5 ms·

The Downfall of Reddit – Why Reddit Sucks, and How to Fix It

20 points by JSavageOne 5y ago

gkoberger 5y ago
This is just an article by a guy with bad opinions upset others don't agree with his bad opinions.
- newah1 5y ago
  Yes, and, I think he outlines some serious issues with discourse on Reddit. I think if you strip away some of his biases you get one singular complaint: Reddit strips nuance from conversation. Adding nuance introduces attack vectors, complicates your argument and requires that the group as a whole be more informed in order to create compelling arguments. It's so much easier to throw out quips and one-liners that help your world view, and obliterate comments that present constructive criticism.
  - JSavageOne 5y ago
    I find one-line quips as top comments confirming one's preconceived notions to be incredibly harmful, because they make one overly confident in their own certainty. "See, I was right! Everyone else feels the same way! Everyone else on the other side is wrong and stupid!". Whenever I feel overly confident in some viewpoint, often the first thing I do is look for the contrarian view, because that's where you're more likely to actually gain knowledge and be forced to defend your viewpoint. Unfortunately, Reddit makes it too easy to end up in your bubble.
- stimpson_j_cat 5y ago
  Yes the author's previous blog article "COVID-19 Restrictions are the new Sharia Law" might give you an idea of why these "random" cherry-picked example reddit comments made it into this article.
  - JSavageOne 5y ago
    That was satirical (eg. because people wearing cloth masks despite them having been shown to be ineffective against COVID19 is similar to wearing a garment for religious reasons). If you had literally looked at either of the posts after or prior to that, you would've seen more in-depth and serious criticisms of COVID-19 restrictions: - https://jsavage.xyz/2022/03/12/why-covid-19-restrictions-are-immoral-freedom-to-choose-ones-risk-tolerance/ https://jsavage.xyz/2022/03/12/why-covid-19-restrictions-are... - https://jsavage.xyz/2022/02/22/covid-19-advanced-authoritarianism-intellectual-dishonesty-and-cancel-culture/ https://jsavage.xyz/2022/02/22/covid-19-advanced-authoritari...
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  I would forgive the list of bad takes if the OP's suggestions on "how to fix Reddit" were actually useful in fixing the problems he's claiming exist. Instead, all his suggestions do is add barriers to common functions that do nothing to actually change the quality of discourse but just make it more difficult for people to interact. The other suggestions (that are basically just "HN does this so I like it") may work to limit bot usage or downvoting through alt accounts but they do nothing to fix the ultimate problem that he's describing which is that any platform where quality is distilled to a thumbs up or thumbs down will, by nature, get polarized as people choose a side. If you want nuance, you need to rely on moderation and Reddit, unfortunately, is astro-turfed by power mods who run all the big subs. If he wants nuance again, he needs to visit more nuanced sub-reddits that aren't approaching terminal velocity. This happens every time a social media platform/news aggregator gets popular. Look at the history of Digg, /., and even HN itself to see why and how they get overtaken. If your userbase grows exponentially and your moderation doesn't, you're going to end up in the same place as teenagers and know-it-alls take over just by sheer volume.
  - JSavageOne 5y ago
    My suggestion to improve the algorithm adds no barriers to the user. Reddit is already using an algorithm to sort comments ("Best", no idea how that works), so it's certainly feasible that they could either improve that, or offer alternative algorithms like "Insightful" or "For You" like I recommended in the article. The modal on downvote does add a barrier, but maybe it would reduce downvote=disagree. Or maybe not. I don't know. Either way it could be worth testing, though obviously wouldn't be as impactful as changing the algorithm. Happy to hear recommendations on subreddits on higher quality discussion, especially pertaining to things like politics and current events where it's very difficult to find high quality discussion.
