Reddit is still in turmoil • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#171

Post by mindslight » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:42 AM UTC

eropple wrote: post #96

mindslight wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The only reason web forums exist is because people are lazy about adopting decentralized Free software Or because that open-source software is user-hostile and has no serious argument for its use for 99% of people. When users don't do something you like, in almost every instance it's your failing rather than theirs.

Free software is merely user-unfriendly (presently). Webapps are user-hostile - overtly functioning as agents of third parties rather than their users.

Blame isn't singular - describing users as lazy, including ourselves for using this website, both encourages individuals to exert more effort adopting better solutions and just plainly characterizes the problem.

I do agree that the most productive way forward is for Free software to accept this facet for what it is, and to step up its quality.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#172

Post by im4w1l » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:43 AM UTC

beefsack wrote: post #23

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…

> If there is a lesson in this, it is that online communities which plan to implement anti-harassment policies ought to do so from the beginning, and develop the expectation among the users that such policies exist, and will continue to exist. A few relatively popular programming languages have begun publishing official community code of conduct documents[1][2]. While initially I thought it was a bit overreaching, I…

The Rust leadership tolerates harassment and threats as long as its against the right wing. One of Rust's top people wants to violently purge the tech community.

https://archive.is/BtDaA

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#173

Post by beedogs » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:44 AM UTC

Still a garbage dump full of racists, misogynists, and low-class trolls, too. Reddit should be nuked from orbit.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#174

Post by tamana » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:45 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…

Reddit was mostly fine until they shut down the hate subs which pushed the hate crowd into the other subs.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#175

Post by rat87 » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:48 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.

Reddit doesn't have that many features hell it lacks tools for getting notification on sibling, or aunt/uncle comments, and you can't even edit threads more then 6 months old.

It doesn't have a standard spoiler syntax for comments or a spoiler tag(people hack it in with nsfw tags styled to say spoiler but from the main page it will look like porn(ie be marked nsfw)).

It lacks a wysiwyg editor by default. It would be nice to have a nsfw subreddit namespace so that sex related subreddits don't take up possibly safe/useful names and so that you know that /r/humanporn isn't porn. Also a nsfl tag. Ability to expand "ALL" comments. Ability to pick percentage of home page each of your subscribed subs get.

Also a policy that allows removing bad mods from power, ie /r/Holocaust really should not be run by anti-semitic holocaust deniers.

Oh a way to sort posts by reverse age and allow posts in between time x and y not just last hour/day/month/year.

---

Of course reddit does have good mobile apps (at least on android), a competitor would need a good mobile app for at least 2 systems which can take a while.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#176

Post by dorfsmay » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:49 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.…

> user generated content is worthless; largely racism and porn." It's driven by the lowest common denominator

stackoverflow would be one counter example.

So would a lot of subreddit (IS, CS, and science oriented ones for example).

Oh and what about wikipedia?

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#177

Post by tamana » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:52 AM UTC

im4w1l wrote: post #172

beefsack wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there is a lesson in this, it is that online communities which plan to implement anti-harassment policies ought to do so from the beginning, and develop the expectation among the users that such policies exist, and will continue to exist. A few relatively popular programming languages have begun publishing official community code of conduct documents[1][2]. While initially I thought it was a bit overreaching, I…

The Rust leadership tolerates harassment and threats as long as its against the right wing. One of Rust's top people wants to violently purge the tech community. https://archive.is/BtDaA

Twitter is not part of Rust code of conduct, the code of conduct does not apply to off-project politcal conversations.

https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#178

Post by dang » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:53 AM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #160

dang wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

"The plan from day one was to make a kinder, gentler imageboard [and] get acquired".

This superciliously presumes to know what the founders were thinking, makes it sound like they didn't actually care about Reddit since "from day one" they supposedly had something more trivial in mind, and implies that they were merely in it for a quick flip.

In reality they were almost certainly more genuine about it than that; they sold Reddit early, but they also both went back to it years later, which is extraordinary. So the above is uncharitable and trivializing, and seems intended to diminish a.k.a. demean them and their work. Such a low level of discourse is not welcome on HN, whether it's the Reddit founders being demeaned or anybody else.

It's also easily disproven by what's publicly known about the origins of Reddit (pg suggested they make a social news site, not an image board), so the comment is guilty of intellectual laziness too. It's not surprising that these poor qualities show up together.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#179

Post by vintermann » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:56 AM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #120

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.…

>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. That's really not what happened at Digg. The problem at Digg was a structure which rewarded "power users" and allowed third party commercial interests to gain control of the site. It's bad enough that Digg had advertising - eventually we were looking a…

Yes, to say that user generated content is porn and racism, that really says more about the person saying it.

(A more real problem is that early adopters of any web community building effort are overwhelmingly just there to self-promote in one form or another.)

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#180

Post by tamana » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:57 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #72

brokenmachine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine a situation where someone has beliefs that do not affect his actions in any way. I would agree that unexpressed values would propagate less.

> I can't imagine a situation where someone has beliefs that do not affect his actions in any way. That was an extreme example used to illustrate the point I was making. Racism is also only an example; there are plenty of other beliefs that are bad for society. Personally, I suspect that sexism is probably far more prevalent on Reddit than racism, for example. Social stigma can prevent one's beliefs from affecting on…

Now explain why Facebook has far worse racist garbage than Reddit (at least the parts that mainstream users see without digging for crap) proudly on display to family and friends and the public, Real Name and photos attached.