Reddit is still in turmoil • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#151

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:50 AM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #14

twblalock wrote: post #6

I think much of Reddit's problems with its userbase boil down to an early failure to manage expectations. It's pretty clear that the Reddit corporation doesn't want Reddit to be an anything-goes, absolute free speech zone with no moderation or anti-harassment policies -- but that's what the site actually was for many years. Now, when the company cracks down, users think their freedoms are being curtailed. The mistake…

> The mistake was ever allowing that kind of freedom in the first place, because people developed an expectation that it would persist. Sure, and then we wouldn't be talking about reddit but rather whatever site was actually free at the time. The only reason web forums exist is because people are lazy about adopting decentralized Free software. Yet the owners of these centralized services, as well as paternalistic sp…

You find that power dynamic a lot in linked-community sites like Reddit and image boards. I find that the most enjoyable communities to be in are the ones where the site staff wield their power to make the user experience more enjoyable, rather than treating their users as cattle to be corralled. Acting like they provide a service rather than allowing you in their garden, in other words.

A few Reddit communities sprung up that track content deletions, like /r/undelete, and the sheer amount of stuff that winds up disappeared on arbitrary whims, rather than violation of a stated objective rule, is huge. Coincidentally, when the moderators of those places show up, the attitudes on display are the worst kind of toxic.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#152

Post by Animats » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:51 AM UTC

cerrelio wrote: post #95

bane wrote: post #39

Why the hell is Reddit trying to make their own content when the entire point of the site is for the users to create the content? Don't make a Reddit podcast, make Reddit a podcast hosting network. Don't make a Reddit video show, make Reddit a video hosting site. Don't make a Reddit magazine, make Reddit a source for anybody to publish their own magazines. Why does Reddit have writers and editors and creative directo…

I see why they want to create their own curated content. A friend of mine has created and run several user-generated content sites and he said: "user generated content is worthless; largely racism and porn." It's driven by the lowest common denominator. As long as content is hosted on company-controlled servers where ad revenue is the model for survival, you're going to see slow declines and eventual busts like Digg.…

How much does it really cost to run a forum system? Even a big one? Look at 4chan.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#153

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:53 AM UTC

kickme444 wrote: post #36

twblalock wrote: post #6

I think much of Reddit's problems with its userbase boil down to an early failure to manage expectations. It's pretty clear that the Reddit corporation doesn't want Reddit to be an anything-goes, absolute free speech zone with no moderation or anti-harassment policies -- but that's what the site actually was for many years. Now, when the company cracks down, users think their freedoms are being curtailed. The mistake…

I have a thesis that is basically identical to yours about unmanaged expectations and community being the main root of the problem that reddit/twitter/etc are facing, which is part of the reason why we started Imzy https://www.imzy.com/imzy We got some press early on that really told an untrue narrative of what we are trying to do, but we've made a ton of progress in a few months of our private beta and our communiti…

Would you care to give a true narrative of what you're trying to do? You linked to an empty page where I can request an invite, and the "about us" page just says you're "rethinking" communities online. What is the nature of moderation and communication on the site?

I can glean a bit of info from news sites, but not very much if you say they're fundamentally misunderstanding you.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#154

Post by jdminhbg » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:54 AM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #104

twblalock wrote: post #6

I think much of Reddit's problems with its userbase boil down to an early failure to manage expectations. It's pretty clear that the Reddit corporation doesn't want Reddit to be an anything-goes, absolute free speech zone with no moderation or anti-harassment policies -- but that's what the site actually was for many years. Now, when the company cracks down, users think their freedoms are being curtailed. The mistake…

Reddit's main problem is that they spent years building their user base as a site to find 'jailbait' porn (it was by far the largest search result that brought people to Reddit for a long time). That created a toxic culture, which allowed stormfront and similar groups to use it as a recruitment ground for racists. Reddit still refuses to do anything about it. The 'quarantined' a bunch of truly vile subreddits but all…

> (it was by far the largest search result that brought people to Reddit for a long time)

I'm pretty skeptical of this. I can maybe see my way to believing that googling "jailbait" beats out any single one of ["pic" "pics" "funny" "joke" ...], but the normal SFW subreddits have always been vastly bigger than the porn subs. I'm also really skeptical of the causation chain that leads from jailbait -> Stormfront -> general toxic culture. Do you have any harder evidence of this?