    - dkonofalski 5y ago
      >My suggestion to improve the algorithm adds no barriers to the user. While that's true, it's also completely empty in terms of usable, actionable steps that can be taken. You mention an algorithm that rewards based on the length of comments but that also rewards any kind of copy-pasta or bot-driven blogspam comments. The other suggestion is to use an AI/ML to improve the quality but that completely ignores that AI has to be trained to be useful. If Reddit, whose goal is to generate views on ads and clicks to sponsored content, trains the model to suit them then it's no more useful to you than the current algorithms (which, for reference, sort by disparity between upvotes and downvotes - top equals most upvotes while ignoring downvotes, "best" equals highest upvotes with lowest downvotes, and controversial sorts by the smallest delta between upvotes and downvotes). As for recommendations, I don't think you'll find what you're looking for on Reddit. Even subs like /r/neutralpolitics, by virtue of today's political climate, lean left and subs that tend to lean right are full of deleted comments, over-enthusiastic mod censorship, and memes.
- JSavageOne 5y ago
  I mean your comment literally reads exactly like the type of Reddit comments I criticized in my article. One-liner with no substance. I'd expect this from Reddit, but disappointing that HN has devolved into this.
- insickness 5y ago
  This comment is almost a parody of the terrible comments the author is referring to on reddit. Expecting someone to respond with, "No, your opinion is bad!"
cushychicken 5y ago
Story as I see it: OP goes to subreddits full of hyper-polarized edge lords OP tries to respond with (what he thinks is) reasoned debate OP gets virtually run out of town on a rail You wouldn't get this sort of behavior on a well managed niche subreddit. There's tons of great technical subreddits. None of them are remotely mainstream. The best ones are 50k subs or less. This article is a case study of "Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes". Reddit isn't broken. OP's expectations are.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- JSavageOne 5y ago
  > OP goes to subreddits full of hyper-polarized edge lords My point applies to Reddit in general after 14 years of use. > There's tons of great technical subreddits. Know any great non-technical ones, such as for politics / current events? > Reddit isn't broken. OP's expectations are. I don't see how quality discussion isn't a reasonable expectation.
ProAm 5y ago
OP is acting like Reddit is the only place to go on the internet. Yes it used to be better, yes it sucks now, but no one is forcing you to go there. Change the URL in your browser and problem is resolved.
- gkoberger 5y ago
  I'd take it a step back, even... just change the subreddit. You can't be surprised that an incredibly popular (aka meme-y), left-leaning subreddit doesn't want to debate your anti-Democrat rants. This trend of "you must debate me!" is just as exhausting as anything he complained about. There's tons of subreddits, and the author seems to be conflating the software with individual communities.
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    to say that the major, default subreddits are "left-leaning" is a massive understatement. the reddit homepage (sans login) is basically half memes, half direct feed of the latest Democratic Party talking points. it was not this way in the past, and noticing this change is a valid observation. what the author of the article ignores however is that the 2008 reddit he was initially exposed to was mostly accessed by people using personal computers, instead of people using smartphones. I'm always surprised whenever anyone overlooks this basic fact and its implications when assessing "how the internet has gotten worse" since 2008 or before.
