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At one point,probably right at the beginning,Reddit was a bona-fide news-aggregation site. Now, its just an outpost of 4Chan, at least the main page definitely

by ivenkys 17y ago

At one point,probably right at the beginning,Reddit was a bona-fide news-aggregation site. Now, its just an outpost of 4Chan, at least the main page definitely is. Nothing wrong with that except the contents and quality of comments and postings have gone into a completely different direction.

DarkShikari 17y ago
At least on 4chan you can't get downmodded for posting facts that the groupthink finds inconvenient. That seems to be the real advantage of anonymous discussion: you don't think to yourself "will I get downvoted/flamed/etc for posting this comment?" Though, as 4chan has proven, the level of discourse on an anonymous forum is just as proportional to the maturity of its members... as it is anywhere else.
tlrobinson 17y ago
I don't know about that. Sure, there's lots of 4chanism, but I'm also constantly impressed by the community helping each other out and providing interesting perspectives on a huge variety of topics (see the IAmA SubReddit in particular).
- mattchew 17y ago
  I started reading reddit regularly again when I discovered IAmA.
- kn0thing 17y ago
  I <3 IAmA. And it's entirely reddit-generated and -run. Give users easy tools and get out of the way - you'll be pleasantly surprised.
theycallmemorty 17y ago
If you dig deeper there is still a lot of good stuff. It turns out that the idea of having each subreddit be a small 'community' kinda works. Each day my wife checks out /r/Frugal just to see if there is anything new. She doesn't really have any use for the rest of the site unless she's REALLY trying to kill time but the Frugal reddit does a great job of aggregating stories she's interested in. If all you look at are /r/funny, /r/pics and /r/politics then you're missing out.
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  i like: /r/programming /r/gamedev /r/games /r/relationship_advice ;)
- kn0thing 17y ago
  This is something we still need to improve. Too few visitors to reddit understand or even know about how this vast network of user-created reddits should work. See, here I go wanting to mock a new redesign up in photoshop...
  - teach 17y ago
    I've been a reddit lurker for 4 years, and I was one of the hordes clamoring for tags back in the day. When subreddits were introduced instead, I was a bit disappointed. But now, these many years later, I can see how the subreddits become independent communities in a way that tags would never have accomplished. I'm still proud of you guys for that decision. Thanks for a great site that I still spend way too much time reading every day.
  - bhrgunatha 17y ago
    The main problem is, reddit isn't helping its users discover those needles in the haystack. It's down to serndipity or sheer bloodymindedness clicking next next next while looking through the list of subreddits. Maybe leaving users to create other sites mapping out reddit is a good idea, but reddit could do a lot more to aid discovery.

by ivenkys 17y ago

DarkShikari 17y ago

At least on 4chan you can't get downmodded for posting facts that the groupthink finds inconvenient. That seems to be the real advantage of anonymous discussion: you don't think to yourself "will I get downvoted/flamed/etc for posting this comment?" Though, as 4chan has proven, the level of discourse on an anonymous forum is just as proportional to the maturity of its members... as it is anywhere else.

tlrobinson 17y ago

I don't know about that. Sure, there's lots of 4chanism, but I'm also constantly impressed by the community helping each other out and providing interesting perspectives on a huge variety of topics (see the IAmA SubReddit in particular).

mattchew 17y ago
I started reading reddit regularly again when I discovered IAmA.
kn0thing 17y ago
I <3 IAmA. And it's entirely reddit-generated and -run. Give users easy tools and get out of the way - you'll be pleasantly surprised.

theycallmemorty 17y ago

If you dig deeper there is still a lot of good stuff. It turns out that the idea of having each subreddit be a small 'community' kinda works. Each day my wife checks out /r/Frugal just to see if there is anything new. She doesn't really have any use for the rest of the site unless she's REALLY trying to kill time but the Frugal reddit does a great job of aggregating stories she's interested in. If all you look at are /r/funny, /r/pics and /r/politics then you're missing out.

aaronblohowiak 17y ago
i like: /r/programming /r/gamedev /r/games /r/relationship_advice ;)
kn0thing 17y ago
This is something we still need to improve. Too few visitors to reddit understand or even know about how this vast network of user-created reddits should work. See, here I go wanting to mock a new redesign up in photoshop...
- teach 17y ago
  I've been a reddit lurker for 4 years, and I was one of the hordes clamoring for tags back in the day. When subreddits were introduced instead, I was a bit disappointed. But now, these many years later, I can see how the subreddits become independent communities in a way that tags would never have accomplished. I'm still proud of you guys for that decision. Thanks for a great site that I still spend way too much time reading every day.
- bhrgunatha 17y ago
  The main problem is, reddit isn't helping its users discover those needles in the haystack. It's down to serndipity or sheer bloodymindedness clicking next next next while looking through the list of subreddits. Maybe leaving users to create other sites mapping out reddit is a good idea, but reddit could do a lot more to aid discovery.