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Does this mean that Reddit will start evolving again? It's been stagnating for years with few user-facing changes. The UI is a complete mess. From the outside a

Does this mean that Reddit will start evolving again? It's been stagnating for years with few user-facing changes. The UI is a complete mess. From the outside at least, it looks like they've stopped investing in it and are just milking it until it dies.

ryanmerket 12y ago
This had little to do with Yishan, and more to do with having a user base that abhors changes.
- coke12 12y ago
  Yep, the "digg exodus" is almost mythical in reddit-history.
  - basch 12y ago
    eurpoeans colonizing america is almost mythical in western-history.
- paulhauggis 12y ago
  Which is funny, considering most on Reddit are all about being progressive..
  - mahranch 12y ago
    I don't think it's fair to conflate a progressive political ideology with website layout. The two aren't remotely related. You can subscribe to a progressive ideology and abhor a dramatic redesign of a website. Just because someone is "progressive" doesn't mean they need to accept all change.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
rsync 12y ago
Also, let me point out that advertising on reddit is a royal pain in the ass. They have all kinds of broken processes and weird quirks that have not been fixed since we started trying to advertise there in 2011. We recently went back to try some new campaigns there and none of it was fixed. I'm sure if you're doing big media buys (ie., you're microsoft) they will just do it all for you, but from the standpoint of the self-serve advertising, it's really, really broken and difficult.
- mschaecher 12y ago
  This. I've been back multiple times over the years to run some small campaigns for some big startups there and can't believe how bad and rough around edges their tools and processes are. If I didn't love reddit so much there is no way I would've put up with them to run a small campaign.
- lbotos 12y ago
  I'm not sure what scale you are operating at but for me the guy trying to test an MVP the self serve ads were great. I picked: An ad spend ($5) My Target subreddit When it runs And then a few days later my ad was live. For $5 it was ridiculously simple and easy. Can you elaborate on what you were looking for?
- ryanmerket 12y ago
  New PM on ads here. Completely agree and it's one of my top priorities to fix. Feel free to ping me directly if you ever want to give me more detailed feedback - ryan@reddit.com
  - Cerius 12y ago
    Hey Ryan, I didn't see your comment before I posted, but definitely take a gander at my previous comment for a good place to start. Good luck!
- getsat 12y ago
  Not being able to use redirects = non-starter. The first thing you learn when you work in the advertising industry is not to trust other people's metrics.
jo_ 12y ago
I'm guilty of abhorring UI changes. Very rarely do I see them as justified. I largely prefer incremental UI changes rather than grand overhauls. The latter seems to be a minimal increase in functionality and a maximal increase in glitz. I think Reddit has been taking the incremental approach, especially when it comes to rolling functionality into the main engine from all the (now less useful) browser plugins. That said, there's still a question that remains. Is the UI a mess? Maybe? Yes? I'm not sure. I'm so familiar with it at this point that I can't tell what's wrong with it. Most of the operations I care about are readily available. What, in particular, could use improvement?
- PavlovsCat 12y ago
  Personally, I feel it could be a bit more tabulated or lined up, if that makes sense? One tiny thing would be to change "submitted 10 hours ago by $username to $subreddit" to "$subreddit - 10 hours - $username", which I would argue is less "glitz", it's slightly less informative for newcomers to the site, but friendlier on the eye for repeated use, at least for me. I'd also some subtle visual cues to separate posts from each other. I know it's not modern, but I still like the look of forums; lots of little boxes to me actually feel less cluttered than lots of little boxes with no clear boundary around them. And I feel similarly about HN, which could do with some application of max-width on the comments the very least (if not the "boxes with subtle gradients and tasteful hints of shadows" style I am so fond of) Some things do help guide the eye, even a subtle gradient for example is a cue where you are scroll wise in a post that is larger than the screen; not that useful, but still not nothing, and I believe such things add up in addition to being friendlier to the eye. It's not about "design" for me, I don't like when that gets in the way of functionality either. Just keeping on iterating and smoothing things out.. I also don't like big overhauls, but I also always thought that while Craigslist proved that websites don't have to be shiny, it wouldn't have hurt it to have been made it a bit nicer over time. There is a lot that can be done without changing the location on the screen of any of the elements, just the looks and the space between them. But since no userbase that big will ever agree on anything and the default is no change.. maybe give users an easy way to create and share their own styles, and use them on some or all subreddits? Subreddit styles are one thing, a wonderful thing, but I bet you this would spawn a whole new wave of creativity and fresh designs, and who knows, maybe that in turn can give pointers on how to improve the default look (or simply provide several as options). Even as is, there are many subreddits which are perfectly greyish white and decent, but still a lot nicer looking IMHO than the default.
smackfu 12y ago
"Stagnating" with huge user / traffic growth is bad thing?
- debacle 12y ago
  When you're never going to be profitable, yes.
  - ryanmerket 12y ago
    Never is a strong word. We're alot closer than you probably think.
pavel_lishin 12y ago
> The UI is a complete mess. Isn't that kind of subjective? And as long as we're being subjective: It's got my favorite comment UI of any given news site - built in comment collapsing, ability to link to specific comments with parent context, flexibility in URLs, etc. HN could stand to borrow some of these improvements.
- scelerat 12y ago
  I wish reddit would remember my folds / unfolds per comment thread. Always stinks to read the comments, collapse some of the discussion for readability, click a link and then return to find the entire thread expanded again.
  - skeletonjelly 12y ago
    Simplest solution I've found to this is just use your browser tabs.
    - pavel_lishin 12y ago
      That doesn't really scale well, however - if you're reading dozens of threads over the course of a few days, well, good luck.
      - skeletonjelly 12y ago
        In that case I'm pretty sure RES saves the state of the collapsed threads.
        pavel_lishin 12y ago
        Yup, it does.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    I agree, that would be nice - for now, I use RES[1] which provides this. [1] http://redditenhancementsuite.com/ http://redditenhancementsuite.com/
randallsquared 12y ago
Wow, I hope not. I have most of the things they added turned off in settings, and the UI of the site as it is seems very difficult to improve upon, as long as all the images and such are off. I would much rather they focus on making it fast and stable (I quickly tire of "we took too long to make this page for you"), and leave the UI alone.
bibinou 12y ago
they just launched http://www.reddit.com/live http://www.reddit.com/live UX changes are the reason Digg died.