    - stimpson_j_cat 5y ago
      > it was not this way in the past There was an /r/obama before users could make subreddits. It was certainly this way in the past, but more porn. You admittedly didn't know that, and had to post a source you Googled in a panic, which says: > There may have been a few more subreddits created by other employees as well but I’m not sure. Basically they would all have been things of personal interest to us. Which supports that idea.
      - gkoberger 5y ago
renewiltord 5y ago
Sadly, this is just an Eternal September post again. Ultimately, you've done your work and everything so that's appreciated but I guess you can describe Eternal September to people and it won't really take until they feel it happen to them. FWIW HN shows the signs of this deterioration in the sense of a certain respect. I like to model forums by the percentage of their posts which lead to information gain. Ideally, I'd like to formulate this as some sort of K-L divergence with some sort of temporal decay on a binary variable. In a rough handwavey sense, I find that the information gain from many HN posts is high but HN comments is low, but it would be interesting to me if we could think up something more concrete. The worst examples are posts on Google, Facebook, or Apple. Most commenters could be replaced by /r/subredditsimulatorGPT. On the other hand, it might be that I have just fully mined HN as an information source. It's likely this is true, in which case I should find some mechanism to reduce the content here. One idea I have had is the idea of overlay networks - essentially the underlying data of the forum is the same, but we place intentionally different filtering mechanisms on the view layer. One could be "high karma users". Another could be "actively followed users". Anyway, just thoughts.
- stimpson_j_cat 5y ago
  Yeah, reddit's been this way since the Digg migration (10 years ago)?
- JSavageOne 5y ago
  My understanding of Eternal September is that it's basically used to argue that higher traffic inevitably leads to lower quality of discussion, correct? Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I do feel like platforms could improve to better foster higher quality discussion, or at least better tailor users to see the type of content they enjoy, which is what I mentioned at the end of the article. It doesn't seem like there's been much innovation in that department, especially since Reddit virtually has a monopoly so there's not really much incentive for them to change anything.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    I suppose, in some way, I agree but I think you can't stop people posting junk. You have to just help people extract value out of the junk. So I don't disagree that techniques can improve quality. I just think the big bang for the buck is in the read layer. Also, I believe that the most popular posts on Facebook are the ones like "Can you solve this math problem? 4x3-2=?" and stuff like that, so you overestimate how much quality matters to the bottom line which means that platforms are not incentivized to improve quality (not out of some evilness but out of pure economic incentives).
whodunnit 5y ago
The world is better off without Reddit and similar sources of empty dopamine. There’s a big difference between doing well and feeling good. Someday humanity will look back on the early users of the internet as lives lost to addiction while the world literally burned around them.
- JSavageOne 5y ago
  I agree that Reddit's deteriorating quality equates it more to empty dopamine. High quality content and discussion that expands one's knowledge however is certainly not empty. Reddit has unfortunately failed in that regards, and seems to have no interest in fixing it.
JSavageOne 5y ago
Is there a reason this got flagged?