Edit: Sorry, "normal SFW," not "normal NSFW."

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#155

Post by jsemrau » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:58 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #39

Why the hell is Reddit trying to make their own content when the entire point of the site is for the users to create the content? Don't make a Reddit podcast, make Reddit a podcast hosting network. Don't make a Reddit video show, make Reddit a video hosting site. Don't make a Reddit magazine, make Reddit a source for anybody to publish their own magazines. Why does Reddit have writers and editors and creative directo…

Reddit's community has largely alienated content providers with their strictly enforced "spam" rules.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#156

Post by jsemrau » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:00 AM UTC

white-flame wrote: post #148

cerrelio wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see why they want to create their own curated content. A friend of mine has created and run several user-generated content sites and he said: "user generated content is worthless; largely racism and porn." It's driven by the lowest common denominator. As long as content is hosted on company-controlled servers where ad revenue is the model for survival, you're going to see slow declines and eventual busts like Digg.…

There's this place between "create their own curated content" and free-for-all "user generated content" that is "moderated & curated user generated content".

Isn't that imgur?

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#157

Post by tomjen3 » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:03 AM UTC

jfoutz wrote: post #8

I didn't realize drinking on the job was a thing. I've had the odd company party with beer in the late afternoon, but that's perhaps twice a year. I'm not a teetotaler by any stretch of the imagination, but drinking at work seems counterproductive.

Drinking at work while trying to work is counterproductive. Drinking a beer after work isn't and it's an okay way to get out of the silos one normally work in.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#158

Post by chme » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:03 AM UTC

ben_jones wrote: post #147

a_small_island wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The future is probably something where people pay a small amount to access a forum that's somehow distributed on their machines (phones, PCs, etc) and not controlled by any organization. Data transfer (even mobile) and storage are getting cheaper. It'll be like bitcoin, but for discussions." No. The future is the next Digg, the next Reddit, etc. Just like a torrent site, when one goes down (for whatever reason), th…

Here's the problem (IMO): Reddit has too many features and too big a userbase to replicate as Reddit itself did a decade ago. voat.co has been in development for years and still lacks crucial systems for things like content moderation, monetization, scaling, etc. Essentially for a coup of Reddit to occur you have to take a large chunk of Reddit at once. That is very hard to do.

voat.co was developed because someone wanted to develop something with ASP.net.

Reddit, the software platform is open source: https://github.com/reddit

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#159

Post by donatj » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:05 AM UTC

xnull2guest wrote: post #121

Reddit's content curation has come at a time when social media writ large (Facebook, Twitter) has become linked into State Department and DoD programs. Counter-intelligence objectives are fought on the 'private property' of social media servers that host the content of individuals. Fighting the 'War of Ideas' in the 'cognitive domain of warfare', the effort to starve unwanted ideas for a place to roost and feed other…

This says what I have spent the last few years of my life trying to say.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#160

Post by dingo_bat » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:10 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #144

dingo_bat wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that the post in question is "inflammatory"in any way. If hn is going to be so strictly/randomly moderated that you have to think twice before presenting your reasonable views, it can't be good for the website.

That's not a "reasonable view", it's a fantasy that purports to read other people's minds from 10 years ago in order to demean their work. I'm pretty comfortable saying comments like that don't belong on HN and that we would all do better to think more and inhibit ourselves before posting them. If people want to slag others on the internet, there are plenty of places to do it; here we try for a higher standard.

>Reddit isn't Internet infrastructure. It is a startup. The plan from day one was to make a kinder, gentler imageboard, get acquired, and make the founders rich.

Can you point out the specific words that "demean" the work of others? All I see is the assertion that reddit is a startup (which is factual) and the founders wanted to get rich (which is true for every founder I know, and is not demeaning in any way).