3 ms·

Are there any straight up knock offs of Reddit?

by ianai 3y ago

vladd 3y ago
I created a "Reddit for News" where various RSS feeds provide an initial stream of stories but people have Reddit-like abilities to upvote or submit their own. It's at https://www.goobix.com/news/ https://www.goobix.com/news/ , I would be happy to get feedback or build capabilities people feel as missing.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bluescrn 3y ago
Until now, the only real demand for an alternative has come from users/communities banned from Reddit or opposed to the censorship/groupthink. Which is not an ideal set of users to start a new community with.
- agentgumshoe 3y ago
  One day, enough people will hopefully realise that internet forums of old (i.e. before Discourse) were perfectly good. Get some reasonable mods, make the rules clear, enjoy the community. Then we might all chill a bit. Pity everyone went chasing popularity, shouting loudly at each other and influencer moneys.
  - hakfoo 3y ago
    IMO, the value of Reddit was that it was a group of forums with SSO and decent discoverability. If you wanted to find a forum on a specific topic on the broader web, you had to sift through various sites and look for individual hints as to their vitality, and then register and introduce yourself on each one. With Reddit it was a single search away, and the more or less consistent UI made it easy to tell "this is the active one." But importantly, it retained a lot of the value a forum does: a comment pool that persists, that shows up in Google later. Discord is a TERRIBLE substitute. It's not meaningfully threaded. It's not externally searchable. It doesn't even have the "it's federated, so we're not beholden to one specific owner who will inevitably tank it." catch.
    - agentgumshoe 3y ago
      Agree, Reddit just has the problem of scale and the need to make lots of money to support it. I also hate Discord, topic threads are the best way to categorise conversations. Discourse started the way down that path, never liked it either.
- yanderekko 3y ago
  >Which is not an ideal set of users to start a new community with. It can be if you're part of the ever-growing number of normal humans whose views fall outside of the tightening Overton Window that American elites want to impose on all social media platforms.
tyingq 3y ago
Posted recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36203610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36203610 Backend is P2P, but the UI fits your "knock off" question.
- ianai 3y ago
  I think you’re closest to what I was hoping for. Something like the vanilla software any admin could setup a reddit knock off ala a django forum app https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/forum/ https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/forum/
Springtime 3y ago
Kind of a tangent but Voat used to be a direct clone, though it seemed to attract more of a certain negative tone among its users that seemed to characterize the site. Culture of a site is as significant as the tech in terms of persuading/dissuading users from participating, particularly early on imo. Reddit has its own particular, identifiable cultural aspects (some positive, some negative) though it's also large enough that it's managed to escape being pinned down to only its more negative aspects. Twitter maybe not as much among some crowds though it's still a very broad userbase. Admin, mods and finally users set the tone of a site and lead by example. On HN for example the more one has read over time what the tone of the place is and the type of content and moderation, the likelier it will continue, almost Ship of Theseus style with regard to users. While if this place for example were more accepting of crass comments and submissions then the culture would adapt and invite more of the same. Some might like or prefer that but it also has its downsides, particularly for users who like aspects of a site/sub-community but find other aspects more difficult to be an apologist toward. Idk where I'm going with this apart from I wouldn't want to be in someone's shoes trying to broadly handle maintaining a decent culture that isn't weighed down/characterized only by its more negative aspects :p
- mort96 3y ago
  To add some context, Voat soared in popularity as Reddit closed down some hate-focused subreddits such as /r/fatpeoplehate. Predictably, when your user base is made up of almost exclusively people who are fleeing Reddit because Reddit wouldn't let them hate people loudly enough, things go downhill, especially if you're positioning yourself as a "free speech absolutist" alternative with lax moderation policies. I'm hopeful that Reddit alternatives which get popular now are getting an influx of more moderate users, who are fed up with Reddit's management's terrible treatment of developers (and overall bad direction lately with the redesign and pushing website users to use the app and generally chasing profit over all else). Sort of like how Mastodon got an influx of mostly decent users who are fed up with how Twitter is being run by an incompetent chud. EDIT: But to be clear, what these Reddit alternatives are trying to do is still extremely difficult. They have a better starting-point than Voat, so I give them better chances to not end up as cesspools, but nothing is certain.
bnralt 3y ago
Saidit seems like a direct clone that has some (limited) traction. /r/drama's Reddit knockoff just for themselves (at least I think it's just for themselves) looks to be larger, though (rdrama.net). It seems even a slight amount of required effort is too much for most people to go to another platform. Which should probably tell you something about the quality of online content these days.
- ianai 3y ago
  Sure but now could be a pivot point. These third party developers that are closing their apps could band together around a vanilla knock off if one could roll out a knock off like yet another Django app. Thinking of forum apps like https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/forum/ https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/forum/ Social wise, I imagine there are controls to steer how the site allows new content. Maybe start with just the subs that naturally tend toward the most use and least controversy. The pet subs, car maintenance, science, benign hobbies, news (tough but worth the clicks), etc.
- shitlord 3y ago
  The rDrama codebase is used for rDrama.net (19.6k users), watchpeopledie.tv (338k users), and a few other sites that fizzled out. TheMotte.org uses an rDrama fork with all the fun features (like blackjack) removed. The migration process is a lot of work and most communities just don't bother.
monigot 3y ago
The most similar to reddit I can find are saidit.net, scored.co and mainchan.com.

