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I logged out of reddit about a month ago. I changed my password to something incomprehensible. To me, reddit has become a link aggregator over being a social pl

by debacle 12y ago

I logged out of reddit about a month ago. I changed my password to something incomprehensible. To me, reddit has become a link aggregator over being a social place. I still visit about a half dozen subreddits daily, but only insomuch as to get my news. I think that will be its demise. Reddit's volunteer moderation and vote gaming makes it a poor non-biased link aggregator unless you want an echo chamber. Some people certainly do, but as HN has shown, that can only last so long. There's already talks about the way /r/iama is monetized and the changes to the default reddits (as well as the removal of some reddits as defaults) destabilized the site and trashed some of the more long-standing communities on the site in favor of more inter-subreddit traffic. I think that the reddit technical model is fine. It worked for years before reddit was even around, and I think it can still work now, but reddit's business model is working behind the scenes to sabotage the integrity of the technical model. reddit as a social experiment seems to be coming to an end.

optimusclimb 12y ago
The trend that finally sent me out was when good subreddits focused on specific topics started turning into show and tell for adults - and usually just amounted to, "Hey I bought that expensive thing that all of the group says is THE one to get, here is a picture of it in my house, it probably looks similar to the one you have". I suppose in a way, the recent investment might match that consumerist focus.
- orbitur 12y ago
  Each subreddit needs a good set of mods, especially when there are thousands of subscribers. Once a subreddit hits some magic number, it devolves into a stream of image links to "hey I made a cake/painting/object with [subject of subreddit] on it". Mods can very easily guide users toward discussion. r/atheism infamously banned images altogether, and aside from the "REVOLT I WANT MEMES IN MY R/ATHEISM" posts, people actually started talking again. r/twoxchromosomes has a no-images-unless-it's-Friday rule.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    The challenge is that what we think of as high quality content is not what Reddit Inc. has seen leading the growth. Images and fluffy content are easier to consume, and therefore more profitable for the site.
    - orbitur 12y ago
      Absolutely. And the popular subreddits are already sort of pre-disposed to fluffy content due to their intended subject matter. I'm not saying the mods of r/funny should do anything, except maybe remove duplicate posts on the same day/week that content was posted. But there are some subreddits that used to be good conversation hubs, that simply got overrun with trash because the moderators weren't paying attention, or were too scared to set up and enforce rules.
    - Goronmon 12y ago
      >The challenge is that what we think of as high quality content is not what Reddit Inc. has seen leading the growth. Images and fluffy content are easier to consume, and therefore more profitable for the site. Which is fine, but you have to make some attempt and consolidating that type of content as much as possible. An example being to let /r/gaming run wild with the image macros and meme posts, but then rule those out on the subreddits for specific games. If you don't, you just end up with each game's subreddit becoming basically a filtered version of /r/gaming.
doom 12y ago
I totally disagree on the "link aggregator" assessment. I've been a redditor since late 2007 / early 2008. It originally appealed to me because it was a link aggregator. The links I am interested in seeing are, for example, thoughtful articles or important news stories. I liked having links and a place to talk about the links. I think what you're trying to say is that Reddit has become a link aggregator of low-effort content: advice animals and reposted pictures, for example. I'd say those aren't links, they are original content and pictures. "Look what my girlfriend made" is a common submission. There is a subreddit, /r/nosobstory, that removes the redditor-added context. It's amazing how it's not the links that get upvoted, but the titles. Uninteresting content soars to the top of /r/pics if it's attached to a story about someone getting cancer. I wish the Reddit I knew and loved could come back, the one where I was sure I was talking with people smarter than me just based on what they knew and how they presented what they knew. Regarding /r/iama: It has definitely become full of the vapid celebrity interviews you'd find anywhere else. There's nothing wrong with being a celebrity, but it seems most of them are strictly controlled by their managers, prohibited from addressing any tough questions because they have a movie to sell. I don't care for most conspiracies but I liked the first part of this post. http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1she85/how_reddit_was_destroyed/ http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1she85/how_reddi... >The first thing they did was take away r/reddit.com. >This took away the only tool for communicating with reddit about reddit. If you had any concerns about the website as a whole, you could address them through r/reddit.com. Taking that away was the first step. Several times over these years I have been frustrated that there is no place to talk with reddit about reddit. Only employees of reddit now have the privilege to talk to every redditor in /r/blog. Moderators have far too much power. /r/gaming or /r/undelete could enact a wide-scale censorship campaign and you might not ever notice. There must be a default subreddit for talking about reddit.com. The old /r/reddit.com subreddit was for anything. The new one can be more focused, if needed. There is one mod for all of /r/outside and I tried to start an alternative subreddit. My post was caught in the spam filter and the moderator, intentionally or not, opted to not remove it or respond to any PMs. I am a moderator on a subreddit with over 10,000 users. I hope I and the mod team never loses our heads. Currently we have a policy that I always encourage other mods to enact on their own subreddits. The policy is to allow respectful criticism. On larger subreddits I think it would be best accomplished in one large self-post linked from the sidebar. To me, not having a safe space for criticism means the subreddit is afraid of the truth. For example, although I don't agree with Gamergate, /r/Games's policy for dealing with it was to set up robots to automatically scrub any mention of the topic from their subreddit, and not tell anyone that such discussion was banned. They once removed 500 comments in one submission, because some of them were about Gamergate. They once removed a totally normal comment of mine, because it was in response to a comment that they deleted. (Subtext: they don't like anything that draws attention to their moderation.) Sorry for the meandering comment, to anyone who made it this far. To me it looks like all of Reddit's flaws have never been laid out all at once. This is just a disorganized piece. If it were organized, and cited evidence rather than me just remembering things, maybe it could change some minds.

