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I'll admit to being one of the latecomers to reddit in the last year. I use to avoid reddit like the plague, because I thought reddit was just www.reddit.com (t

I'll admit to being one of the latecomers to reddit in the last year. I use to avoid reddit like the plague, because I thought reddit was just www.reddit.com (the main page) which the few times I visited was filled with random assortment of stuff I didn't care about. Later, I discovered the true essence of reddit, sub-reddits. Things like r/loseit, r/fitness, r/gamedev, r/<things I actually care about>. Now I'm hooked--I visit the sub reddits multiple times every day. I no longer subscribe to the main reddit feed. So, for things in store for 2012, you absolutely must focus on "help new users better understand the way reddit works". In addition, if I were in charge of reddit for a day, I'd get rid of the reddit main page aggregation and instead replace it with a word cloud and the heading "Pick a topic that interests you to visit that sub-reddit for valuable discussion and content". Because, on the whole, the main reddit feed devalues the entire site with slop. edit: removed misleading line.

wisty 15y ago
You do know you can unsubscribe to the main page, and the other default subscriptions, so your main page is entirely business, world news, programming, and Doctor Who, right?
- giberson 15y ago
  I know that now. I'm saying I didn't know that then, I didn't know then, that there were even sub-reddits. It wasn't until I did discover those facts that I became a reddit frequenter.
- Tuckerism 15y ago
  I think the parent is referring to encouraging lurkers/first-time viewers to creating an account to do just that. Reddit is something that can push a lot of people away right at the get go with it's default subs (/r/atheism & /r/politics are polarizing, /r/pics can make the site look childish, etc)
- jjcm 15y ago
  You can also just bookmark aggregate subreddits, and visit those. Example: http://www.reddit.com/r/hacks+android+iphone+webdev+startups+mylittlepony http://www.reddit.com/r/hacks+android+iphone+webdev+startups...
- EneiMohr 15y ago
  I unsubscribed from the most of the default subreddits, and my reddit life has changed. reddit doesn't seem to a big time waster anymore. There are great subreddits that are worth checking: askscience, personalfinance, frugal, programming, and lots of that fit your interests with lower signal-to-noise ratio than the main page and the default ones.
  - troll24601 15y ago
    I can't agree with askscience anymore. subreddits start their reversion to the mean once there's 50-100k users, and they become awful once they're in the default set for new users. Frankly, it's too much work to find the good ones.
intellection 15y ago
http://my.reddit.com http://my.reddit.com shows just your subreddit subscriptions.
- ketralnis 15y ago
  No, the front page shows just your subscriptions. my.reddit.com hasn't been different from the front page for years.
  - intellection 15y ago
    My ignorance. Thank you.
ugh 15y ago
One huge problem, though, is that shit (specifically racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fat shaming, ableism – oh, I guess that list really isn’t all that specific) tends to crop up everywhere. It’s a very reddity kind of shit. Encountering blatant (and highly visible because upvoted) sexism (for example) in such harmless sounding subreddits as /r/soccer or /r/minecraft really kills all my fun. There are a few nicely moderated places, though, so not all hope is lost (and /r/soccer is at least usually devoid of shit).
- mahyarm 15y ago
  Your going find that anywhere where there is a general audience, HN has it's -isms too. How is it very reddity? Not being exposed and thus made aware of such attitudes can leave you in a bubble and not realize how good you have it. I didn't really realize how many people in the world have attitudes that belong to a 150 years ago in the developed world until I traveled to such places and saw and interacted with it with my own eyes.
  - ugh 15y ago
    The problem is that it’s everywhere and at the top. I don’t mind racism that is filtered out (i.e. either heavily downvoted or deleted by mods) all that much. That’s exactly what makes Reddit attractive: It gets filtered in a good way. It just seems that Reddit’s filtering mechanisms are not really adept at dealing with it anymore. And Reddit’s demography (white, cis male, hetero†) adds a very special and unique slant to all of this. — † Hey, I’m all those things, too. Hanging around with only those people isn’t very fun, though.
    - mahyarm 15y ago
      Comments I read from reddit have a lot more gays and transgendered people than I encounter in most places in my life. In any english website, your going to mostly encounter english (which means probably white) cis hetero people. Gays and transgendered people are %10 of the population at most, and a lot of times, they're not talking about things related to their sexuality.
ArcticCelt 15y ago
I am a long time reddit user and am of the opinion that the "mainstream" subreddits serve as honeypots to attract disrespectful juvenile users and should be kept for that purpose. Making it easier to find the most interesting subreddits will only attract the wrong kind of people.
- Homunculiheaded 15y ago
  I'm a long time redditor as well (4 years or so) and I've found that the subreddits are really not nearly as good as they used to be. /r/programming used to feel a lot more like HN, where you'd have a lot more researchers and well known experts in various areas chiming in. Things like /r/compsci seem to be mostly cs undergrads with a fairly underdeveloped sense of what the field entails. All of more niche subreddits I subscribe to tend to be so small there's almost no conversation going on. What reddit has become is my guilty pleasure/trashy magazine. I find I still enjoy it but not for any of the reasons I used to.
  - buckler 15y ago
    To add to this, it also feels as that in most cases, for every topic that a niche subreddit (or multiple similar subreddits) covers, there usually exist better online communities dealing with the same topic elsewhere on the Web. For example, let's say you're interested in airplanes and aviation. Relevant subreddits such as r/aviation just doesn't compare to communities like airliners.net with its sheer amount and high quality of content. Quality of content aside, other communities in such instances also seem to have better organization, more strict moderation (although some subreddits do have very good, dedicated moderators), and certain culture that's not prevalent on Reddit (e.g. compared to some other communities that I visit, there doesn't seem to be a culture of searching before posting on Reddit, ultimately resulting in a lot of reposts), leading me to go to those places rather than the subreddits that cover the same topic.
  - rickmb 15y ago
    Basically Reddit is like hanging out in a bar. There may be some good, serious conversations, but most of the time it's just having fun and talking bullshit. And I'm fine with that.
tnecniv 15y ago
The front page truly is trash. It is filled with the repost and circlejerk subreddits that thrive on sensationalist post titles. Once you find your niches though, you will discover some solid communities.
hackernews 15y ago
I think you are wrong on the home page change. Word clouds would be crap as the main focus of any page.

