4 ms·

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

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.

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.