4 ms·

Outside of some niche communities, it's been a real crap shoot for many years though. I think you may have been spared a lot of garbage. I can't really put a fi

Outside of some niche communities, it's been a real crap shoot for many years though. I think you may have been spared a lot of garbage. I can't really put a finger on when or what changed but feel it definitely lost the sheen.

tarboreus 3y ago
r/blind is a great community, however.
- jahsome 3y ago
  That's a great counter point. I wouldn't know from first hand experience in that case but there are some GREAT communities. I feel overall though, the tone of discussions and echo chamber sentiment just feels different now. Especially on say, r/all. I usually only browsed occasionally in anon mode when seeking a respite from "reality", and overall it seemed to go from lighthearted discussions and a lot of really cool, "check this out"-style posts to a sea of outrage baiting, word for word reposts, and outright flamewars. Eventually that seeped in to a number of subreddits in my meticulously tailored logged-in experience. I was so disappointed by the erosion of something that once filled me with immense joy and from which I have gleaned a wealth of valuable information, I just wrote off the entire thing. I'm not even sure if it's manufactured in my own mind. A while after I found reddit went through some things that have substantially reformed my general outlook; I am a lot softer now. I'm probably just too sensitive but in my experience, most people there just don't treat each other well. I can certainly understand how those in a community like r/blind would be predisposed to kindness. I'm not sure if there's any factual basis in my reasoning, but I feel in general groups facing greater than average adversity tend to value treating others well. On the other hand, those in more advantageous positions seem to lean in to entitlement, and are disproportionately enraged when they feel taken advantage of... It's funny/sad how that happens.
pawelduda 3y ago
What are better alternatives to Reddit? Yeah, a lot of subs are echo chambers, circlejerks and struggle with quality in general but if I counted how many times I found it useful compared to the rest of Internet on average, I'd be pretty rich. I often default my searches to site:old.reddit.com <query>, the new UI and app are garbage though.
- asdff 3y ago
  What worries me is that this isn't a sustainable position. Already the googling for reddit posts sometimes backfires, says hey here's a recent comment from two weeks ago but then you open it and its the same 5 year old post you've already read somehow. Then you have a general decline of the quality of the community, more people posting in a biased manner than an unbiased one, among other issues. Not to mention, advertisers know about reddit too, and are probably shilling the crap out of their products to respective subreddits who link their offerings in the sidebar or the subreddit faq or wiki page. Eventually it's going to be no different than any other enshittified corner of the internet, which is scary because where do you go then? I'd be hunting for actual books again for information. Pretty sad that the world wide web is reaching a point where the old brick and mortar library is the better source of information again, given all the promise it had at the start as being a step forward from that.
  - pawelduda 3y ago
    similar thoughts here but I think there will always be a successor to a good community, and if you experienced it before, you'll be able to find the next one
    - asdff 3y ago
      I feel like that's not even a sure thing going forward. Consider the present generation of adults. They might have grown up on early reddit, or forums, or even usenet. They have an expectation of how these things operate. Meanwhile, take the new generation. Some of them might go on old.reddit.com, some of them might only get exposed to the new version of reddit, some of them might not go there at all. As a whole, I'd say a higher percent of online discussion users in newer generations are on a platform like a walled garden, than a self hosted forum or niche subreddit today. This affects their expections and what they understand the internet to be going forward. It affects what sorts of websites or services are able to exist going forward as well. Our concept of the internet will likely die out along with our generation.
- ok_dad 3y ago
asdff 3y ago
Eternal september happened. The original crop of users was generally pretty good about following reddiquete and not downvoting. Today, the average user seems a lot more hostile in their replies, more willing to downvote your post in disagreement even if it is relevant to the topic, less able to see sarcasm or nuance, more willing to die on ideological hills.
- arjonagelhout 3y ago
  I tried to find the meaning of eternal summer, but it appears to be a movie. I think you mean Eternal September [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
  - asdff 3y ago
    Very true good catch
- yarg 3y ago
  The down-voters are the good faith players - people are getting permabanned for political disagreements.
- mustacheemperor 3y ago
  The community zeitgeist across the board just seems so much more argumentative, contrarian, and angry than it was years ago. Even on the niche subs. On /r/academicbiblical people get banned for spitting nasty stuff at each other in comments. The AnalogCommunity subreddit has a frequent drumbeat of negativity about new film stocks and is enraged about "shilling" if anyone who as much as includes a logo on their gear in a post - as if we, the analog film community, don't want new companies to succeed in analog film? The outrage isn't logical, it's strictly emotional, and it seems like people are drawn literally to the emotion of rage, not an emotional reaction to anything specific and tangible. It reminds me of trying to find value in YouTube comments around 2008 and realizing there's some kind of community-wide attitude problem completely destroying any chance of it. It's not a discussion forum, it's one of those rooms where people pay $20 to smash stuff up with a sledgehammer and yell.