wisty 15y ago

You do know you can unsubscribe to the main page, and the other default subscriptions, so your main page is entirely business, world news, programming, and Doctor Who, right?

giberson 15y ago
I know that now. I'm saying I didn't know that then, I didn't know then, that there were even sub-reddits. It wasn't until I did discover those facts that I became a reddit frequenter.
Tuckerism 15y ago
I think the parent is referring to encouraging lurkers/first-time viewers to creating an account to do just that. Reddit is something that can push a lot of people away right at the get go with it's default subs (/r/atheism & /r/politics are polarizing, /r/pics can make the site look childish, etc)
jjcm 15y ago
You can also just bookmark aggregate subreddits, and visit those. Example: http://www.reddit.com/r/hacks+android+iphone+webdev+startups+mylittlepony http://www.reddit.com/r/hacks+android+iphone+webdev+startups...
EneiMohr 15y ago
I unsubscribed from the most of the default subreddits, and my reddit life has changed. reddit doesn't seem to a big time waster anymore. There are great subreddits that are worth checking: askscience, personalfinance, frugal, programming, and lots of that fit your interests with lower signal-to-noise ratio than the main page and the default ones.
- troll24601 15y ago
  I can't agree with askscience anymore. subreddits start their reversion to the mean once there's 50-100k users, and they become awful once they're in the default set for new users. Frankly, it's too much work to find the good ones.