ryanmerket 12y ago

This had little to do with Yishan, and more to do with having a user base that abhors changes.

coke12 12y ago
Yep, the "digg exodus" is almost mythical in reddit-history.
- basch 12y ago
  eurpoeans colonizing america is almost mythical in western-history.
paulhauggis 12y ago
Which is funny, considering most on Reddit are all about being progressive..
- mahranch 12y ago
  I don't think it's fair to conflate a progressive political ideology with website layout. The two aren't remotely related. You can subscribe to a progressive ideology and abhor a dramatic redesign of a website. Just because someone is "progressive" doesn't mean they need to accept all change.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

rsync 12y ago

Also, let me point out that advertising on reddit is a royal pain in the ass. They have all kinds of broken processes and weird quirks that have not been fixed since we started trying to advertise there in 2011. We recently went back to try some new campaigns there and none of it was fixed. I'm sure if you're doing big media buys (ie., you're microsoft) they will just do it all for you, but from the standpoint of the self-serve advertising, it's really, really broken and difficult.

mschaecher 12y ago
This. I've been back multiple times over the years to run some small campaigns for some big startups there and can't believe how bad and rough around edges their tools and processes are. If I didn't love reddit so much there is no way I would've put up with them to run a small campaign.
lbotos 12y ago
I'm not sure what scale you are operating at but for me the guy trying to test an MVP the self serve ads were great. I picked: An ad spend ($5) My Target subreddit When it runs And then a few days later my ad was live. For $5 it was ridiculously simple and easy. Can you elaborate on what you were looking for?
ryanmerket 12y ago
New PM on ads here. Completely agree and it's one of my top priorities to fix. Feel free to ping me directly if you ever want to give me more detailed feedback - ryan@reddit.com
- Cerius 12y ago
  Hey Ryan, I didn't see your comment before I posted, but definitely take a gander at my previous comment for a good place to start. Good luck!
getsat 12y ago
Not being able to use redirects = non-starter. The first thing you learn when you work in the advertising industry is not to trust other people's metrics.

