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RIP Kuro5hin

kuro5hin.org

141–150 of 278 posts

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#141
post #91

First there was Slashdot, but CmdrTaco insisted on picking the stories for us. He called it an "omelet". Kuro5hin came along to fix this, but discouraged posts that were just links to pages elsewhere on the web. IIRC, this was called "link farming". How many users had the talent and time to create original content, and then survive the ridiculous Kuro5shin editing process? Not many. Digg then encouraged links, but sh…

Except that Reddit is gradually turning into 4chan. Every time I see /r/all, it's a little more mean-spirited, a little younger, a little more toxic. Outsourcing moderation and libertarian ideals all sound nice, but when the rubber hits the road it gradually chases normal people away. Reddit just did it it slower because the strengths of their platform and content overwhelmed it... but it's getting there eventually.

The default sub-reddit's turn into what happens when you have a site populated mostly by the lowest common denominator and posts that appeal to the same. Once it became mainstream the defaults just fell into an Eternal September cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) that most sites never recover from. However, reddit had a defense mechanism against this in that there are many, many subsections and almost hidden communities or "True*" sub-reddit's for the core/original users who prefer some semblance of thought provoking content or discussion, or at least pretend to.

I generally unsubscribe from all of those defaults (except maybe /r/WorldNews) and almost never look at them, have some lists of subject related sub-reddits I like (ex: tech). There are sub-reddits that have communities in them I haven't found a replacement for elsewhere aside from maybe some private FB groups. There is something to be said for exclusivity or staying obscure. For every /r/The_Donald there is a /r/Sweden, or for /r/SRS and /r/RedPill there is /r/TwoXChromosomes and /r/AskMen. You aren't going to read about the good communities in the news, as polite people having interesting level headed discussions rarely makes headlines.

To me Hacker News is just another sub-reddit like site. I usually see the same links posted in my sub-reddit's as I do HN, and I'd wager the discussion is sometimes better in the sub-reddit's than it is here, it's at least on par.

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#142
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that Reddit is gradually turning into 4chan. Every time I see /r/all, it's a little more mean-spirited, a little younger, a little more toxic. Outsourcing moderation and libertarian ideals all sound nice, but when the rubber hits the road it gradually chases normal people away. Reddit just did it it slower because the strengths of their platform and content overwhelmed it... but it's getting there eventually.

First "the fappening" attracting juvenile sexist dudebros and alienating the rest, now /r/the_donald (and I'm skipping a lot of drama). It's not a coincidence that the best subs are the ones where the goals of the sub are clearly defined and the mods enforce the rules with an iron fist (/r/AskHistorians is the best example of this).

It boggles me that there's no way to filter out specific subreddits on /r/all without using some custom viewer or plugin. Or am I missing something?

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#143
post #2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuro5hin

I'd not heard of this community before. Before my time, I guess. The idea of publishing something or not is rather interesting. It presumably encouraged much higher quality content.

K5 as it was usually shortened to, had a few very interesting people on it back in its heyday such as Micheal Crawford who wrote about Living with Schizoaffective Disorder and localroger who wrote The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It was reddit with all the weird kids.

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#144
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that conservatism is hateful, but that the brand of conservatism propagating on Reddit is a particularly hateful one.

It may not be obvious, and not everyone participating is aware of it, but there is a lot of parody going on in /r/the_donald. I think the prime motivation is disgust at how deeply political correctness has permeated our culture. What this all morphs into if (when) he wins the election remains to be seen. I'm both excited and scared to find out.

> "I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase 'In these days of political correctness…' talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, 'That’s not actually anything to do with "political correctness". That’s just treating other people with respect.'Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase 'politically correct' wherever we could with 'treating other people with respect', and it made me smile."

-- Neil Gaiman.

http://www.upworthy.com/what-political-correctness-does-and-...

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social Justice Warrior, an attempted dogwhistle[1] used by GamerGaters / men's rights activists / anyone of scared of a more equal society, in a derogatory way against people who promote equality and not being a dick on the Internet. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

This is an unfair comment. SJW became a term for a reason. South Park is pretty liberal and spent the entirety of last season mocking these people. See, also, the ridiculous 'safe space' drama at places like Yale.

