4 ms·

Twitter is a megaphone at best, and a series of bumper stickers at worst. Reddit is a cocktail party. If you want to say your piece, and can’t handle criticism,

by scoofy 4y ago

Twitter is a megaphone at best, and a series of bumper stickers at worst. Reddit is a cocktail party. If you want to say your piece, and can’t handle criticism, Twitter is the place. If you care about context and nuance, Reddit is much better. The problem with Reddit is the same problem with cocktail parties — you really need to read the room before spouting of something that will be unpopular.

asimilator 4y ago
Context and nuance? On Reddit? Usually I think it lacks both.
- freeflight 4y ago
  If Twitter is the frame of reference being used, then Reddit wins out by virtue of layout and content allowances. Trying to cram context and nuance, about topics that can be very big and complicated, into 280 character text bites is not the easiest task. While the character limit for a Reddit comment is 10k.
- deely3 4y ago
  I think its wrong to speak about Reddit as a whole. There a lot of small moderated communities where you can discuss anything without "noise". Just ignore most popular sabs. Yay, someone downvoted me just like on a reddit!
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  Is it a front-page sub? or a niche / specialized / hobby sub? Lowest common denominator means front page or highly trafficked subs will be terrible. But find a smaller community and it's generally better.
corbulo 4y ago
Reddit is a negative image of context and nuance. That site repels anyone who knows anything about anything.
- scoofy 4y ago
  This type of flip generalization is exactly the type of “I’m going to tell you how it is” that might drive someone away from Reddit and toward Twitter. I’m not talking about /r/politics or any of the other massive subreddits, I’m talking about tiny subreddits like /r/bikewrench or /r/hats. Subreddits narrowed to the point that conversation is actually reasonable. The discussion in /r/neoliberal and /r/socialdemocracy both have me subscribed.
  - asimilator 4y ago
    Even the smaller subreddits tend to have lots of groupthink. There’s usually a prevailing viewpoint on any given sub and anything contrary is downvoted to oblivion. Maybe I’m not looking at the right subreddits though, who knows.
  - corbulo 4y ago
    The problem with political subreddits is they have gigantic blind spots due to heavy groupthink and constant obsession with semantics and labeling. I've never seen a discussion of why some political idea is better than another getting in depth political theory with wide coverage outside of the current groupthink on reddit. It's always varying forms of appeals to popularity, authority, or someones favorite confirmation bias study that they are trying to shove down your throat to get a sweet dunk. The way the political subs differ is just rhetorical window dressing. Totally useless. The other kinds of subs can be nice for a time. But i've always seen them to either die, become popular/overrun, and/or get a cancerous mod that makes everyone miserable.
    - scoofy 4y ago
      I mean... you refer to the groupthink as some sort of force on the discussion, when in reality, you have a bunch of people who think a specific political or economic policy is sensible. This obviously has it's limits when the group has diverse views about the policies. The strangest, and often most interesting conversations that take place in /r/socialdemocracy when the socialists or communists who see social democracy as a stepping stone toward socialism are forced to deal with the other social democrats that firmly think some/many markets are good for society as a whole. There is a ton of nuance in those conversations, while at the same time, anyone suggesting that we shouldn't have some form of socialized health-care will be laughed out of the room. Another example of this is the Strong Towns movement and their various subreddits. It seems to be a very serious, very cross-party neo-urbanism community which puts Bernie Sanders voters in the same subs as Mitt Romney voters, all discussing the merits of walkable cities and the inefficiencies and concerns about municipal bond debt capacity. These niche political subs can get pretty interesting.
maksimur 4y ago
I wish it was only about avoiding unpopular topics. You get downvoted even for asking what makes a good coffee or any other questions that people will happily engage with in real life interactions.
- scoofy 4y ago
  Again, this is why I bring up reading the room. You're likely to find a subreddit for discussion making coffee, even if it's been asked 100 times before, but it probably won't be /r/coffee. In /r/sanfrancisco, yea, asking "hey, i'm visting SF so what should I do?" is misunderstanding the subreddit. It's for locals. Even for locals, many do not like the regular discussion of the very real socio-cultural issues facing the city. There is a regular push to "make this subreddit something that creates content for me" but that's not really what reddit is about. It's a place for people to share created content, it's not a curated news feed for users.
  - deely3 4y ago
    Just to add my 5 cents: spend few minutes reading sub rules and some popular posts. For example on subs about care about exotic animals you usually will get heavy downvoted while asking medical advice about your animal. Which is contrintuitive but logical - newcomers ask such questions everytime, whild most users of the sub is not exotic animal veterinar, and can't diagnose.
    - maksimur 4y ago
      Given the downvotes to my comment (the irony), I have to add some context. When I talk about getting downvotes for asking what makes a good coffee, or other conversational topics like that, I mean doing so in the appropriate place, such as a sub's daily "cafe thread", where one can talk about anything within reason. The same comment made by another user or another time is received differently. It's tiring and one of the reason I don't interact so much on the web anymore.
- nikau 4y ago
  That's because you didn't google it and then ask specific questions after doing some research.

