Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
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Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#2Very interesting article. There was a data viz (gender vs visits) that was needlessly flashy, when a simple x-y scatter would have been more clear.
One part struck me though:
Erwin sees evidence of it already, pointing to the recent debut of Upvoted, a Reddit podcast delving into the site’s most compelling stories. “Reddit is very much trying to establish itself as a curator of its own content and take back some of that space from BuzzFeed,” Erwin says.
The 'content' on Reddit is made by its users. Sure, it's annoying when Buzzfeed packages it up into an article and sells it for clicks (though if you visit Buzzfeed it's your own fault) but it does not belong to anyone.
Reddit, by itself, is an empty vessel - its only value is in retaining its creative users and staying user friendly enough that those users keep drawing more and more people in. The vessel itself is completely worthless. As much as it sucks to have to cater to the whims of the users, they represent the only real value Reddit has.
I will be watching very closely to see how the new admins get rid of the truly toxic subreddits, while still retaining the culture of openness and anonymity. It is a very difficult tightrope walk.
Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#3Reddit is pretty much a case study of upbringing without effective punishment. In real life kids behave because they have skin in the game—if they misbehave, they are not allowed ice cream. On the contrary, if you are banned from reddit, you can simply reset your browser and create a new account.
I doubt you can fix reddit with a smarter design, because that won’t change the troublemakers. To fix reddit, you would possibly have to profoundly change the way our civilization socializes the young, remove inequality and provide more psychological support. Or you would have to build a better reputation system and use that for sorting, but that’s likely going to be incompatible with anonymity and it won’t be as fun.
Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#4Very interesting article. There was a data viz (gender vs visits) that was needlessly flashy, when a simple x-y scatter would have been more clear. One part struck me though: Erwin sees evidence of it already, pointing to the recent debut of Upvoted, a Reddit podcast delving into the site’s most compelling stories. “Reddit is very much trying to establish itself as a curator of its own content and take back some of t…
According to Reddit's user agreement, you own content you submit, but you give Reddit a "do whatever you want with it, even to make money off of it" license.
Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#5Very interesting article. There was a data viz (gender vs visits) that was needlessly flashy, when a simple x-y scatter would have been more clear. One part struck me though: Erwin sees evidence of it already, pointing to the recent debut of Upvoted, a Reddit podcast delving into the site’s most compelling stories. “Reddit is very much trying to establish itself as a curator of its own content and take back some of t…
This oddly reminds me of how YTMND was back in the day. Now it's mostly a niche site, but when it was semi-popular among certain segments Internet users it had some conflicts erupt between users such as atheists vs Christians being a classic spat on the site. Reddit seems to exhibit some of that coarse nature in its user base at least from my own experiences.
I'm not sure Reddit's owners can herd the users into compliance. For me the most likely outcome will be the slow decline of Reddit because users that aren't even affected by the policy changes and enforcement (even helped and protected with the banning of subreddits like /r/beatingtrannies and /r/fatpeoplehate) will see it as a possible threat to how they can submit content to the site. It's that unintended effect that Reddit's owners need to be aware of because it's what's killed smaller forums and sites.
Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#6Very interesting article. There was a data viz (gender vs visits) that was needlessly flashy, when a simple x-y scatter would have been more clear. One part struck me though: Erwin sees evidence of it already, pointing to the recent debut of Upvoted, a Reddit podcast delving into the site’s most compelling stories. “Reddit is very much trying to establish itself as a curator of its own content and take back some of t…
According to Reddit's user agreement, you own content you submit, but you give Reddit a "do whatever you want with it, even to make money off of it" license. https://www.reddit.com/help/useragreement#p_17
Is it me or this is stupid? I mean, this is the digital world, you can make as many copies as you want, so if you give them a licence to whatever they want with it, what are your options after submitting something?
Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#7"""James Erwin, a Reddit moderator of several subreddits including r/history, argues that Reddit’s unwillingness over the years to provide strong, hands-on leadership to the site’s community is at the heart of the company’s lackluster business performance. Without a firm editorial grip, the flourishing of disreputable subreddits opened the door for BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, and others, which sift through Reddit content and repackage it to advertisers in more sanitized conditions. “Reddit is watching other people eat its lunch,” Erwin says."""
