/programming read pretty much like HN does now, with an occasional mean comment or joke thread left alive to get in the way. The linked thread, though, has no actual discussion. It's just a bunch of people making silly jokes. Sad to see it go that way.

cmurdock 15y ago
The link was not to /r/programming it was to /r/reddit.com. /r/programming has it's own problems, but these comments are definitely not representative of that subreddit.
ghiculescu 15y ago
This wasn't posted in /r/programming, though; it's /r/reddit.com, a general purpose subreddit that new users are subscribed to by default, and that has double the subscribers compared to proggit. I imagine lots of new users unsubscribe from proggit but not from /r/reddit.com; anecdotally speaking, reddit's becoming very popular among my non-programmer but internet-familiar friends who like pictures of cats and rage comics. That isn't to say to that proggit isn't pretty different to HN; going on there now (having not visited it in a while) only a handful of links show as having been visited due to my seeing them on HN. The content there is different and the level of discourse is acceptable, so I like it.
- vaksel 15y ago
  the difference is that proggit is opt in, while reddit.com is optout....so it's selection bias for quality
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    Proggit's in the top 10, so I'm pretty sure it's opt-out, unless they treat it like r/atheism and display it in r/all but not on the default frontpage.
    - ghiculescu 15y ago
      Just checked; it's actually opt-in. I made a new throwaway and visited proggit and was greeted with the option to add it to my frontpage.
      - redthrowaway 15y ago
        I guess, despite its size, they consider proggit to be niche enough that most new users won't want to frontpage it.
      - starwed 15y ago
        I think r/programming used to be opt-out. (Wasn't it the first subreddit?) Might be wrong, though. But yeah, I only use reddit for particular subreddits these days.
- shii 15y ago
  Proggit is almost exactly like news.yc linkwise and pretty much always has been since HN branched off. The comments are a little more relaxed though. There's people who hunt for new popular links on each which haven't reached the other and act something like arbitrage systems and quickly post it up on the lacking board. It's fun to watch, someone should make a realtime diff site between the two, something like that ervqhgg thing from awhile ago.
jedberg 15y ago
Usually when I tell people about reddit, I tell them to skip the front page and go straight to the reddits page and find topics that interest them. The front page has too many cat pictures and crap for my taste these days. Hopefully they eventually have the time to implement one of the solutions I suggested to alleviate the problem.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  What solutions did you suggest? I've actually been showing up regularly at NYC's reddit events, and made quite a few friends in the community, but I don't really load up Reddit anymore - too much junk.
- nowarninglabel 15y ago
  Why don't you just tell them to sign-up for only the sub-reddits they are interested in, since that will determine their front page? *Side note: Kiva would still love to know if you are interested or not (e-mailed you when you posted about looking for new opportunities).
- derleth 15y ago
  > Hopefully they eventually have the time to implement one of the solutions I suggested to alleviate the problem. Making the site so slow most of the users leave? No, tried it, didn't work. ;) Reddit has cat pictures and /b/ memes because most people who use sites like Reddit like that. The only corollaries you can validly derive are that any site above a certain population is going to be like that, and to prevent a site from going that way you need to keep the userbase small enough to be focused. You know, like how you cultivate that circlejerk echo-chamber hivemind everyone complains about. ;)
beaumartinez 15y ago
Reddit has adopted its own culture and hive-mind—the bigger Subreddits are less focused on intellectual discussion and more on having fun (for better or for worse), but they still have a penchant for interesting articles. (There was an image that hit Reddit's front page a few months ago that illustrated how the first level of comments were intellectual amd all subsequent were merely "herp-derpery"—have a look for your self.)
Estragon 15y ago
/r/truereddit is pretty thin on discussion, but usually good for an interesting read. Edit: Also, having now read some of the thread under discussion, the top-level tree is garbage, but the subthreads after that are mostly pretty thoughtful.
- shii 15y ago
  Truereddit is too much of a pretentious circlejerk of uptight myopic hipsters. I would rather recommend reading and joining subreddits on topics you acctually care about or which have a bar set for discussions but allow actual dissent and discussion.
ZoFreX 15y ago
Some people enjoy frivolous chat and punnery. I particularly enjoyed the parody of Pirates of Penzance, a verse of which I sang out loud to the amusement of my coworkers. I don't understand this insistence on comparing websites to each other as if one were better than the other - I am a happy user of both HN and Reddit, they both serve separate purposes to me. Interestingly, although on Hacker News the comparison is typically drawn with Reddit, on Reddit it's generally 4chan that serves that purpose. What site do 4chan users look down on?
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  >What site do 4chan users look down on? All of them. With the caveat that when most people refer to 4chan they're referring to /b/, and that that isn't accurate, there really aren't many sites that /b/tards like. They tend to believe (rightly, imho) that every site takes itself too seriously and every community has an unwarranted sense of self-importance. That was generally the motivation behind most of the raids they did. At least, it used to be. It's summer right now so average quality is expected to be low, but a perusal of /b/ really does leave the impression that there aren't many original /b/tards left. The sites /b/tards hate most: -reddit (although there's a huge overlap in users, many /b/tards see it as a "sanitized" /b/ where funny things are reposted without anyone doing the work of making them in the first place) -ebaumsworld (back in the day) -knowyourmeme/icanhazcheezburger/all the other sites capitalizing off /b/'s memes -facebook/myspace/deviantart/twitter/every other site whose primary use case seems to be people stroking their ego

cmurdock 15y ago

The link was not to /r/programming it was to /r/reddit.com. /r/programming has it's own problems, but these comments are definitely not representative of that subreddit.