by scoofy 4y ago

asimilator 4y ago

Context and nuance? On Reddit? Usually I think it lacks both.

freeflight 4y ago
If Twitter is the frame of reference being used, then Reddit wins out by virtue of layout and content allowances. Trying to cram context and nuance, about topics that can be very big and complicated, into 280 character text bites is not the easiest task. While the character limit for a Reddit comment is 10k.
deely3 4y ago
I think its wrong to speak about Reddit as a whole. There a lot of small moderated communities where you can discuss anything without "noise". Just ignore most popular sabs. Yay, someone downvoted me just like on a reddit!
red-iron-pine 4y ago
Is it a front-page sub? or a niche / specialized / hobby sub? Lowest common denominator means front page or highly trafficked subs will be terrible. But find a smaller community and it's generally better.

corbulo 4y ago

Reddit is a negative image of context and nuance. That site repels anyone who knows anything about anything.

scoofy 4y ago
This type of flip generalization is exactly the type of “I’m going to tell you how it is” that might drive someone away from Reddit and toward Twitter. I’m not talking about /r/politics or any of the other massive subreddits, I’m talking about tiny subreddits like /r/bikewrench or /r/hats. Subreddits narrowed to the point that conversation is actually reasonable. The discussion in /r/neoliberal and /r/socialdemocracy both have me subscribed.
- asimilator 4y ago
  Even the smaller subreddits tend to have lots of groupthink. There’s usually a prevailing viewpoint on any given sub and anything contrary is downvoted to oblivion. Maybe I’m not looking at the right subreddits though, who knows.
- corbulo 4y ago
  The problem with political subreddits is they have gigantic blind spots due to heavy groupthink and constant obsession with semantics and labeling. I've never seen a discussion of why some political idea is better than another getting in depth political theory with wide coverage outside of the current groupthink on reddit. It's always varying forms of appeals to popularity, authority, or someones favorite confirmation bias study that they are trying to shove down your throat to get a sweet dunk. The way the political subs differ is just rhetorical window dressing. Totally useless. The other kinds of subs can be nice for a time. But i've always seen them to either die, become popular/overrun, and/or get a cancerous mod that makes everyone miserable.
  - scoofy 4y ago
    I mean... you refer to the groupthink as some sort of force on the discussion, when in reality, you have a bunch of people who think a specific political or economic policy is sensible. This obviously has it's limits when the group has diverse views about the policies. The strangest, and often most interesting conversations that take place in /r/socialdemocracy when the socialists or communists who see social democracy as a stepping stone toward socialism are forced to deal with the other social democrats that firmly think some/many markets are good for society as a whole. There is a ton of nuance in those conversations, while at the same time, anyone suggesting that we shouldn't have some form of socialized health-care will be laughed out of the room. Another example of this is the Strong Towns movement and their various subreddits. It seems to be a very serious, very cross-party neo-urbanism community which puts Bernie Sanders voters in the same subs as Mitt Romney voters, all discussing the merits of walkable cities and the inefficiencies and concerns about municipal bond debt capacity. These niche political subs can get pretty interesting.

maksimur 4y ago

I wish it was only about avoiding unpopular topics. You get downvoted even for asking what makes a good coffee or any other questions that people will happily engage with in real life interactions.

scoofy 4y ago
Again, this is why I bring up reading the room. You're likely to find a subreddit for discussion making coffee, even if it's been asked 100 times before, but it probably won't be /r/coffee. In /r/sanfrancisco, yea, asking "hey, i'm visting SF so what should I do?" is misunderstanding the subreddit. It's for locals. Even for locals, many do not like the regular discussion of the very real socio-cultural issues facing the city. There is a regular push to "make this subreddit something that creates content for me" but that's not really what reddit is about. It's a place for people to share created content, it's not a curated news feed for users.
- deely3 4y ago
  Just to add my 5 cents: spend few minutes reading sub rules and some popular posts. For example on subs about care about exotic animals you usually will get heavy downvoted while asking medical advice about your animal. Which is contrintuitive but logical - newcomers ask such questions everytime, whild most users of the sub is not exotic animal veterinar, and can't diagnose.
  - maksimur 4y ago
    Given the downvotes to my comment (the irony), I have to add some context. When I talk about getting downvotes for asking what makes a good coffee, or other conversational topics like that, I mean doing so in the appropriate place, such as a sub's daily "cafe thread", where one can talk about anything within reason. The same comment made by another user or another time is received differently. It's tiring and one of the reason I don't interact so much on the web anymore.
nikau 4y ago
That's because you didn't google it and then ask specific questions after doing some research.