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I am of the opposing opinion. I think Reddit has an entirely separate purpose from a place like HN, and I think it hurts the bottom line of Reddit and makes th

I am of the opposing opinion. I think Reddit has an entirely separate purpose from a place like HN, and I think it hurts the bottom line of Reddit and makes the Internet a less interesting place if more moderation were to take place on Reddit. I just don't believe it's in Reddit's best financial interest to decrease the level of impact an individual user can have on its site. I also don't believe moderators, as they're currently designed on Reddit, are capable of discerning signal from noise. The whole driving premise of Reddit is the upvote, and that's an incredibly powerful concept. Legitimacy is established through adherence to core values, and Reddit's core values have always centered around what's popular, not what's "good" or "right", as judged by a few randomly selected people. Reddit is the upvote, not the moderator, isn't it? Edit: Sorry, this is a little rambling, but I'm torn between spending 20 minutes fleshing out this comment, and being a productive employee (aren't we all?). The overall gist of what I'm saying is the idea of a more "curated" Reddit, a la HN, would be bad for the website, the Internet, and the company primarily because of the lack of any kind of vetting of those who would curate the various reddits. I think there's a place on the Internet for a very profitable website that doesn't have any particular "quality control" beyond what the users like and don't like (janitorial tasks, e.g. spam filtering and illegal content pruning aside).

Goronmon 12y ago
>Reddit is the upvote, not the moderator, isn't it? In theory. In practice, strong moderators become more important the larger the community gets. And reddit is a very, very large community. >The whole driving premise of Reddit is the upvote, and that's an incredibly powerful concept. It's powerful, but not always in a good way. I think one of the better examples is looking at the difference between /r/gaming (light moderation) and /r/games (heavier moderation). While I am sometimes entertained by the content on /r/gaming, in general, it's a terrible subreddit that does a good job of soaking up most of the crap discussions surrounding gaming (5 threads a day of "Has anyone else ever played Zelda?"). Whereas /r/games actually has content worth reading a vast majority of the time and it's not just a filtered versions of /r/all for threads that have "game" in the title.
- diminoten 12y ago
  But don't you see how problematic your argument is? You more or less beg the entire question by saying, "/r/games actually has content worth reading" -- I mean this in a non-offensive way, but who are you to say that? What's "content worth reading" for you may not actually be content worth reading for anyone else. That's how I see the design of Reddit -- it doesn't seem to me to be the place where every single link is supposed to be tailored specifically for you/the crowd. I think people come to Reddit expecting a finished product, where the front page is a curated listing of the most interesting things that the Internet has to offer, when in reality, the only way Reddit works is if YOU help push it in that direction. You're not viewing a finished product, you're helping make the product! Push those up/down votes and use that voice that you've got to make your Reddit reflect more of what you want it to be. I think that's partially why Sam Altman is giving some of his shares to actual users, isn't it?
  - sillysaurus3 12y ago
    There are hundreds of thousands of voters participating on /r/all content. Your vote isn't going to matter whatsoever except in the critical time between when something is first submitted and when it falls off of the new submissions page (and rising page, and controversial page). A ten minute conversation with the average voter will repel you from the idea that eveyone should want to listen to what 51% of most people would upvote, or should dislike what 51% of people would downvote. But your frontpage will be filled with the former, and you'll never be able to find the gems in the latter without serious time investment. Upvote isn't enough. Hence, moderation.
    - diminoten 12y ago
      Your vote isn't supposed to matter, not any more than anyone else's vote. That's the entire premise of democracy, in fact, a fact that's completely and utterly ruined by the arbitrary nature of moderation. The idea that you'd ever go to reddit.com or reddit.com/r/foo and see nothing but gems is a pipe dream. You're asking other people to do your work for you. You are the one who's supposed to contribute your up/downvote.

Goronmon 12y ago

>Reddit is the upvote, not the moderator, isn't it? In theory. In practice, strong moderators become more important the larger the community gets. And reddit is a very, very large community. >The whole driving premise of Reddit is the upvote, and that's an incredibly powerful concept. It's powerful, but not always in a good way. I think one of the better examples is looking at the difference between /r/gaming (light moderation) and /r/games (heavier moderation). While I am sometimes entertained by the content on /r/gaming, in general, it's a terrible subreddit that does a good job of soaking up most of the crap discussions surrounding gaming (5 threads a day of "Has anyone else ever played Zelda?"). Whereas /r/games actually has content worth reading a vast majority of the time and it's not just a filtered versions of /r/all for threads that have "game" in the title.

diminoten 12y ago
But don't you see how problematic your argument is? You more or less beg the entire question by saying, "/r/games actually has content worth reading" -- I mean this in a non-offensive way, but who are you to say that? What's "content worth reading" for you may not actually be content worth reading for anyone else. That's how I see the design of Reddit -- it doesn't seem to me to be the place where every single link is supposed to be tailored specifically for you/the crowd. I think people come to Reddit expecting a finished product, where the front page is a curated listing of the most interesting things that the Internet has to offer, when in reality, the only way Reddit works is if YOU help push it in that direction. You're not viewing a finished product, you're helping make the product! Push those up/down votes and use that voice that you've got to make your Reddit reflect more of what you want it to be. I think that's partially why Sam Altman is giving some of his shares to actual users, isn't it?
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  There are hundreds of thousands of voters participating on /r/all content. Your vote isn't going to matter whatsoever except in the critical time between when something is first submitted and when it falls off of the new submissions page (and rising page, and controversial page). A ten minute conversation with the average voter will repel you from the idea that eveyone should want to listen to what 51% of most people would upvote, or should dislike what 51% of people would downvote. But your frontpage will be filled with the former, and you'll never be able to find the gems in the latter without serious time investment. Upvote isn't enough. Hence, moderation.
  - diminoten 12y ago
    Your vote isn't supposed to matter, not any more than anyone else's vote. That's the entire premise of democracy, in fact, a fact that's completely and utterly ruined by the arbitrary nature of moderation. The idea that you'd ever go to reddit.com or reddit.com/r/foo and see nothing but gems is a pipe dream. You're asking other people to do your work for you. You are the one who's supposed to contribute your up/downvote.