tarboreus 3y ago

r/blind is a great community, however.

jahsome 3y ago
That's a great counter point. I wouldn't know from first hand experience in that case but there are some GREAT communities. I feel overall though, the tone of discussions and echo chamber sentiment just feels different now. Especially on say, r/all. I usually only browsed occasionally in anon mode when seeking a respite from "reality", and overall it seemed to go from lighthearted discussions and a lot of really cool, "check this out"-style posts to a sea of outrage baiting, word for word reposts, and outright flamewars. Eventually that seeped in to a number of subreddits in my meticulously tailored logged-in experience. I was so disappointed by the erosion of something that once filled me with immense joy and from which I have gleaned a wealth of valuable information, I just wrote off the entire thing. I'm not even sure if it's manufactured in my own mind. A while after I found reddit went through some things that have substantially reformed my general outlook; I am a lot softer now. I'm probably just too sensitive but in my experience, most people there just don't treat each other well. I can certainly understand how those in a community like r/blind would be predisposed to kindness. I'm not sure if there's any factual basis in my reasoning, but I feel in general groups facing greater than average adversity tend to value treating others well. On the other hand, those in more advantageous positions seem to lean in to entitlement, and are disproportionately enraged when they feel taken advantage of... It's funny/sad how that happens.

pawelduda 3y ago

What are better alternatives to Reddit? Yeah, a lot of subs are echo chambers, circlejerks and struggle with quality in general but if I counted how many times I found it useful compared to the rest of Internet on average, I'd be pretty rich. I often default my searches to site:old.reddit.com <query>, the new UI and app are garbage though.

asdff 3y ago
What worries me is that this isn't a sustainable position. Already the googling for reddit posts sometimes backfires, says hey here's a recent comment from two weeks ago but then you open it and its the same 5 year old post you've already read somehow. Then you have a general decline of the quality of the community, more people posting in a biased manner than an unbiased one, among other issues. Not to mention, advertisers know about reddit too, and are probably shilling the crap out of their products to respective subreddits who link their offerings in the sidebar or the subreddit faq or wiki page. Eventually it's going to be no different than any other enshittified corner of the internet, which is scary because where do you go then? I'd be hunting for actual books again for information. Pretty sad that the world wide web is reaching a point where the old brick and mortar library is the better source of information again, given all the promise it had at the start as being a step forward from that.
- pawelduda 3y ago
  similar thoughts here but I think there will always be a successor to a good community, and if you experienced it before, you'll be able to find the next one
  - asdff 3y ago
    I feel like that's not even a sure thing going forward. Consider the present generation of adults. They might have grown up on early reddit, or forums, or even usenet. They have an expectation of how these things operate. Meanwhile, take the new generation. Some of them might go on old.reddit.com, some of them might only get exposed to the new version of reddit, some of them might not go there at all. As a whole, I'd say a higher percent of online discussion users in newer generations are on a platform like a walled garden, than a self hosted forum or niche subreddit today. This affects their expections and what they understand the internet to be going forward. It affects what sorts of websites or services are able to exist going forward as well. Our concept of the internet will likely die out along with our generation.
ok_dad 3y ago

asdff 3y ago

Eternal september happened. The original crop of users was generally pretty good about following reddiquete and not downvoting. Today, the average user seems a lot more hostile in their replies, more willing to downvote your post in disagreement even if it is relevant to the topic, less able to see sarcasm or nuance, more willing to die on ideological hills.

arjonagelhout 3y ago
I tried to find the meaning of eternal summer, but it appears to be a movie. I think you mean Eternal September [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
- asdff 3y ago
  Very true good catch
yarg 3y ago
The down-voters are the good faith players - people are getting permabanned for political disagreements.
mustacheemperor 3y ago
The community zeitgeist across the board just seems so much more argumentative, contrarian, and angry than it was years ago. Even on the niche subs. On /r/academicbiblical people get banned for spitting nasty stuff at each other in comments. The AnalogCommunity subreddit has a frequent drumbeat of negativity about new film stocks and is enraged about "shilling" if anyone who as much as includes a logo on their gear in a post - as if we, the analog film community, don't want new companies to succeed in analog film? The outrage isn't logical, it's strictly emotional, and it seems like people are drawn literally to the emotion of rage, not an emotional reaction to anything specific and tangible. It reminds me of trying to find value in YouTube comments around 2008 and realizing there's some kind of community-wide attitude problem completely destroying any chance of it. It's not a discussion forum, it's one of those rooms where people pay $20 to smash stuff up with a sledgehammer and yell.