intellection 15y ago

http://my.reddit.com http://my.reddit.com shows just your subreddit subscriptions.

ketralnis 15y ago
No, the front page shows just your subscriptions. my.reddit.com hasn't been different from the front page for years.
- intellection 15y ago
  My ignorance. Thank you.

ugh 15y ago

One huge problem, though, is that shit (specifically racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fat shaming, ableism – oh, I guess that list really isn’t all that specific) tends to crop up everywhere. It’s a very reddity kind of shit. Encountering blatant (and highly visible because upvoted) sexism (for example) in such harmless sounding subreddits as /r/soccer or /r/minecraft really kills all my fun. There are a few nicely moderated places, though, so not all hope is lost (and /r/soccer is at least usually devoid of shit).

mahyarm 15y ago
Your going find that anywhere where there is a general audience, HN has it's -isms too. How is it very reddity? Not being exposed and thus made aware of such attitudes can leave you in a bubble and not realize how good you have it. I didn't really realize how many people in the world have attitudes that belong to a 150 years ago in the developed world until I traveled to such places and saw and interacted with it with my own eyes.
- ugh 15y ago
  The problem is that it’s everywhere and at the top. I don’t mind racism that is filtered out (i.e. either heavily downvoted or deleted by mods) all that much. That’s exactly what makes Reddit attractive: It gets filtered in a good way. It just seems that Reddit’s filtering mechanisms are not really adept at dealing with it anymore. And Reddit’s demography (white, cis male, hetero†) adds a very special and unique slant to all of this. — † Hey, I’m all those things, too. Hanging around with only those people isn’t very fun, though.
  - mahyarm 15y ago
    Comments I read from reddit have a lot more gays and transgendered people than I encounter in most places in my life. In any english website, your going to mostly encounter english (which means probably white) cis hetero people. Gays and transgendered people are %10 of the population at most, and a lot of times, they're not talking about things related to their sexuality.

ArcticCelt 15y ago

I am a long time reddit user and am of the opinion that the "mainstream" subreddits serve as honeypots to attract disrespectful juvenile users and should be kept for that purpose. Making it easier to find the most interesting subreddits will only attract the wrong kind of people.

Homunculiheaded 15y ago
I'm a long time redditor as well (4 years or so) and I've found that the subreddits are really not nearly as good as they used to be. /r/programming used to feel a lot more like HN, where you'd have a lot more researchers and well known experts in various areas chiming in. Things like /r/compsci seem to be mostly cs undergrads with a fairly underdeveloped sense of what the field entails. All of more niche subreddits I subscribe to tend to be so small there's almost no conversation going on. What reddit has become is my guilty pleasure/trashy magazine. I find I still enjoy it but not for any of the reasons I used to.
- buckler 15y ago
  To add to this, it also feels as that in most cases, for every topic that a niche subreddit (or multiple similar subreddits) covers, there usually exist better online communities dealing with the same topic elsewhere on the Web. For example, let's say you're interested in airplanes and aviation. Relevant subreddits such as r/aviation just doesn't compare to communities like airliners.net with its sheer amount and high quality of content. Quality of content aside, other communities in such instances also seem to have better organization, more strict moderation (although some subreddits do have very good, dedicated moderators), and certain culture that's not prevalent on Reddit (e.g. compared to some other communities that I visit, there doesn't seem to be a culture of searching before posting on Reddit, ultimately resulting in a lot of reposts), leading me to go to those places rather than the subreddits that cover the same topic.
- rickmb 15y ago
  Basically Reddit is like hanging out in a bar. There may be some good, serious conversations, but most of the time it's just having fun and talking bullshit. And I'm fine with that.

tnecniv 15y ago

The front page truly is trash. It is filled with the repost and circlejerk subreddits that thrive on sensationalist post titles. Once you find your niches though, you will discover some solid communities.

hackernews 15y ago

I think you are wrong on the home page change. Word clouds would be crap as the main focus of any page.