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I really like the content of FP and the Atlantic. Nevertheless, I already have a feedreader, and I don't need to see HN, or reddit turned into another RSS feed

by jerrya 14y ago

I really like the content of FP and the Atlantic. Nevertheless, I already have a feedreader, and I don't need to see HN, or reddit turned into another RSS feed or twitter. If your stuff is good it will rise to the top. In the meantime, especially at HN, it crowds out less well known sources and authors and bloggers.

cookiecaper 14y ago
Is there some good reason publishers shouldn't have an API to submit their stories automatically and then let the votes do their thing? The concepts of an official content feed and democratic filtration of stories are not mutually exclusive.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- nooneelse 14y ago
  The initial work-function of someone submitting a link is the first filter for if something is good/"worth other people looking at". Taking it away means more stress on the remaining levels of filtering. So if the same things are to get through the sum of all filters, either the remaining levels will need to be more robust to compensate for taking away the first filter, or the first level should just be kept in place. More abstractly, are there to be no places where people, real humans, can talk with each other without the advertising machines wedging their obnoxious way between us uninvited? Surely you can see there is some value in having such places. If the populous of reddit wants it to be such a place, then spammers are like someone at a party trying to sell watches to everyone rather than conversing. The hosts have asked them to cool it or leave. These particular louts didn't cool it, so the hosts pushed them out the door.
- scotttobejoking 14y ago
  The good reason is that that would be trying to present a technical solution to what is a personal conflict of interest. The basic problem is that people's stories are competing for eyeballs - a personal conflict - and that people are not satisfied with a fair resolution with that conflict (letting the general public decide). They are seeking an unfair level of exposure. You can't solve the basic problem of conflict technically; the best you can do is to provide fair tools. Trying to provide tools for content access, though, is unrelated (orthogonal, really) to the issue of fairness. Changing how the content is delivered won't really change things. Either it will be fair (everyone can submit to the API) or it won't be. If it is fair, then every smart publisher will publish to the API (heck, who wouldn't want to autopublish their blog to reddit?) and the result will be a pretty useless firehose :-D If it's not fair, then you're undercutting democratic filtration...
fluidcruft 14y ago
There might be something workable if RSS aggregation functionality were built into reddit and subreddit moderators/owners could add approved feeds to their subreddits as a sort of "tickler" stream. So when you browse to new you would see something like "new | rising | unsubmitted". That could actually be useful for some of the low-volume, off-the-beaten-path specialist subreddits.
showerst 14y ago
You do have a point about crowding, and I actually like the system as it is. That said, as a bigger content provider, I think the system of "Someone almost certainly will submit your content anyway, but with a title and timing that that they choose, and you don't get a fair shot at preempting them" is a bit frustrating. That's of course the nature of the internet, and I don't want an HN/Reddit where publishers have _exclusive_ control or spamability.
look_lookatme 14y ago
"If your stuff is good it will rise to the top." That's never the case on any of these sites.

by jerrya 14y ago

cookiecaper 14y ago

Is there some good reason publishers shouldn't have an API to submit their stories automatically and then let the votes do their thing? The concepts of an official content feed and democratic filtration of stories are not mutually exclusive.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nooneelse 14y ago
The initial work-function of someone submitting a link is the first filter for if something is good/"worth other people looking at". Taking it away means more stress on the remaining levels of filtering. So if the same things are to get through the sum of all filters, either the remaining levels will need to be more robust to compensate for taking away the first filter, or the first level should just be kept in place. More abstractly, are there to be no places where people, real humans, can talk with each other without the advertising machines wedging their obnoxious way between us uninvited? Surely you can see there is some value in having such places. If the populous of reddit wants it to be such a place, then spammers are like someone at a party trying to sell watches to everyone rather than conversing. The hosts have asked them to cool it or leave. These particular louts didn't cool it, so the hosts pushed them out the door.
scotttobejoking 14y ago
The good reason is that that would be trying to present a technical solution to what is a personal conflict of interest. The basic problem is that people's stories are competing for eyeballs - a personal conflict - and that people are not satisfied with a fair resolution with that conflict (letting the general public decide). They are seeking an unfair level of exposure. You can't solve the basic problem of conflict technically; the best you can do is to provide fair tools. Trying to provide tools for content access, though, is unrelated (orthogonal, really) to the issue of fairness. Changing how the content is delivered won't really change things. Either it will be fair (everyone can submit to the API) or it won't be. If it is fair, then every smart publisher will publish to the API (heck, who wouldn't want to autopublish their blog to reddit?) and the result will be a pretty useless firehose :-D If it's not fair, then you're undercutting democratic filtration...

fluidcruft 14y ago

There might be something workable if RSS aggregation functionality were built into reddit and subreddit moderators/owners could add approved feeds to their subreddits as a sort of "tickler" stream. So when you browse to new you would see something like "new | rising | unsubmitted". That could actually be useful for some of the low-volume, off-the-beaten-path specialist subreddits.

showerst 14y ago

You do have a point about crowding, and I actually like the system as it is. That said, as a bigger content provider, I think the system of "Someone almost certainly will submit your content anyway, but with a title and timing that that they choose, and you don't get a fair shot at preempting them" is a bit frustrating. That's of course the nature of the internet, and I don't want an HN/Reddit where publishers have _exclusive_ control or spamability.

look_lookatme 14y ago

"If your stuff is good it will rise to the top." That's never the case on any of these sites.