20 points by JSavageOne 5y ago

gkoberger 5y ago

This is just an article by a guy with bad opinions upset others don't agree with his bad opinions.

newah1 5y ago
Yes, and, I think he outlines some serious issues with discourse on Reddit. I think if you strip away some of his biases you get one singular complaint: Reddit strips nuance from conversation. Adding nuance introduces attack vectors, complicates your argument and requires that the group as a whole be more informed in order to create compelling arguments. It's so much easier to throw out quips and one-liners that help your world view, and obliterate comments that present constructive criticism.
- JSavageOne 5y ago
  I find one-line quips as top comments confirming one's preconceived notions to be incredibly harmful, because they make one overly confident in their own certainty. "See, I was right! Everyone else feels the same way! Everyone else on the other side is wrong and stupid!". Whenever I feel overly confident in some viewpoint, often the first thing I do is look for the contrarian view, because that's where you're more likely to actually gain knowledge and be forced to defend your viewpoint. Unfortunately, Reddit makes it too easy to end up in your bubble.
stimpson_j_cat 5y ago
Yes the author's previous blog article "COVID-19 Restrictions are the new Sharia Law" might give you an idea of why these "random" cherry-picked example reddit comments made it into this article.
- JSavageOne 5y ago
  That was satirical (eg. because people wearing cloth masks despite them having been shown to be ineffective against COVID19 is similar to wearing a garment for religious reasons). If you had literally looked at either of the posts after or prior to that, you would've seen more in-depth and serious criticisms of COVID-19 restrictions: - https://jsavage.xyz/2022/03/12/why-covid-19-restrictions-are-immoral-freedom-to-choose-ones-risk-tolerance/ https://jsavage.xyz/2022/03/12/why-covid-19-restrictions-are... - https://jsavage.xyz/2022/02/22/covid-19-advanced-authoritarianism-intellectual-dishonesty-and-cancel-culture/ https://jsavage.xyz/2022/02/22/covid-19-advanced-authoritari...
dkonofalski 5y ago
I would forgive the list of bad takes if the OP's suggestions on "how to fix Reddit" were actually useful in fixing the problems he's claiming exist. Instead, all his suggestions do is add barriers to common functions that do nothing to actually change the quality of discourse but just make it more difficult for people to interact. The other suggestions (that are basically just "HN does this so I like it") may work to limit bot usage or downvoting through alt accounts but they do nothing to fix the ultimate problem that he's describing which is that any platform where quality is distilled to a thumbs up or thumbs down will, by nature, get polarized as people choose a side. If you want nuance, you need to rely on moderation and Reddit, unfortunately, is astro-turfed by power mods who run all the big subs. If he wants nuance again, he needs to visit more nuanced sub-reddits that aren't approaching terminal velocity. This happens every time a social media platform/news aggregator gets popular. Look at the history of Digg, /., and even HN itself to see why and how they get overtaken. If your userbase grows exponentially and your moderation doesn't, you're going to end up in the same place as teenagers and know-it-alls take over just by sheer volume.
- JSavageOne 5y ago
  My suggestion to improve the algorithm adds no barriers to the user. Reddit is already using an algorithm to sort comments ("Best", no idea how that works), so it's certainly feasible that they could either improve that, or offer alternative algorithms like "Insightful" or "For You" like I recommended in the article. The modal on downvote does add a barrier, but maybe it would reduce downvote=disagree. Or maybe not. I don't know. Either way it could be worth testing, though obviously wouldn't be as impactful as changing the algorithm. Happy to hear recommendations on subreddits on higher quality discussion, especially pertaining to things like politics and current events where it's very difficult to find high quality discussion.
  - dkonofalski 5y ago
    >My suggestion to improve the algorithm adds no barriers to the user. While that's true, it's also completely empty in terms of usable, actionable steps that can be taken. You mention an algorithm that rewards based on the length of comments but that also rewards any kind of copy-pasta or bot-driven blogspam comments. The other suggestion is to use an AI/ML to improve the quality but that completely ignores that AI has to be trained to be useful. If Reddit, whose goal is to generate views on ads and clicks to sponsored content, trains the model to suit them then it's no more useful to you than the current algorithms (which, for reference, sort by disparity between upvotes and downvotes - top equals most upvotes while ignoring downvotes, "best" equals highest upvotes with lowest downvotes, and controversial sorts by the smallest delta between upvotes and downvotes). As for recommendations, I don't think you'll find what you're looking for on Reddit. Even subs like /r/neutralpolitics, by virtue of today's political climate, lean left and subs that tend to lean right are full of deleted comments, over-enthusiastic mod censorship, and memes.
JSavageOne 5y ago
I mean your comment literally reads exactly like the type of Reddit comments I criticized in my article. One-liner with no substance. I'd expect this from Reddit, but disappointing that HN has devolved into this.
insickness 5y ago
This comment is almost a parody of the terrible comments the author is referring to on reddit. Expecting someone to respond with, "No, your opinion is bad!"

cushychicken 5y ago

Story as I see it: OP goes to subreddits full of hyper-polarized edge lords OP tries to respond with (what he thinks is) reasoned debate OP gets virtually run out of town on a rail You wouldn't get this sort of behavior on a well managed niche subreddit. There's tons of great technical subreddits. None of them are remotely mainstream. The best ones are 50k subs or less. This article is a case study of "Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes". Reddit isn't broken. OP's expectations are.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
JSavageOne 5y ago
> OP goes to subreddits full of hyper-polarized edge lords My point applies to Reddit in general after 14 years of use. > There's tons of great technical subreddits. Know any great non-technical ones, such as for politics / current events? > Reddit isn't broken. OP's expectations are. I don't see how quality discussion isn't a reasonable expectation.