by debacle 12y ago

optimusclimb 12y ago

The trend that finally sent me out was when good subreddits focused on specific topics started turning into show and tell for adults - and usually just amounted to, "Hey I bought that expensive thing that all of the group says is THE one to get, here is a picture of it in my house, it probably looks similar to the one you have". I suppose in a way, the recent investment might match that consumerist focus.

orbitur 12y ago
Each subreddit needs a good set of mods, especially when there are thousands of subscribers. Once a subreddit hits some magic number, it devolves into a stream of image links to "hey I made a cake/painting/object with [subject of subreddit] on it". Mods can very easily guide users toward discussion. r/atheism infamously banned images altogether, and aside from the "REVOLT I WANT MEMES IN MY R/ATHEISM" posts, people actually started talking again. r/twoxchromosomes has a no-images-unless-it's-Friday rule.
- dublinben 12y ago
  The challenge is that what we think of as high quality content is not what Reddit Inc. has seen leading the growth. Images and fluffy content are easier to consume, and therefore more profitable for the site.
  - orbitur 12y ago
    Absolutely. And the popular subreddits are already sort of pre-disposed to fluffy content due to their intended subject matter. I'm not saying the mods of r/funny should do anything, except maybe remove duplicate posts on the same day/week that content was posted. But there are some subreddits that used to be good conversation hubs, that simply got overrun with trash because the moderators weren't paying attention, or were too scared to set up and enforce rules.
  - Goronmon 12y ago
    >The challenge is that what we think of as high quality content is not what Reddit Inc. has seen leading the growth. Images and fluffy content are easier to consume, and therefore more profitable for the site. Which is fine, but you have to make some attempt and consolidating that type of content as much as possible. An example being to let /r/gaming run wild with the image macros and meme posts, but then rule those out on the subreddits for specific games. If you don't, you just end up with each game's subreddit becoming basically a filtered version of /r/gaming.

doom 12y ago

I totally disagree on the "link aggregator" assessment. I've been a redditor since late 2007 / early 2008. It originally appealed to me because it was a link aggregator. The links I am interested in seeing are, for example, thoughtful articles or important news stories. I liked having links and a place to talk about the links. I think what you're trying to say is that Reddit has become a link aggregator of low-effort content: advice animals and reposted pictures, for example. I'd say those aren't links, they are original content and pictures. "Look what my girlfriend made" is a common submission. There is a subreddit, /r/nosobstory, that removes the redditor-added context. It's amazing how it's not the links that get upvoted, but the titles. Uninteresting content soars to the top of /r/pics if it's attached to a story about someone getting cancer. I wish the Reddit I knew and loved could come back, the one where I was sure I was talking with people smarter than me just based on what they knew and how they presented what they knew. Regarding /r/iama: It has definitely become full of the vapid celebrity interviews you'd find anywhere else. There's nothing wrong with being a celebrity, but it seems most of them are strictly controlled by their managers, prohibited from addressing any tough questions because they have a movie to sell. I don't care for most conspiracies but I liked the first part of this post. http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1she85/how_reddit_was_destroyed/ http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1she85/how_reddi... >The first thing they did was take away r/reddit.com. >This took away the only tool for communicating with reddit about reddit. If you had any concerns about the website as a whole, you could address them through r/reddit.com. Taking that away was the first step. Several times over these years I have been frustrated that there is no place to talk with reddit about reddit. Only employees of reddit now have the privilege to talk to every redditor in /r/blog. Moderators have far too much power. /r/gaming or /r/undelete could enact a wide-scale censorship campaign and you might not ever notice. There must be a default subreddit for talking about reddit.com. The old /r/reddit.com subreddit was for anything. The new one can be more focused, if needed. There is one mod for all of /r/outside and I tried to start an alternative subreddit. My post was caught in the spam filter and the moderator, intentionally or not, opted to not remove it or respond to any PMs. I am a moderator on a subreddit with over 10,000 users. I hope I and the mod team never loses our heads. Currently we have a policy that I always encourage other mods to enact on their own subreddits. The policy is to allow respectful criticism. On larger subreddits I think it would be best accomplished in one large self-post linked from the sidebar. To me, not having a safe space for criticism means the subreddit is afraid of the truth. For example, although I don't agree with Gamergate, /r/Games's policy for dealing with it was to set up robots to automatically scrub any mention of the topic from their subreddit, and not tell anyone that such discussion was banned. They once removed 500 comments in one submission, because some of them were about Gamergate. They once removed a totally normal comment of mine, because it was in response to a comment that they deleted. (Subtext: they don't like anything that draws attention to their moderation.) Sorry for the meandering comment, to anyone who made it this far. To me it looks like all of Reddit's flaws have never been laid out all at once. This is just a disorganized piece. If it were organized, and cited evidence rather than me just remembering things, maybe it could change some minds.