Yes
Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
41–50 of 60 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#42Everything is politics now, every single sub. No exception. That's my biggest problem. And no it wasn't always like this
Certain topics seem to be irresistible flamebait, instantly poisoning any online discussion. Without effective moderation they become superweapons for trolls, and bombs that anyone can accidentally or intentionally set off. Upvote/downvote wars are also ugly. (And it's not just reddit; I used to enjoy ars technica before its comment section degenerated into flame and downvote wars.) HN is one of the few exceptions wh…
Although HN has had its share of heated discussion, I think it’s especially prone to discussions derailing due to pedantry. It’s a curious, technical crowd and people in general like being right.
I think both sites have groupthink dynamics to a point that isn’t pretty, HN markedly less so but it’s still present. This is likely a byproduct of downvoting having such an outsized effect on comment visibility.
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#43I wonder how much of Reddit is just controlled accounts and bots talking to each other. Most of Reddit now just feels like curated political content.
>I wonder how much of Reddit is just controlled accounts and bots talking to each other.
Well..
https://www.reddit.com/r/SubSimulatorGPT2/
:)
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#44Everything is politics now, every single sub. No exception. That's my biggest problem. And no it wasn't always like this
Yep, not true at all. My solution has been to just stick to smaller/niche subreddits that appeal to my interests but stay rather small. And I can (anecdotally) say that the majority of them are apolitical.
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#45I have a feeling the entire internet became dumber. I miss the early 2000s days when it was still considered somewhat nerdy.
s/internet/people
(not even sure if this is the right code, which illustrates my point I guess)
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#46since they removed the downvote counter, wasteland.
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#47I'm not sure whether it was due to changes in the algorithm, but at some point the logged-out front page that most people see became easily 50% outrage porn - a picture of a truck parking in two parking spaces, shaky video of someone being racist in public, most recently message conversations from horrible bosses.
When someone eventually makes an account and delves into the more niche subreddits, that's the culture that they're expecting and as more do it, it starts to change the culture of the niche subreddits as well.
Ironically the secret to reddit's success was that it was just left alone with very few changes for so long. The front page was already a dumpster fire at that stage, but a dumpster fire mostly contained to the top 20 subreddits. Now that it's more clever about pulling in posts from more niche subreddits that are doing well, or based on geolocation, it pulls people into the subreddits more which accelerates the Eternal September effect.
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#48It’s a lot bigger now and therefore has the same problems any big online community has (bad signal to noise ratio). I think this is made worse through the upvote system, but that’s purely my anecdotal take. The niche communities continue to be pretty good. I use askliterarystudies pretty often and get high-quality info. In my experience even the most niche online communities begin to seem “dumb” after you’ve spent si…
The biggest loss will be the interesting subreddits like that one. Reddit killed off forums and became the empire that has had its dominion over most of the niche interests. Unfortunately, as Reddit has been growing bigger and bigger and tries harder to cater to the lowest common denominator, the rot seems to be trickling down to even the niche subs. For programming and the like, there’s HN. But for much of anything else, the alternatives are long dead.
The real question is not whether Reddit is rotting, but of where to go after it?
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#49I think it's regression to the mean. When reddit was relatively small it was possible for them to have a group that was, on some dimensions, above average. As reddit becomes larger and larger those dimensions return to the population mean. That feels like, and is, a decline in quality. Reddit has an inherent problem in that the only people who are moderators are the people with the time and inclination to be moderato…
>Reddit naturally incentives low effort content.
This is true, and applies to pretty much the entire web at this point. Back when it was people blogging, and getting replies on other blogs, there was time to sit and ponder, and edit things, even after posting them, before they were read.
We all want that feedback to know we've been heard, and our time spent writing and editing wasn't a total waste. The walled gardens optimized on filling that void, and turned it up to 11. They did it via algorithm and structure of computer mediated spaces, all optimized by corporations that MUST seek profit, by law.
I'm thankful every day for Dang, and this little peaceful contemplative space. I try... not always successfully, to accept when I've disturbed the peace and gotten the odd downvote by the community here.
Re: Ask HN: Is Reddit Becoming Dumber?
#50No, it’s nostalgia. There’s a natural tendency to see things this way. You may be smarter and more experienced as you get older, but that doesn’t mean Reddit gets dumber.
That’s probably also true, doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.