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I find it curious that everyone trots out this idea that Reddit is a google killer etc. Are people serious? Nearly every time I go to Reddit it is a toxic ces

I find it curious that everyone trots out this idea that Reddit is a google killer etc. Are people serious? Nearly every time I go to Reddit it is a toxic cesspool of hate and intolerance. In the occasional times I land in a subreddit that is not, it is either some totalitarian echo-chamber that is moderated to within an inch of it's life, or its just full of low-quality posts or automated bot spam. Am I just unlucky? Or is that as good as it gets? It is a shame as I loved Reddit in the old digg-era, but the quality nose-dived IMHO shortly after they introduced the subreddits and I never really go back any more if I can avoid it, mainly due to the community.

chrischen 4y ago
I think Reddit is just a symptom. I don't think it's going to be a Google killer but the fact that people are looking to it to fix Google's problems is a sign of the problem at hand. They are abandoning something bad for something slightly less bad at solving the problem at hand, or just desperate for any method. And Reddit is definitely unintentionally doing this. The only reason Reddit isn't gamed (or maybe it is?) is because it's a new phenomenon so far.
aulin 4y ago
I miss usenet
- dale_glass 4y ago
  Reddit pretty much is the modern usenet. Usenet died because it was made in a time before moderation and spam filtering was universally supported. Formerly useful groups got spammed to hell and flooded with morons, and the smart people decided they had better things to do, so they moved on. Reddit is conceptually the same thing, but holds up better because spam filtering and moderation is built into the system from the start. It also allows for better formatting. The major downside to reddit is that it's not distributed, and the system is owned by a single corporation.
  - Majromax 4y ago
    > The major downside to reddit is that it's not distributed, and the system is owned by a single corporation. I think the voting system acts as another major difference, with ambiguous effect. Usenet had no concept of 'likes' or even views, so threads implicitly sorted by most recent reply. In the modern sense, its only measure of engagement was replies. Low-effort posts that would receive plenty of upvotes on Reddit (or equivalently here) but few replies would still quickly disappear, implicitly discouraged. On the other hand, a reply-only measure of engagement also gave birth to the original (high-effort) trolls and flamebait. Voting systems allow more passive suppression of this content, at least on topics where the "popularity contest" side effect is not a negative.
    - aulin 4y ago
      The karma system is definitely the difference that mostly influences the quality of the discussion and visibility of non mainstream topics. Another thing I personally hate is daily threads. Anything not deemed worth a normal thread as per each subreddit gatekeeping rules is directed to these huge threads where the attention span is even lower, if you're not lucky to intercept the right set of eyes in a few minutes your post will be quickly forgotten.
dageshi 4y ago
What you're complaining about has nothing to do with the reason reddit is actually more useful than google. The problem with google is that for any query remotely commercial or product related the results are useless garbage. Reddit is better in that respect because subreddits devoted to hobbies or sections of industries have real people who somewhat know what they're talking about and are moderated to suppress the spam/shilling. Is it perfect? No. Is it way better than whatever the hell google is doing? Oh yes.
ratww 4y ago
Even if you manage to bypass the problems you mention (by bypassing the popular subreddits), Reddit has become a terrible source of information in general. The old "site:reddit.com" trick doesn't work that well anymore. Well, it returns old results, so there's that. Smaller Subreddits have not only become echo chambers, but they now seem to cater to people trying to get into the field rather than the previous mix of professional and semi-professionals. And I have the impression that 90% of the advice being give is being done by amateurs who never earned any money from the field they're giving advice of and are rehashing echo-chamber advice. It's like a worse Quora. When there is any sort of equipment involved, they seem to have become an Instagram feed, with only photos of the acquisitions. There's rarely any insight into the product itself, it's always people posting things right after opening the box, sometimes from their car, rather than "playing" with it and posting something more insightful afterwards. The worse part: when there is any marketable skill related to the niche, the only discussions there will be about how to market it. RIP music production and game development subreddits.
- dqft 4y ago
  This pretty much sums up my experience too. It's been downhill since all the subreddit bans a couple years ago. I miss r/consumeproduct.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > It's been downhill since all the subreddit bans a couple years ago. Out of the list on Wikipedia [1], the utter majority of banned popular subreddits were far-right, terrorist, violence-oriented or dealt with questionably or outright illegal sexual material (jailbait, fappening). As for r/consumeproduct, there's a Google doc floating around detailing its links to the far-right and transphobes [2]. Doesn't sound surprising to me that they got banned. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities#Banned_subreddits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti... [2] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdBsrh8FS6k85XsrpqDjmqPe9BxmnaIRMUejFs6GSfk/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdBsrh8FS6k85XsrpqDjmqPe...
    - 4y ago
numpad0 4y ago
Odds of searching for "[obscure proper noun] [issue in fewest words] site:reddit.com" solving a problem is good. "site:5ch.net" sometimes works too for certain deeper topics by the way, and Reddit is a sunny day in a park compared to 2ch.net/5ch.net.
aksss 4y ago
I don’t think you’re leveraging Reddit correctly. I use Google, search for something like “Kokatat icon drysuit site:Reddit.com” and am going to find far more useful human, real-world info than if I just use google to search the naked Internet, where the results would be half a page of ads and half a page of marketing, SEO-optimized sales or affiliate sites. So I don’t think the paradigm people are referring to is going to Reddit and browsing about (Reddit’s own search engine is pretty crap, too), it’s targeted searches using Google but constraining results to a particular resource, in this case Reddit, but it works with any sufficiently good community, whether hacker news or f150forums.com, for example. It’s about going where the real users are. Obviously ymmv depending on what you’re searching for. Insanely broad topical searches like “inflation” probably will yield crap results and dick pics from Reddit.
LaGrange 4y ago
Reddit is a cesspool compared to what? Certainly not here. Sure, r/gaming is garbage, but overall my experience with Reddit is fairly positive. Especially if you’re looking for things like product advice, but it’s also the main source for eg. trans surgery and fashion advice. Things that are literally scary to discuss here. But also community? People really over use that word. There is no Reddit (or HN) community. Some subreddits to communities, but most are just strangers passing each other in the fog. And that’s fine. I’m trying to buy a touring bike and plan by gender affirming surgeries, not find friends.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The general idea is that Reddit has small communities that care about niche topics. If you want to know about mechanical keyboards or looking after a rare pet, you'll find a community there that talks about it. They'll probably ban you if you talk about anything other than the specific topic, you regularly see stern warnings added whenever a topic escapes the niche area and gets exposed to the wider Reddit audience, but that's why they are useful.
mcv 4y ago
Could it depend on the types of subreddits you visit? In my experience, Reddit is pretty nice. Not great perhaps, but fairly tolerant, friendly and supportive. But quite often focused on a specific topic and moderated to stay on topic, that is true. Some moderators are definitely more restrictive than others, but if they overstep, people leave and form new subreddits to compete with the old one.

