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I full-on ditched Reddit about 3 months ago and haven't looked back. Any sort of criticism I lodged against the site for its insipid circle-jerking nature, to t

I full-on ditched Reddit about 3 months ago and haven't looked back. Any sort of criticism I lodged against the site for its insipid circle-jerking nature, to the small-minded, deep-south like approach to cultural issues were met with extreme hostility, or simply downvotes, so as to keep unpopular opinions ignored. I was a user of that site for 6 years. I had over 85k karma points for comments, and several thousand story karma points. It seems like the audience has changed greatly in more recent years, and I want no part of it. The users who evangelize that site, or are so devoted to it as to attend meetups are pathetically biased, and contribute nothing to the advancement of internet culture, or the culture of idea exchange. I feel very sad for the site, as I thought, at one point, it was a great bastion of freely-exchanged ideas. And now it's just a great place to espouse radical views for worthless internet points.

protomyth 14y ago
"small-minded, deep-south like approach to cultural issues" stereotyping isn't really helping when talking about issues likes this
theorique 14y ago
The site is huge and there's something for everyone. If you want to go to /r/python or /r/ruby, you can discuss your favorite language intelligently. If you want to go to ... other ... subreddits then you can share conversation and media of a different nature. Some of which is quite unacceptable to the mainstream. It's like saying the internet is a bad influence on society because porn and phishing. Yes, that stuff is there, but you can avoid it if you want.
mattgreenrocks 14y ago
There is no Internet culture, just a bunch of pop culture references that the Reddit/4chan/whomever groupthink have deemed fashionable to talk about. It's just like pop culture: everyone likes something because they think everyone else likes it. Sure, it has some intrinsic value (else it wouldn't have surfaced), but the real value is saying, "I'm a part of this group." It's entirely transient, and intended as a distraction, nothing more. But, more to the point, any criticism of Reddit is potentially viewed as an insult to the precious 'culture' that has been so pain-stakingly upvoted and meme'd to death. Reddit, like most aggregators, makes it far too easy to comment, and far too easy to vote on comments and stories.
- resu_nimda 14y ago
  > There is no Internet culture Seriously? Your comment is largely hyperbolic animosity. Yeah, I get that endless image macros and memes are seen as a low-brow form of culture, but "internet culture" is very real and goes way beyond that. I don't understand why you've dismissed it entirely.
  - mattgreenrocks 14y ago
    How does it go beyond that? I'm willing to be wrong here. If you lump movements like open source and such in, I see your point. But often, self-identified "Internet culture" seems virtually indistinguishable from pop culture.
    - resu_nimda 14y ago
      I'm basically talking about online communities. 4chan, reddit, somethingawful, various game forums, and on down to all the myriad niches, including this one. True, their contributions to culture have varied wildly along the scales of importance, intellectual value, or whatever metric you choose. Some examples, though, of what I would consider to be generally culturally impactful movements born of internet culture: Anonymous, WikiLeaks, Occupy, digital piracy, and the gradually changing way people are learning to interact and communicate ("kids these days, with their phones"). Edit: And politics - Ron Paul and libertarianism, twitter everything, youtube debates. And I'm not saying I support all of these things, just that they are pretty widely relevant.
potatolicious 14y ago
I still use reddit, but I have literally unsubscribed from every default subreddit (save /r/gaming since it tends to stay pretty light/fun). Reddit sans the default subreddits is substantially more pleasant. I'd go as far as to say that subreddits like /r/politics, /r/atheism, /r/worldnews, and even /r/technology are just cesspits. I'm not sure what causes large subreddits to spiral into utter shit, but it does. I'm also of the general opinion that most of the large subreddits are poorly moderated - mods will rarely take action even against egregious trolls, and there is no attempts at leadership. The main subreddit I use, /r/photography, has a relatively new mod team that actually actively ban trolls and initiate weekly/monthly events to steer the conversation (e.g., "no talk about gear" threads, "weekly photographers that inspire you", etc).
- jlgreco 14y ago
  > I'm not sure what causes large subreddits to spiral into utter shit, but it does. My money? Karma systems. I don't think they scale as well as many would like. When you get up to "default subreddit" sized karma systems just turn into some sort of currency system that rewards those who are ultimately detrimental to the conversation: specifically those making repeated boring puns/memes because they are easy and formulaic, and those making formulaic complaints about superficial elements of the post in question (flooding entire comment sections with complaints about grammar/spelling/limited vocabulary). I don't think these behaviors would be nearly so prevalent without a karma system. Why would the 200th person to comment on an article make the 200th comment about a "there/their" error, if not because they thought they would get imaginary internet points? Karma systems take the initial reward for discussion (intellectual satisfaction) and out-bid it with gamification induced endorphin rushes.
- joshAg 14y ago
  eternal september is what you're thinking of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September it's also why I've unsubscribed from almost all the default subreddits (i'm still subbed to default_gems and bestof).

