Reddit, ca. 2010, was a small community with mostly civil, but always adult discussion of topics, where people tended to try and understand each others. The ter

Reddit, ca. 2010, was a small community with mostly civil, but always adult discussion of topics, where people tended to try and understand each others. The term "circlejerk" was known, sure, but it was more a self-ironic observation of subcommunities (aka "subreddits") starting to diverge on a common viewpoint after a while. Bans were rare. We had side-wide charity activity (e.g. we bought some kid prosthetics his family could not afford). We had our little in-site activity (meet-a-redditor, around that time, secret santa started out). We had "important people" on the site as active redditors apparently out of their own drive, not being driven towards us in one-off events (prominently, Bill Gates and Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be somewhat active redditors). Reddit took a first hit after the digg exodus, when it became a lot more about gaming - but we absorbed them, and eventually got to a somewhat acceptable place again. Around 2014, "Chairman Pao" took over, and very soon, we had the influx of very left-wing, very college-liberal minded people, and stuff went downhill. Suddenly, it was all about politics, about Hillary vs. Trump, it was all about LBGT, it was all about what it meant to have free speech. People started getting banned for activity on other subreddits. ("You posted on /r/gunmaking? You are no longer welcome on /r/todayilearned"). Of course, that led to an immediate reaction from the "opposing" side, whoever was not college-liberal left moved to become increasingly right-wing (I've observed such an unconscious shift in myself, when on Reddit - and that has affected my thought in general), some extremely so. Which attracted ... more right-wing extremists to come in. Reddit reacted to that with force against most of these right-wing subreddits, banning and deleting whole communities (some are allowed to stay around, for the time being, most likely to act as honeytraps). But the Overton window has moved radically to the left (to the point where fantasising about mass murder of the affluent part of society is not only tolerated, but sometimes encouraged). Discussion about "neutral" topics still exist, in niches - but often get poisoned by people trying to find fault in other people's browsing history. Reddit is a cesspool, its golden age is over. If you wanted to salvage it, you probably should hide user comment history from the public, you should limit the number someone can moderate to maybe five to avoid "moderation cartels", and you should install a team that objectively enforce the reddiquette. (I'm a redditor for 14 years now, but rarely go there anymore)