jo_ 12y ago

I'm guilty of abhorring UI changes. Very rarely do I see them as justified. I largely prefer incremental UI changes rather than grand overhauls. The latter seems to be a minimal increase in functionality and a maximal increase in glitz. I think Reddit has been taking the incremental approach, especially when it comes to rolling functionality into the main engine from all the (now less useful) browser plugins. That said, there's still a question that remains. Is the UI a mess? Maybe? Yes? I'm not sure. I'm so familiar with it at this point that I can't tell what's wrong with it. Most of the operations I care about are readily available. What, in particular, could use improvement?

PavlovsCat 12y ago
Personally, I feel it could be a bit more tabulated or lined up, if that makes sense? One tiny thing would be to change "submitted 10 hours ago by $username to $subreddit" to "$subreddit - 10 hours - $username", which I would argue is less "glitz", it's slightly less informative for newcomers to the site, but friendlier on the eye for repeated use, at least for me. I'd also some subtle visual cues to separate posts from each other. I know it's not modern, but I still like the look of forums; lots of little boxes to me actually feel less cluttered than lots of little boxes with no clear boundary around them. And I feel similarly about HN, which could do with some application of max-width on the comments the very least (if not the "boxes with subtle gradients and tasteful hints of shadows" style I am so fond of) Some things do help guide the eye, even a subtle gradient for example is a cue where you are scroll wise in a post that is larger than the screen; not that useful, but still not nothing, and I believe such things add up in addition to being friendlier to the eye. It's not about "design" for me, I don't like when that gets in the way of functionality either. Just keeping on iterating and smoothing things out.. I also don't like big overhauls, but I also always thought that while Craigslist proved that websites don't have to be shiny, it wouldn't have hurt it to have been made it a bit nicer over time. There is a lot that can be done without changing the location on the screen of any of the elements, just the looks and the space between them. But since no userbase that big will ever agree on anything and the default is no change.. maybe give users an easy way to create and share their own styles, and use them on some or all subreddits? Subreddit styles are one thing, a wonderful thing, but I bet you this would spawn a whole new wave of creativity and fresh designs, and who knows, maybe that in turn can give pointers on how to improve the default look (or simply provide several as options). Even as is, there are many subreddits which are perfectly greyish white and decent, but still a lot nicer looking IMHO than the default.

smackfu 12y ago

"Stagnating" with huge user / traffic growth is bad thing?

debacle 12y ago
When you're never going to be profitable, yes.
- ryanmerket 12y ago
  Never is a strong word. We're alot closer than you probably think.

pavel_lishin 12y ago

> The UI is a complete mess. Isn't that kind of subjective? And as long as we're being subjective: It's got my favorite comment UI of any given news site - built in comment collapsing, ability to link to specific comments with parent context, flexibility in URLs, etc. HN could stand to borrow some of these improvements.

scelerat 12y ago
I wish reddit would remember my folds / unfolds per comment thread. Always stinks to read the comments, collapse some of the discussion for readability, click a link and then return to find the entire thread expanded again.
- skeletonjelly 12y ago
  Simplest solution I've found to this is just use your browser tabs.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    That doesn't really scale well, however - if you're reading dozens of threads over the course of a few days, well, good luck.
    - skeletonjelly 12y ago
      In that case I'm pretty sure RES saves the state of the collapsed threads.
      - pavel_lishin 12y ago
        Yup, it does.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  I agree, that would be nice - for now, I use RES[1] which provides this. [1] http://redditenhancementsuite.com/ http://redditenhancementsuite.com/

randallsquared 12y ago

Wow, I hope not. I have most of the things they added turned off in settings, and the UI of the site as it is seems very difficult to improve upon, as long as all the images and such are off. I would much rather they focus on making it fast and stable (I quickly tire of "we took too long to make this page for you"), and leave the UI alone.

bibinou 12y ago

they just launched http://www.reddit.com/live http://www.reddit.com/live UX changes are the reason Digg died.