protomyth 14y ago

"small-minded, deep-south like approach to cultural issues" stereotyping isn't really helping when talking about issues likes this

theorique 14y ago

The site is huge and there's something for everyone. If you want to go to /r/python or /r/ruby, you can discuss your favorite language intelligently. If you want to go to ... other ... subreddits then you can share conversation and media of a different nature. Some of which is quite unacceptable to the mainstream. It's like saying the internet is a bad influence on society because porn and phishing. Yes, that stuff is there, but you can avoid it if you want.

mattgreenrocks 14y ago

There is no Internet culture, just a bunch of pop culture references that the Reddit/4chan/whomever groupthink have deemed fashionable to talk about. It's just like pop culture: everyone likes something because they think everyone else likes it. Sure, it has some intrinsic value (else it wouldn't have surfaced), but the real value is saying, "I'm a part of this group." It's entirely transient, and intended as a distraction, nothing more. But, more to the point, any criticism of Reddit is potentially viewed as an insult to the precious 'culture' that has been so pain-stakingly upvoted and meme'd to death. Reddit, like most aggregators, makes it far too easy to comment, and far too easy to vote on comments and stories.

resu_nimda 14y ago
> There is no Internet culture Seriously? Your comment is largely hyperbolic animosity. Yeah, I get that endless image macros and memes are seen as a low-brow form of culture, but "internet culture" is very real and goes way beyond that. I don't understand why you've dismissed it entirely.
- mattgreenrocks 14y ago
  How does it go beyond that? I'm willing to be wrong here. If you lump movements like open source and such in, I see your point. But often, self-identified "Internet culture" seems virtually indistinguishable from pop culture.
  - resu_nimda 14y ago
    I'm basically talking about online communities. 4chan, reddit, somethingawful, various game forums, and on down to all the myriad niches, including this one. True, their contributions to culture have varied wildly along the scales of importance, intellectual value, or whatever metric you choose. Some examples, though, of what I would consider to be generally culturally impactful movements born of internet culture: Anonymous, WikiLeaks, Occupy, digital piracy, and the gradually changing way people are learning to interact and communicate ("kids these days, with their phones"). Edit: And politics - Ron Paul and libertarianism, twitter everything, youtube debates. And I'm not saying I support all of these things, just that they are pretty widely relevant.

potatolicious 14y ago

I still use reddit, but I have literally unsubscribed from every default subreddit (save /r/gaming since it tends to stay pretty light/fun). Reddit sans the default subreddits is substantially more pleasant. I'd go as far as to say that subreddits like /r/politics, /r/atheism, /r/worldnews, and even /r/technology are just cesspits. I'm not sure what causes large subreddits to spiral into utter shit, but it does. I'm also of the general opinion that most of the large subreddits are poorly moderated - mods will rarely take action even against egregious trolls, and there is no attempts at leadership. The main subreddit I use, /r/photography, has a relatively new mod team that actually actively ban trolls and initiate weekly/monthly events to steer the conversation (e.g., "no talk about gear" threads, "weekly photographers that inspire you", etc).

jlgreco 14y ago
> I'm not sure what causes large subreddits to spiral into utter shit, but it does. My money? Karma systems. I don't think they scale as well as many would like. When you get up to "default subreddit" sized karma systems just turn into some sort of currency system that rewards those who are ultimately detrimental to the conversation: specifically those making repeated boring puns/memes because they are easy and formulaic, and those making formulaic complaints about superficial elements of the post in question (flooding entire comment sections with complaints about grammar/spelling/limited vocabulary). I don't think these behaviors would be nearly so prevalent without a karma system. Why would the 200th person to comment on an article make the 200th comment about a "there/their" error, if not because they thought they would get imaginary internet points? Karma systems take the initial reward for discussion (intellectual satisfaction) and out-bid it with gamification induced endorphin rushes.
joshAg 14y ago
eternal september is what you're thinking of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September it's also why I've unsubscribed from almost all the default subreddits (i'm still subbed to default_gems and bestof).