ghiculescu 15y ago

This wasn't posted in /r/programming, though; it's /r/reddit.com, a general purpose subreddit that new users are subscribed to by default, and that has double the subscribers compared to proggit. I imagine lots of new users unsubscribe from proggit but not from /r/reddit.com; anecdotally speaking, reddit's becoming very popular among my non-programmer but internet-familiar friends who like pictures of cats and rage comics. That isn't to say to that proggit isn't pretty different to HN; going on there now (having not visited it in a while) only a handful of links show as having been visited due to my seeing them on HN. The content there is different and the level of discourse is acceptable, so I like it.

vaksel 15y ago
the difference is that proggit is opt in, while reddit.com is optout....so it's selection bias for quality
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Proggit's in the top 10, so I'm pretty sure it's opt-out, unless they treat it like r/atheism and display it in r/all but not on the default frontpage.
  - ghiculescu 15y ago
    Just checked; it's actually opt-in. I made a new throwaway and visited proggit and was greeted with the option to add it to my frontpage.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      I guess, despite its size, they consider proggit to be niche enough that most new users won't want to frontpage it.
    - starwed 15y ago
      I think r/programming used to be opt-out. (Wasn't it the first subreddit?) Might be wrong, though. But yeah, I only use reddit for particular subreddits these days.
shii 15y ago
Proggit is almost exactly like news.yc linkwise and pretty much always has been since HN branched off. The comments are a little more relaxed though. There's people who hunt for new popular links on each which haven't reached the other and act something like arbitrage systems and quickly post it up on the lacking board. It's fun to watch, someone should make a realtime diff site between the two, something like that ervqhgg thing from awhile ago.

jedberg 15y ago

Usually when I tell people about reddit, I tell them to skip the front page and go straight to the reddits page and find topics that interest them. The front page has too many cat pictures and crap for my taste these days. Hopefully they eventually have the time to implement one of the solutions I suggested to alleviate the problem.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
What solutions did you suggest? I've actually been showing up regularly at NYC's reddit events, and made quite a few friends in the community, but I don't really load up Reddit anymore - too much junk.
nowarninglabel 15y ago
Why don't you just tell them to sign-up for only the sub-reddits they are interested in, since that will determine their front page? *Side note: Kiva would still love to know if you are interested or not (e-mailed you when you posted about looking for new opportunities).
derleth 15y ago
> Hopefully they eventually have the time to implement one of the solutions I suggested to alleviate the problem. Making the site so slow most of the users leave? No, tried it, didn't work. ;) Reddit has cat pictures and /b/ memes because most people who use sites like Reddit like that. The only corollaries you can validly derive are that any site above a certain population is going to be like that, and to prevent a site from going that way you need to keep the userbase small enough to be focused. You know, like how you cultivate that circlejerk echo-chamber hivemind everyone complains about. ;)

beaumartinez 15y ago

Reddit has adopted its own culture and hive-mind—the bigger Subreddits are less focused on intellectual discussion and more on having fun (for better or for worse), but they still have a penchant for interesting articles. (There was an image that hit Reddit's front page a few months ago that illustrated how the first level of comments were intellectual amd all subsequent were merely "herp-derpery"—have a look for your self.)

Estragon 15y ago

/r/truereddit is pretty thin on discussion, but usually good for an interesting read. Edit: Also, having now read some of the thread under discussion, the top-level tree is garbage, but the subthreads after that are mostly pretty thoughtful.

shii 15y ago
Truereddit is too much of a pretentious circlejerk of uptight myopic hipsters. I would rather recommend reading and joining subreddits on topics you acctually care about or which have a bar set for discussions but allow actual dissent and discussion.

ZoFreX 15y ago

Some people enjoy frivolous chat and punnery. I particularly enjoyed the parody of Pirates of Penzance, a verse of which I sang out loud to the amusement of my coworkers. I don't understand this insistence on comparing websites to each other as if one were better than the other - I am a happy user of both HN and Reddit, they both serve separate purposes to me. Interestingly, although on Hacker News the comparison is typically drawn with Reddit, on Reddit it's generally 4chan that serves that purpose. What site do 4chan users look down on?

redthrowaway 15y ago
>What site do 4chan users look down on? All of them. With the caveat that when most people refer to 4chan they're referring to /b/, and that that isn't accurate, there really aren't many sites that /b/tards like. They tend to believe (rightly, imho) that every site takes itself too seriously and every community has an unwarranted sense of self-importance. That was generally the motivation behind most of the raids they did. At least, it used to be. It's summer right now so average quality is expected to be low, but a perusal of /b/ really does leave the impression that there aren't many original /b/tards left. The sites /b/tards hate most: -reddit (although there's a huge overlap in users, many /b/tards see it as a "sanitized" /b/ where funny things are reposted without anyone doing the work of making them in the first place) -ebaumsworld (back in the day) -knowyourmeme/icanhazcheezburger/all the other sites capitalizing off /b/'s memes -facebook/myspace/deviantart/twitter/every other site whose primary use case seems to be people stroking their ego