3 ms·

What was reddit like before it got "Dugg"?

5 points by aswanson 19y ago

I never visited the site back when, so what made it so appealing? A lot of hackers here seem to have a nostalgia for the olden days.

rms 19y ago
A smaller community submitting higher quality links without dumb comments by 13 year olds. The initial community was seeded by Y Combinator and Paul Graham. Check out PG's links here: http://reddit.com/user/bugbear/submitted?offset=300 http://reddit.com/user/bugbear/submitted?offset=300
pg 19y ago
It's all still there. http://reddit.com/info/bwbu/comments http://reddit.com/info/bwbu/comments
- pretzel 19y ago
  And if you have a look at the first 5 comments, 4 of those commenters have all posted in the last day (2 in the last hour). So it has not completely lost its potential. It just needs a channel through which it can bloom again.
blored 19y ago
Conjecture: I don't think Hacker News will ever have the same feel as reddit, or at least the type of banter than went on in those posts. Why? Because I think too many people reading these posts want to get YC funding and are therefore stepping on eggshells with what they say. On the converse side the conversation is probably more polite than other forums.
- falsestprophet 19y ago
  I've personally seen Paul Graham kill a kitten with a blender. edit: It was horrible.
minus1 19y ago
richardkulisz http://reddit.com/user/richardkulisz/ http://reddit.com/user/richardkulisz/
- staunch 19y ago
  Now known as http://reddit.com/user/redditcensoredme/ http://reddit.com/user/redditcensoredme/
mwerty 19y ago
IMHO, reddit can do the following to clean up: 1. make my.reddit.com the default and make it harder to get to the current default front page. 2. This was a while back so they may have fixed this already: Don't screw up on the cookie/log in process - I've had to log in several times to reddit despite not logging out. I finally stopped logging in. Their ip logs probably tell the story better and can validate my experience. Its a small bug and takes a while to realize the full impact on user experience. The auto-login is sacred for a site like reddit. 3. Work really hard on the recommendation engine for comments as well.
- mwerty 19y ago
  s/my.reddit.com/http://reddit.com/recommended/ http://reddit.com/recommended/ in above post.
  - BrandonM 19y ago
    "Execution aborted due to compilation errors." You didn't escape your slashes.
lebski88 19y ago
It had an intelligent and interesting community that was almost exclusively made up of programmers. The submissions were made up of programming, science and general interest links. What made it great was the quality of comments; the discussion was the most interesting and insightful of any on-line community I've ever found. The links these days aren't the problem - its the comments. Sadly I've found the quality of my comments has dropped along with general trend - people tend to ignore long comments these days in favour of quick opinions. [edit] also the size of the community helped. You got to know regular posters and this lack of anonymity encouraged a quality of discussion.

5 points by aswanson 19y ago

I never visited the site back when, so what made it so appealing? A lot of hackers here seem to have a nostalgia for the olden days.

rms 19y ago

A smaller community submitting higher quality links without dumb comments by 13 year olds. The initial community was seeded by Y Combinator and Paul Graham. Check out PG's links here: http://reddit.com/user/bugbear/submitted?offset=300 http://reddit.com/user/bugbear/submitted?offset=300

pg 19y ago

It's all still there. http://reddit.com/info/bwbu/comments http://reddit.com/info/bwbu/comments

pretzel 19y ago
And if you have a look at the first 5 comments, 4 of those commenters have all posted in the last day (2 in the last hour). So it has not completely lost its potential. It just needs a channel through which it can bloom again.

blored 19y ago

Conjecture: I don't think Hacker News will ever have the same feel as reddit, or at least the type of banter than went on in those posts. Why? Because I think too many people reading these posts want to get YC funding and are therefore stepping on eggshells with what they say. On the converse side the conversation is probably more polite than other forums.

falsestprophet 19y ago
I've personally seen Paul Graham kill a kitten with a blender. edit: It was horrible.

minus1 19y ago

richardkulisz http://reddit.com/user/richardkulisz/ http://reddit.com/user/richardkulisz/

staunch 19y ago
Now known as http://reddit.com/user/redditcensoredme/ http://reddit.com/user/redditcensoredme/

mwerty 19y ago

IMHO, reddit can do the following to clean up: 1. make my.reddit.com the default and make it harder to get to the current default front page. 2. This was a while back so they may have fixed this already: Don't screw up on the cookie/log in process - I've had to log in several times to reddit despite not logging out. I finally stopped logging in. Their ip logs probably tell the story better and can validate my experience. Its a small bug and takes a while to realize the full impact on user experience. The auto-login is sacred for a site like reddit. 3. Work really hard on the recommendation engine for comments as well.

mwerty 19y ago
s/my.reddit.com/http://reddit.com/recommended/ http://reddit.com/recommended/ in above post.
- BrandonM 19y ago
  "Execution aborted due to compilation errors." You didn't escape your slashes.

lebski88 19y ago

It had an intelligent and interesting community that was almost exclusively made up of programmers. The submissions were made up of programming, science and general interest links. What made it great was the quality of comments; the discussion was the most interesting and insightful of any on-line community I've ever found. The links these days aren't the problem - its the comments. Sadly I've found the quality of my comments has dropped along with general trend - people tend to ignore long comments these days in favour of quick opinions. [edit] also the size of the community helped. You got to know regular posters and this lack of anonymity encouraged a quality of discussion.