chrischen 4y ago

I think Reddit is just a symptom. I don't think it's going to be a Google killer but the fact that people are looking to it to fix Google's problems is a sign of the problem at hand. They are abandoning something bad for something slightly less bad at solving the problem at hand, or just desperate for any method. And Reddit is definitely unintentionally doing this. The only reason Reddit isn't gamed (or maybe it is?) is because it's a new phenomenon so far.

aulin 4y ago

I miss usenet

dale_glass 4y ago
Reddit pretty much is the modern usenet. Usenet died because it was made in a time before moderation and spam filtering was universally supported. Formerly useful groups got spammed to hell and flooded with morons, and the smart people decided they had better things to do, so they moved on. Reddit is conceptually the same thing, but holds up better because spam filtering and moderation is built into the system from the start. It also allows for better formatting. The major downside to reddit is that it's not distributed, and the system is owned by a single corporation.
- Majromax 4y ago
  > The major downside to reddit is that it's not distributed, and the system is owned by a single corporation. I think the voting system acts as another major difference, with ambiguous effect. Usenet had no concept of 'likes' or even views, so threads implicitly sorted by most recent reply. In the modern sense, its only measure of engagement was replies. Low-effort posts that would receive plenty of upvotes on Reddit (or equivalently here) but few replies would still quickly disappear, implicitly discouraged. On the other hand, a reply-only measure of engagement also gave birth to the original (high-effort) trolls and flamebait. Voting systems allow more passive suppression of this content, at least on topics where the "popularity contest" side effect is not a negative.
  - aulin 4y ago
    The karma system is definitely the difference that mostly influences the quality of the discussion and visibility of non mainstream topics. Another thing I personally hate is daily threads. Anything not deemed worth a normal thread as per each subreddit gatekeeping rules is directed to these huge threads where the attention span is even lower, if you're not lucky to intercept the right set of eyes in a few minutes your post will be quickly forgotten.