I think this loses the magical thing Reddit has - extremely strong intent signals from millions of people who are constantly voting on these items.
An interesting route to monetisation for Reddit would be divorcing the hive mind from the more passive viewers. There are probably a sizeable number of people who really don't care about the discussions / community interactivity element within Reddit and don't even possess accounts. What if Reddit created an independent app which used the live data from all of these sub-reddit upvotes, comments, (sentiment analysis?) and the rate at which something got picked up to do their "buzzfeed"-esque curation? Reddit's repackaging would create that neutral advertising-safe space, which could be successfully monetised in different ways.
An example of this would be say a deep-connect with content providers like Netflix and Hulu as well as whatever sub-reddits exist for movies, where they have a curated, passive viewing experience of say short-movies culled from a combination of Youtube, Vimeo, and Netflix to create a unique mix that wouldn't exist anywhere else. This would create a constantly changing, dynamic "TV-like" experience. Some viewers would like to engage around what they've watched and then Reddit could close the loop and get more data. I'm sure there are other interesting things to do with all of the photos they have in their dataset. As well all the articles and user-submitted content. (a better Flipboard type app?)
Reddit the company doesn't have to fight with reddit the chaotic force. They can just harness and use it to achieve a scale of manual curation no one has ever attempted before. It could become something quite special.
Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#8Community dynamics is incredibly hard, managing it under growth and after a certain threshold even more so, and radical change is almost impossible.
It's easy to say that someone has been too lax or too firm but it's such a complex issue. It's really hard to force a community in certain direction. It's more about sowing the seeds with tools and ux and less about policies and rules... and then apply a light touch help it develop in the direction you want.
There's also a question of what the ultimate goal is. What's best for the most users? For making the most money? The biggest median satisfaction? To fulfill some aspirational teneth?
I think one of Reddit's fundamental problems at this size is that it is grown on the seeds of anonymity, user moderators and upvotes/downvotes.
It has served them well for a long time but chaos always ensues when a community reaches a certain threshold, and more pressure needs to be applied to keep it in check (if that's what you want)
Upvotes/Downvotes is a blunt tool and threads easily changes into who agrees with whom rather than promoting thoughtful comments.
User anonymity is great, but requires features around it at a certain size. A country has borders to keep criminals away and community needs a way to keep trolls at bay. If you just can create another account what's the problem with being a troll? One remedy might be a smarter karma system where more visibility is given to users that's posted interesting content, kinda lika slashdot.
User moderators are great when it works, like in some channels. But it's also a source of petty power struggles and dictators defending their fiefdoms. Reddit of course benefits tremendously from the work the "power" incentivizes these moderators do for free, but I keep wondering if at a certain size there needs to be more automation and checks and balances to avoid user moderators becoming destructive or slanted and put too much focus on the meta. Then again maybe some subreddits should be biased and let the mods rule as their will. It's a little weird though for big general subreddits for things like news and countries.
Anyway, Reddit is probably too much set in it's way to enact radical change without the users revolting, and there isn't proof that the model doesn't work, just that it has its problem, as all models probably would.
As I said, community dynamics are complicated. Will be interesting to follow Reddit going forward.
Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#9Very interesting article. There was a data viz (gender vs visits) that was needlessly flashy, when a simple x-y scatter would have been more clear. One part struck me though: Erwin sees evidence of it already, pointing to the recent debut of Upvoted, a Reddit podcast delving into the site’s most compelling stories. “Reddit is very much trying to establish itself as a curator of its own content and take back some of t…
According to Reddit's user agreement, you own content you submit, but you give Reddit a "do whatever you want with it, even to make money off of it" license. https://www.reddit.com/help/useragreement#p_17
Yes, but I think the larger point is, if Reddit pisses off the people creating interesting content, they will leave.
Reddit's user agreement doesn't mean jack if nobody is submitting anything.
Re: Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
#10Reddit is pretty much a case study of upbringing without effective punishment. In real life kids behave because they have skin in the game—if they misbehave, they are not allowed ice cream. On the contrary, if you are banned from reddit, you can simply reset your browser and create a new account. I doubt you can fix reddit with a smarter design, because that won’t change the troublemakers. To fix reddit, you would po…
Upbrining without punishment definitely is definitely possible and practiced semi widely (google around). Punishment is a pretty bad way to address misbehaviour.