South Park's centre-right perspective is so well known there's even a political class named after it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_Republican

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#146
post #141
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that Reddit is gradually turning into 4chan. Every time I see /r/all, it's a little more mean-spirited, a little younger, a little more toxic. Outsourcing moderation and libertarian ideals all sound nice, but when the rubber hits the road it gradually chases normal people away. Reddit just did it it slower because the strengths of their platform and content overwhelmed it... but it's getting there eventually.

The default sub-reddit's turn into what happens when you have a site populated mostly by the lowest common denominator and posts that appeal to the same. Once it became mainstream the defaults just fell into an Eternal September cycle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September ) that most sites never recover from. However, reddit had a defense mechanism against this in that there are many, many subsections and…

Yes, but we can't pretend that the low quality of the defaults doesn't affect the quality of the good sub-reddits.

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a derogatory way against people who promote equality and not being a dick on the Internet By being the biggest dicks on the Internet, not afraid of lying, blackmailing and destroying careers and lives by unleashing Internet lynch mobs. I'm sorry, but SJW movement is a cancer on the society, and it's way beyond issues of "equality" now. They're going out of their way in deploying underhanded tactics to destroy anyon…

This seems contrary to my experience, could you provide some examples? Obviously each of us only sees a portion of the internet, but from what I've seen it seems like most of the stuff you are describing has been aimed at people described as SJWs, not perpetrated by them.

We may be indeed seeing different parts of the Internet. I don't disagree there are people you describe who show the characteristics I mentioned in the post. I mostly try to navigate as far as I can from those parts of the Internet.

If you want examples of problems with SJW, I think it's best for me to link SSC:

http://slatestarcodex.com/?s=social+justice

That's about the only source I know that a) points out the problems, b) stays civil while doing that, and c) does not commit the same "crimes". Many other complaints I've seen about SJW are done by people not better than the group they're criticizing.

The both sides of this war are really a symptom of a bigger issue; if there's one thing that's worth to read on SSC in this topic, it's the classic - "Toxoplasma of Rage" - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/.

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First "the fappening" attracting juvenile sexist dudebros and alienating the rest, now /r/the_donald (and I'm skipping a lot of drama). It's not a coincidence that the best subs are the ones where the goals of the sub are clearly defined and the mods enforce the rules with an iron fist (/r/AskHistorians is the best example of this).

It boggles me that there's no way to filter out specific subreddits on /r/all without using some custom viewer or plugin. Or am I missing something?

Perhaps the FilteReddit[0] feature (under Filters) of RES is what you're looking for?

[0]http://redditenhancementsuite.com/features.html

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#149
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be obvious, and not everyone participating is aware of it, but there is a lot of parody going on in /r/the_donald. I think the prime motivation is disgust at how deeply political correctness has permeated our culture. What this all morphs into if (when) he wins the election remains to be seen. I'm both excited and scared to find out.

> "I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase 'In these days of political correctness…' talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, 'That’s not actually anything to do with "political correctness". That’s just treating other people with respect.'Which made me oddly happy. I started imagi…

Yes that certainly sounds very nice (pretending that political correctness is only about "being nice"), but in my opinion is an excellent example of the problem.

Some topics are going to hurt people's feelings, there's no getting around it, so if "treating people with respect" is an absolute, then it is in many scenarios outright censorship of ideas. The article you links claims that is simply not true but offers absolutely nothing to substantiate that claim. I find this type of reasoning pretty common on the left.

Re: RIP Kuro5hin

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservative is the wrong word but a lot of people on Reddit hate everyone that's not a white socialist atheist anti-Zionist middle class man

For a "community" that preaches tolerance, a large number of people on Reddit seems to lack just that, tolerance. I use the term community lightly, because sometimes Reddit appear more to be an angry mob. There is a very limited set of opinions and beliefs that are accepted on Reddit. Mostly the moderators don't seem to mind, but it's pretty obvious that derivation from the accepted truth is down voted to an extreme.…

Personally, I think it's a generational thing; the notion that everyone deserves to feel honored and precious on the internet first and foremost is a new one.

"You're unique! You're special! You matter!"

This is the sentiment that seems so pervasive, and as Gen-X, one I find saccharine and stomach-churning.

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