dageshi 4y ago

What you're complaining about has nothing to do with the reason reddit is actually more useful than google. The problem with google is that for any query remotely commercial or product related the results are useless garbage. Reddit is better in that respect because subreddits devoted to hobbies or sections of industries have real people who somewhat know what they're talking about and are moderated to suppress the spam/shilling. Is it perfect? No. Is it way better than whatever the hell google is doing? Oh yes.

ratww 4y ago

Even if you manage to bypass the problems you mention (by bypassing the popular subreddits), Reddit has become a terrible source of information in general. The old "site:reddit.com" trick doesn't work that well anymore. Well, it returns old results, so there's that. Smaller Subreddits have not only become echo chambers, but they now seem to cater to people trying to get into the field rather than the previous mix of professional and semi-professionals. And I have the impression that 90% of the advice being give is being done by amateurs who never earned any money from the field they're giving advice of and are rehashing echo-chamber advice. It's like a worse Quora. When there is any sort of equipment involved, they seem to have become an Instagram feed, with only photos of the acquisitions. There's rarely any insight into the product itself, it's always people posting things right after opening the box, sometimes from their car, rather than "playing" with it and posting something more insightful afterwards. The worse part: when there is any marketable skill related to the niche, the only discussions there will be about how to market it. RIP music production and game development subreddits.

dqft 4y ago
This pretty much sums up my experience too. It's been downhill since all the subreddit bans a couple years ago. I miss r/consumeproduct.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > It's been downhill since all the subreddit bans a couple years ago. Out of the list on Wikipedia [1], the utter majority of banned popular subreddits were far-right, terrorist, violence-oriented or dealt with questionably or outright illegal sexual material (jailbait, fappening). As for r/consumeproduct, there's a Google doc floating around detailing its links to the far-right and transphobes [2]. Doesn't sound surprising to me that they got banned. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities#Banned_subreddits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti... [2] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdBsrh8FS6k85XsrpqDjmqPe9BxmnaIRMUejFs6GSfk/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdBsrh8FS6k85XsrpqDjmqPe...
  - 4y ago

numpad0 4y ago

Odds of searching for "[obscure proper noun] [issue in fewest words] site:reddit.com" solving a problem is good. "site:5ch.net" sometimes works too for certain deeper topics by the way, and Reddit is a sunny day in a park compared to 2ch.net/5ch.net.

aksss 4y ago

I don’t think you’re leveraging Reddit correctly. I use Google, search for something like “Kokatat icon drysuit site:Reddit.com” and am going to find far more useful human, real-world info than if I just use google to search the naked Internet, where the results would be half a page of ads and half a page of marketing, SEO-optimized sales or affiliate sites. So I don’t think the paradigm people are referring to is going to Reddit and browsing about (Reddit’s own search engine is pretty crap, too), it’s targeted searches using Google but constraining results to a particular resource, in this case Reddit, but it works with any sufficiently good community, whether hacker news or f150forums.com, for example. It’s about going where the real users are. Obviously ymmv depending on what you’re searching for. Insanely broad topical searches like “inflation” probably will yield crap results and dick pics from Reddit.

LaGrange 4y ago

Reddit is a cesspool compared to what? Certainly not here. Sure, r/gaming is garbage, but overall my experience with Reddit is fairly positive. Especially if you’re looking for things like product advice, but it’s also the main source for eg. trans surgery and fashion advice. Things that are literally scary to discuss here. But also community? People really over use that word. There is no Reddit (or HN) community. Some subreddits to communities, but most are just strangers passing each other in the fog. And that’s fine. I’m trying to buy a touring bike and plan by gender affirming surgeries, not find friends.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The general idea is that Reddit has small communities that care about niche topics. If you want to know about mechanical keyboards or looking after a rare pet, you'll find a community there that talks about it. They'll probably ban you if you talk about anything other than the specific topic, you regularly see stern warnings added whenever a topic escapes the niche area and gets exposed to the wider Reddit audience, but that's why they are useful.

mcv 4y ago

Could it depend on the types of subreddits you visit? In my experience, Reddit is pretty nice. Not great perhaps, but fairly tolerant, friendly and supportive. But quite often focused on a specific topic and moderated to stay on topic, that is true. Some moderators are definitely more restrictive than others, but if they overstep, people leave and form new subreddits to compete with the old one.