ProAm 5y ago

OP is acting like Reddit is the only place to go on the internet. Yes it used to be better, yes it sucks now, but no one is forcing you to go there. Change the URL in your browser and problem is resolved.

gkoberger 5y ago
I'd take it a step back, even... just change the subreddit. You can't be surprised that an incredibly popular (aka meme-y), left-leaning subreddit doesn't want to debate your anti-Democrat rants. This trend of "you must debate me!" is just as exhausting as anything he complained about. There's tons of subreddits, and the author seems to be conflating the software with individual communities.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  to say that the major, default subreddits are "left-leaning" is a massive understatement. the reddit homepage (sans login) is basically half memes, half direct feed of the latest Democratic Party talking points. it was not this way in the past, and noticing this change is a valid observation. what the author of the article ignores however is that the 2008 reddit he was initially exposed to was mostly accessed by people using personal computers, instead of people using smartphones. I'm always surprised whenever anyone overlooks this basic fact and its implications when assessing "how the internet has gotten worse" since 2008 or before.
  - stimpson_j_cat 5y ago
    > it was not this way in the past There was an /r/obama before users could make subreddits. It was certainly this way in the past, but more porn. You admittedly didn't know that, and had to post a source you Googled in a panic, which says: > There may have been a few more subreddits created by other employees as well but I’m not sure. Basically they would all have been things of personal interest to us. Which supports that idea.
    - gkoberger 5y ago

renewiltord 5y ago

Sadly, this is just an Eternal September post again. Ultimately, you've done your work and everything so that's appreciated but I guess you can describe Eternal September to people and it won't really take until they feel it happen to them. FWIW HN shows the signs of this deterioration in the sense of a certain respect. I like to model forums by the percentage of their posts which lead to information gain. Ideally, I'd like to formulate this as some sort of K-L divergence with some sort of temporal decay on a binary variable. In a rough handwavey sense, I find that the information gain from many HN posts is high but HN comments is low, but it would be interesting to me if we could think up something more concrete. The worst examples are posts on Google, Facebook, or Apple. Most commenters could be replaced by /r/subredditsimulatorGPT. On the other hand, it might be that I have just fully mined HN as an information source. It's likely this is true, in which case I should find some mechanism to reduce the content here. One idea I have had is the idea of overlay networks - essentially the underlying data of the forum is the same, but we place intentionally different filtering mechanisms on the view layer. One could be "high karma users". Another could be "actively followed users". Anyway, just thoughts.

stimpson_j_cat 5y ago
Yeah, reddit's been this way since the Digg migration (10 years ago)?
JSavageOne 5y ago
My understanding of Eternal September is that it's basically used to argue that higher traffic inevitably leads to lower quality of discussion, correct? Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I do feel like platforms could improve to better foster higher quality discussion, or at least better tailor users to see the type of content they enjoy, which is what I mentioned at the end of the article. It doesn't seem like there's been much innovation in that department, especially since Reddit virtually has a monopoly so there's not really much incentive for them to change anything.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  I suppose, in some way, I agree but I think you can't stop people posting junk. You have to just help people extract value out of the junk. So I don't disagree that techniques can improve quality. I just think the big bang for the buck is in the read layer. Also, I believe that the most popular posts on Facebook are the ones like "Can you solve this math problem? 4x3-2=?" and stuff like that, so you overestimate how much quality matters to the bottom line which means that platforms are not incentivized to improve quality (not out of some evilness but out of pure economic incentives).

whodunnit 5y ago

The world is better off without Reddit and similar sources of empty dopamine. There’s a big difference between doing well and feeling good. Someday humanity will look back on the early users of the internet as lives lost to addiction while the world literally burned around them.

JSavageOne 5y ago
I agree that Reddit's deteriorating quality equates it more to empty dopamine. High quality content and discussion that expands one's knowledge however is certainly not empty. Reddit has unfortunately failed in that regards, and seems to have no interest in fixing it.

JSavageOne 5y ago

Is there a reason this got flagged?