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This is not a good take for the things that Reddit really excelled at: niche hobbies. Mechanical keyboards, mushroom cultivation, home brewing, just to name a f

by Niksko 3y ago

This is not a good take for the things that Reddit really excelled at: niche hobbies. Mechanical keyboards, mushroom cultivation, home brewing, just to name a few of my interests. None of that gets much traction on HN, nor outside unless your friends happen to have the same interests. Discord has a bit of that content, but I find Discord harder to engage with because it feels a bit more synchronous and time sensitive.

fisherjeff 3y ago
I can only comment on homebrewing but in my experience, local homebrewing clubs exist and are usually way more fun than Reddit
comechao 3y ago
Yeah, Discord is probably the "real-time" alternative to Reddit. Unfortunately, it's not searchable. The real problem is not software but, as many pointed out before, building a community of communities that size is hard.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  > The real problem is not software but, as many pointed out before, building a community of communities that size is hard. Personally, I believe the solution is aggregation rather than forming a “community”. Outside of maybe subreddit networks, there wasn’t a whole lot of connection between various redditors. You really can’t consider the entirety of Reddit one large “community” housing other communities. Instead, it was more akin to a fancy RSS feed, aggregating posts from various communities together under a standardized API with some unnecessary algorithms mixed in. So, my solution would be to promote individuality in communities, with having separate websites, but to offer an open source website that houses links to various communities alongside their RSS feeds.
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
Reddit was only “good” at those topics in that it was easy to find niches. Not that there was any measurable quality in the discussions. I cannot think of a single interest of mine where Reddit trumped dedicated forums. From Dakkadakka to geekhack to BladeForums, it really wasn’t overly beneficial. Easier to keep track of topics, maybe, but any subreddit of decent size was mostly advertising/memes anyway, not true discussion. The only aspect I can truly say Reddit was good for me was the basics of archiving, personal finances, cooking, and frugality. And I’m sure there’s even better forums dedicated to those topics.
throw9away6 3y ago
The mushroom forms and the home brew friend are much better
pc86 3y ago
Re: Discord I've felt exactly the same but was never able to articulate quite this well. When I remember to open the app and after the initial shock of seeing literally thousands of notifications across several dozen channels, it feels like I can only meaningfully interact with whatever conversations happen to be going on at that particular time.

by Niksko 3y ago

fisherjeff 3y ago

I can only comment on homebrewing but in my experience, local homebrewing clubs exist and are usually way more fun than Reddit

comechao 3y ago

Yeah, Discord is probably the "real-time" alternative to Reddit. Unfortunately, it's not searchable. The real problem is not software but, as many pointed out before, building a community of communities that size is hard.

tourmalinetaco 3y ago
> The real problem is not software but, as many pointed out before, building a community of communities that size is hard. Personally, I believe the solution is aggregation rather than forming a “community”. Outside of maybe subreddit networks, there wasn’t a whole lot of connection between various redditors. You really can’t consider the entirety of Reddit one large “community” housing other communities. Instead, it was more akin to a fancy RSS feed, aggregating posts from various communities together under a standardized API with some unnecessary algorithms mixed in. So, my solution would be to promote individuality in communities, with having separate websites, but to offer an open source website that houses links to various communities alongside their RSS feeds.

tourmalinetaco 3y ago

Reddit was only “good” at those topics in that it was easy to find niches. Not that there was any measurable quality in the discussions. I cannot think of a single interest of mine where Reddit trumped dedicated forums. From Dakkadakka to geekhack to BladeForums, it really wasn’t overly beneficial. Easier to keep track of topics, maybe, but any subreddit of decent size was mostly advertising/memes anyway, not true discussion. The only aspect I can truly say Reddit was good for me was the basics of archiving, personal finances, cooking, and frugality. And I’m sure there’s even better forums dedicated to those topics.

throw9away6 3y ago

The mushroom forms and the home brew friend are much better

pc86 3y ago

Re: Discord I've felt exactly the same but was never able to articulate quite this well. When I remember to open the app and after the initial shock of seeing literally thousands of notifications across several dozen channels, it feels like I can only meaningfully interact with whatever conversations happen to be going on at that particular time.