Are there any straight up knock offs of Reddit?

by ianai 3y ago

Are there any straight up knock offs of Reddit?

I created a "Reddit for News" where various RSS feeds provide an initial stream of stories but people have Reddit-like abilities to upvote or submit their own. It's at https://www.goobix.com/news/ https://www.goobix.com/news/ , I would be happy to get feedback or build capabilities people feel as missing.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bluescrn 3y ago

Until now, the only real demand for an alternative has come from users/communities banned from Reddit or opposed to the censorship/groupthink. Which is not an ideal set of users to start a new community with.

agentgumshoe 3y ago
One day, enough people will hopefully realise that internet forums of old (i.e. before Discourse) were perfectly good. Get some reasonable mods, make the rules clear, enjoy the community. Then we might all chill a bit. Pity everyone went chasing popularity, shouting loudly at each other and influencer moneys.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  IMO, the value of Reddit was that it was a group of forums with SSO and decent discoverability. If you wanted to find a forum on a specific topic on the broader web, you had to sift through various sites and look for individual hints as to their vitality, and then register and introduce yourself on each one. With Reddit it was a single search away, and the more or less consistent UI made it easy to tell "this is the active one." But importantly, it retained a lot of the value a forum does: a comment pool that persists, that shows up in Google later. Discord is a TERRIBLE substitute. It's not meaningfully threaded. It's not externally searchable. It doesn't even have the "it's federated, so we're not beholden to one specific owner who will inevitably tank it." catch.
  - agentgumshoe 3y ago
    Agree, Reddit just has the problem of scale and the need to make lots of money to support it. I also hate Discord, topic threads are the best way to categorise conversations. Discourse started the way down that path, never liked it either.
yanderekko 3y ago
>Which is not an ideal set of users to start a new community with. It can be if you're part of the ever-growing number of normal humans whose views fall outside of the tightening Overton Window that American elites want to impose on all social media platforms.

tyingq 3y ago

Posted recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36203610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36203610 Backend is P2P, but the UI fits your "knock off" question.

ianai 3y ago
I think you’re closest to what I was hoping for. Something like the vanilla software any admin could setup a reddit knock off ala a django forum app https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/forum/ https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/forum/

Springtime 3y ago

Kind of a tangent but Voat used to be a direct clone, though it seemed to attract more of a certain negative tone among its users that seemed to characterize the site. Culture of a site is as significant as the tech in terms of persuading/dissuading users from participating, particularly early on imo. Reddit has its own particular, identifiable cultural aspects (some positive, some negative) though it's also large enough that it's managed to escape being pinned down to only its more negative aspects. Twitter maybe not as much among some crowds though it's still a very broad userbase. Admin, mods and finally users set the tone of a site and lead by example. On HN for example the more one has read over time what the tone of the place is and the type of content and moderation, the likelier it will continue, almost Ship of Theseus style with regard to users. While if this place for example were more accepting of crass comments and submissions then the culture would adapt and invite more of the same. Some might like or prefer that but it also has its downsides, particularly for users who like aspects of a site/sub-community but find other aspects more difficult to be an apologist toward. Idk where I'm going with this apart from I wouldn't want to be in someone's shoes trying to broadly handle maintaining a decent culture that isn't weighed down/characterized only by its more negative aspects :p

mort96 3y ago
To add some context, Voat soared in popularity as Reddit closed down some hate-focused subreddits such as /r/fatpeoplehate. Predictably, when your user base is made up of almost exclusively people who are fleeing Reddit because Reddit wouldn't let them hate people loudly enough, things go downhill, especially if you're positioning yourself as a "free speech absolutist" alternative with lax moderation policies. I'm hopeful that Reddit alternatives which get popular now are getting an influx of more moderate users, who are fed up with Reddit's management's terrible treatment of developers (and overall bad direction lately with the redesign and pushing website users to use the app and generally chasing profit over all else). Sort of like how Mastodon got an influx of mostly decent users who are fed up with how Twitter is being run by an incompetent chud. EDIT: But to be clear, what these Reddit alternatives are trying to do is still extremely difficult. They have a better starting-point than Voat, so I give them better chances to not end up as cesspools, but nothing is certain.

bnralt 3y ago

Saidit seems like a direct clone that has some (limited) traction. /r/drama's Reddit knockoff just for themselves (at least I think it's just for themselves) looks to be larger, though (rdrama.net). It seems even a slight amount of required effort is too much for most people to go to another platform. Which should probably tell you something about the quality of online content these days.

ianai 3y ago
Sure but now could be a pivot point. These third party developers that are closing their apps could band together around a vanilla knock off if one could roll out a knock off like yet another Django app. Thinking of forum apps like https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/forum/ https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/forum/ Social wise, I imagine there are controls to steer how the site allows new content. Maybe start with just the subs that naturally tend toward the most use and least controversy. The pet subs, car maintenance, science, benign hobbies, news (tough but worth the clicks), etc.
shitlord 3y ago
The rDrama codebase is used for rDrama.net (19.6k users), watchpeopledie.tv (338k users), and a few other sites that fizzled out. TheMotte.org uses an rDrama fork with all the fun features (like blackjack) removed. The migration process is a lot of work and most communities just don't bother.

monigot 3y ago

The most similar to reddit I can find are saidit.net, scored.co and mainchan.com.