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In my experience, subreddits end up being, at best, a "look at what I did" without any actual way I can learn, and usually it's just a photo or something. At wo

In my experience, subreddits end up being, at best, a "look at what I did" without any actual way I can learn, and usually it's just a photo or something. At worst they are a mess of memes, repeated beginner questions and unmoderated content. Content on Reddit is also very short-lived, and information can get hidden in comments and become invisible. On the other hand, TikTok works fairly well. Videos can be up to 3 minutes long now, most of the time it's enough to at least explain the basics and tell you where to get more detail if you want. Also, the "algorithm-driven discovery" means that creators usually need to focus on the content of the videos. The "video reply to a comment" mechanic is very helpful too, as it encourages making additional first-level content from people's questions instead of burying things in comments.

permo-w 4y ago
yeah reddit has huge issues. it’s difficult to find a popular image-based subreddit that hasn’t descended into repetitive memes. and as you say the fast decay of content means that “progress” is only in the minds of the current users. as soon as they decay, the meta resets. there’s also a shocking amount of astroturfing going on. it used to be useful to search “[product] reddit” - and in some cases still can be - but many companies have cottoned onto this and they can extremely cheaply manipulate a reddit post for very high fidelity advertising. this is especially true for online-centric companies like VPNs and crypto exchanges. the VPN subreddit might as well be an advertising platform I once saw a reddit post asking about VR headsets where the poster specifically stated that they do not want anything Meta/Facebook because they don’t trust them. the top 3 replies? “I recommend the metaquest 2 because it’s the best value for money” as if they’d said nothing at all
- strken 4y ago
  There's a phenomena where someone posts something like "I want to join two pieces of board to a pole with a nail, but I don't want to use a hammer, what should I do?" and gets back two recommendations to use a screw and screwdriver, three to use a hammer, one to use a nailgun, and one longer answer that explains the question is bad but begrudgingly accepts a nailgun. I think in that situation, the people who suggest a hammer or a screw silently perform some mental arithmetic, assume the person asking the question doesn't understand the problem because they're asking for a very costly tradeoff, and give the best answer that solves the basic problem.
  - Avicebron 4y ago
    This existed/exists on stackoverflow as well. Simple solutions to code questions are often met with explanations involving completely changing the stack/redoing everything in the way the person answering is familiar with (maybe just to signal they know how to do something) while completely ignoring any meaningful answer in the context of the question.
    - xtracto 4y ago
      That happened to me right here in HN in a Linux story, when I mentioned and linked to an issue of not being able to use the Nvidia card along with the integrated intel card to connect 2 monitors. Answer was: Why are you trying to do such fringe configurations (plugging two monitors is fringe in Linux?)
    - permo-w 4y ago
      “just use x instead”
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Sound like XY Problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Don't forget the "person comes along with situation for which the typical dogma and rules of thumb fall short and anyone with sufficient expertise in the subject to identify that winds up downvoted to oblivion by the hordes of dolts who don't" problem.
- Bombthecat 4y ago
  I suspect pico is doing it with its new pico 4 vr headset..
- appleaday1 4y ago
  Reddit probably has the best moderation system out there from the big subreddits I have moderated. But even reddit is slowly starting to get gamed a bit and it takes a lot of investigative work from the moderators themselves to find out if certain individuals or entities are bad actors or harmful to the subreddit or wider community. There are some hilarious stories, and I haven't encountered such an individual yet. But I have heard one story where one individual has managed to evade a certain subreddit over 62 times. Enough for the moderators of that subreddit to send a public complaint that other moderators like me probably picked up on. But they are working on improving their ban evasion tooling so who knows if that will do anything against that one dude that managed to evade over 62 times. Where there is a will..there is a way...and that's what frustrates me about Tiktok. I couldn't imagine moderating a video based platform mainly, just takes too much of your time. Imagine having to deal with ban evaders on top of that and related.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    Interesting, I think moderation of big subreddits is one of the worst things about reddit - its unpaid labor, so the only people willing to invest the time tend to be petty tyrants. Ex. there is a moderator of major sub who likes to leave derisive comments to 'explain' moderation decisions and made a subreddit so other mods can join in on mocking users.

permo-w 4y ago

yeah reddit has huge issues. it’s difficult to find a popular image-based subreddit that hasn’t descended into repetitive memes. and as you say the fast decay of content means that “progress” is only in the minds of the current users. as soon as they decay, the meta resets. there’s also a shocking amount of astroturfing going on. it used to be useful to search “[product] reddit” - and in some cases still can be - but many companies have cottoned onto this and they can extremely cheaply manipulate a reddit post for very high fidelity advertising. this is especially true for online-centric companies like VPNs and crypto exchanges. the VPN subreddit might as well be an advertising platform I once saw a reddit post asking about VR headsets where the poster specifically stated that they do not want anything Meta/Facebook because they don’t trust them. the top 3 replies? “I recommend the metaquest 2 because it’s the best value for money” as if they’d said nothing at all

strken 4y ago
There's a phenomena where someone posts something like "I want to join two pieces of board to a pole with a nail, but I don't want to use a hammer, what should I do?" and gets back two recommendations to use a screw and screwdriver, three to use a hammer, one to use a nailgun, and one longer answer that explains the question is bad but begrudgingly accepts a nailgun. I think in that situation, the people who suggest a hammer or a screw silently perform some mental arithmetic, assume the person asking the question doesn't understand the problem because they're asking for a very costly tradeoff, and give the best answer that solves the basic problem.
- Avicebron 4y ago
  This existed/exists on stackoverflow as well. Simple solutions to code questions are often met with explanations involving completely changing the stack/redoing everything in the way the person answering is familiar with (maybe just to signal they know how to do something) while completely ignoring any meaningful answer in the context of the question.
  - xtracto 4y ago
    That happened to me right here in HN in a Linux story, when I mentioned and linked to an issue of not being able to use the Nvidia card along with the integrated intel card to connect 2 monitors. Answer was: Why are you trying to do such fringe configurations (plugging two monitors is fringe in Linux?)
  - permo-w 4y ago
    “just use x instead”
- djbusby 4y ago
  Sound like XY Problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Don't forget the "person comes along with situation for which the typical dogma and rules of thumb fall short and anyone with sufficient expertise in the subject to identify that winds up downvoted to oblivion by the hordes of dolts who don't" problem.
Bombthecat 4y ago
I suspect pico is doing it with its new pico 4 vr headset..
appleaday1 4y ago
Reddit probably has the best moderation system out there from the big subreddits I have moderated. But even reddit is slowly starting to get gamed a bit and it takes a lot of investigative work from the moderators themselves to find out if certain individuals or entities are bad actors or harmful to the subreddit or wider community. There are some hilarious stories, and I haven't encountered such an individual yet. But I have heard one story where one individual has managed to evade a certain subreddit over 62 times. Enough for the moderators of that subreddit to send a public complaint that other moderators like me probably picked up on. But they are working on improving their ban evasion tooling so who knows if that will do anything against that one dude that managed to evade over 62 times. Where there is a will..there is a way...and that's what frustrates me about Tiktok. I couldn't imagine moderating a video based platform mainly, just takes too much of your time. Imagine having to deal with ban evaders on top of that and related.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  Interesting, I think moderation of big subreddits is one of the worst things about reddit - its unpaid labor, so the only people willing to invest the time tend to be petty tyrants. Ex. there is a moderator of major sub who likes to leave derisive comments to 'explain' moderation decisions and made a subreddit so other mods can join in on mocking users.