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The Reddit recommendation algorithm is appallingly bad (non existent or negative value), with zero insight into who I am as a person (yet). Their "don't show p

The Reddit recommendation algorithm is appallingly bad (non existent or negative value), with zero insight into who I am as a person (yet). Their "don't show posts like this" button does nothing, I believe. If I click into a subreddit out of interest, decide it isn't for me and mute the subreddit: Reddit thinks I like the muted subreddit and suggests similar. In the last 6 months, after turning on recommendations out of interest: - I have muted ~100 sports subreddits (I do not like watching sport, reddit! Please hear me, please take this information for free!) - I have muted ~30 soccer subreddits. - I have muted ~30 Aussie rules subreddits. - I have muted ~20 pop subreddits, ~10 death metal subreddits. - I have muted ~30 celebrity-person subreddits. - I have muted ~30 "let's laugh at this unfortunate person" subreddits. - I have muted ~10 outwardly racist subreddits. - I have muted ~10 "let's be so frugal as to not enjoy life / here's some online work for <$5/hr" subreddits. But still, next week reddit will try to get me to sub to r/astonvilla or something. If I accidentally click on something though, I won't hear the end of it. I have no faith in reddit ever being turned around. The data may be worth something. But the codebase is a liability in every sense of the word, not an asset. Neither new nor old.reddit are salvageable at this point. Perhaps they have some valuable internal tools. I wouldn't bet money on it. I'm sure their engineers are talented, but their bosses have blindfolded, handcuffed and toxified them. I have seen nothing of value given by them to the community. I have seen nothing but leaching, dark patterns, bugs, memory problems, jittering, unethical business models and poor Personnel choices. Maybe I've missed something and I have a very unfair lens here. The IP is worth nothing. The data will not be used for anything good. Deleting comments etc. will, of course, just be a boolean/flag column rather than true row deletion. Am I unfair or mistaken? And am I incorrect in saying 'The IPO will do nothing of good for consumers or the industry'?.

Gorbzel 3y ago
Not so much that you’ve missed something or are mistaken, but Reddit is likely promoting those subs because they’re some of the only active high quality (I.e. not bots/astroturfing) ones left. Not going to go through every example you gave, but the specific sport and team subreddits represent live and ongoing content rather than reposts from a decade ago, with many fans, strong communities, and nowhere else really to go. Consider the decline of traditional, non-steaming live TV networks, where at least here in the US, 98/100 of the top rated events people are still watching the old fashioned way are sports. Same thing.
- chris-orgmenta 3y ago
  I agree that's a big part of it. Although to play devil's advocate a little: There are plenty of great subreddits that I had to find on my own that are thriving. Smaller subreddits, but I suggest that's partly because the people that would be interested in them aren't offered them, so it's a self fulfilling prophecy to some extent.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    > great subreddits [...] that are thriving The issue is, however, that the managers of that community, the ones that make it thrive, have basically no comeback if reddit decides to arbitrarily step in and alter how it's run, which has been done many many times with the admins clearly not operating in a good faith manner. Subreddit mods are told 'add more mods' and they add more mods. They're then told 'no, add some of _these_ mods.' The mods that are added then immediately go full wrecker and destroy the community. Alternatively, subreddit mods are told 'you have too many unanswered modqueue messages' - they reply in public 'we have no unanswered modqueue messages' - reddit replies by banning them. Seen it happen many times. Not a viable platform. The admins simply enjoy fucking with the userbase too much. The contempt they have for the users is so obvious.

Gorbzel 3y ago

Not so much that you’ve missed something or are mistaken, but Reddit is likely promoting those subs because they’re some of the only active high quality (I.e. not bots/astroturfing) ones left. Not going to go through every example you gave, but the specific sport and team subreddits represent live and ongoing content rather than reposts from a decade ago, with many fans, strong communities, and nowhere else really to go. Consider the decline of traditional, non-steaming live TV networks, where at least here in the US, 98/100 of the top rated events people are still watching the old fashioned way are sports. Same thing.

chris-orgmenta 3y ago
I agree that's a big part of it. Although to play devil's advocate a little: There are plenty of great subreddits that I had to find on my own that are thriving. Smaller subreddits, but I suggest that's partly because the people that would be interested in them aren't offered them, so it's a self fulfilling prophecy to some extent.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  > great subreddits [...] that are thriving The issue is, however, that the managers of that community, the ones that make it thrive, have basically no comeback if reddit decides to arbitrarily step in and alter how it's run, which has been done many many times with the admins clearly not operating in a good faith manner. Subreddit mods are told 'add more mods' and they add more mods. They're then told 'no, add some of _these_ mods.' The mods that are added then immediately go full wrecker and destroy the community. Alternatively, subreddit mods are told 'you have too many unanswered modqueue messages' - they reply in public 'we have no unanswered modqueue messages' - reddit replies by banning them. Seen it happen many times. Not a viable platform. The admins simply enjoy fucking with the userbase too much. The contempt they have for the users is so obvious.