‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’ • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#11

Post by rexpop » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

antoineMoPa wrote: post #8

tudelo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say that I agree with that. There are plenty of subreddits that are not the official ones that have great communities and do great things for its members... (/r/learnprogramming or /r/askamechanic and such)

There are marginal nice subreddits, but the platform as a whole has a problem.

Society as a whole has the problem.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#12

Post by TAForObvReasons » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

> The incentive structure is simply growth at all costs. There was never, in any board meeting that I have ever attended, a conversation about the users, about things that were going on that were bad, about potential dangers, about decisions that might affect potential dangers. There was never a conversation about that stuff.

This externality-disregarding culture was idolized in SV for the last decade or so. It's nice to see some self-reflection, but unfortunately the VC community, without heavy regulation, is structurally unable to value anything other than growth.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#13

Post by ben_jones » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #7

megaman22 wrote: post #2

I'm sure that's what most people could say about their time at, or on, Reddit.

Reddit is just a reflection of the world. There is both good and bad there. It is very easy to avoid the bad. Only visit the subreddits that you know are good. For instance, I'm a boardgamer and r/boardgames is a very friendly place. Other subreddits I frequent like r/woodworking, r/bodyweightfitness, r/campingandhiking are likewise places that positively contribute to the world.

Reddit is a reflection of the internet world. Don't forget how many people don't use the internet at all, or people who interact with the internet in only a minor way during their day to day (a debit card transaction, a text message, a social media notification...)

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#14

Post by gizmo385 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

antoineMoPa wrote: post #8

tudelo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say that I agree with that. There are plenty of subreddits that are not the official ones that have great communities and do great things for its members... (/r/learnprogramming or /r/askamechanic and such)

There are marginal nice subreddits, but the platform as a whole has a problem.

Reddit is simply a reflection of the communities that you decide to browse. Browse only the communities that interest you and ignore the rest.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#15

Post by rightos » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

Synroc wrote: post #9

darepublic wrote: post #5

What I can never reconcile with is that when mainstream media means 'toxic' they are never referring to the /r/latestagecapitalism plastered all over the front page of reddit. They protest the fact that somewhere, hidden from popular view a minority of people hold a different view from the extreme leftist one.

What’s wrong with r/latestagecapitalism?

Admins do nothing to prevent extreme moderation as occurs on there from deleting any comment with an alternative viewpoint. Yet it appears quite consistently on the front page with only agreement in its comments section.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#16

Post by empath75 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

Fundamentally, the problem with the site is that Reddit was happy getting growth on the back of people searching for jailbait[1] and creepshot porn and white supremacists for years and they have a user base that reflects that. A lot of the power mods that run the largest subreddits are just awful human beings. I don't see how they fix that short of nuking the whole site from orbit and starting over.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20110429125747/http://www.alexa.c... (check the top search terms)

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#17

Post by abnry » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:11 PM UTC

I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#18

Post by lechiffre10 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:11 PM UTC

I've significantly reduced my time on Reddit. Used to pull up the website out of curiosity every day but the atmosphere is incredibly toxic. My front page was riddled with Russiagate stuff too for some reason and every time you'd bring up an argument that isn't the norm you get a mob after you.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#19

Post by minimaxir » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

As many on Hacker News know, I've been an avid fan of Reddit and believe that their data and community, and there's still a lot more that can be done that can be derived from that data that can't be found anywhere else.

That said, from an administrative perspective, the intense hands-free policies are baffling. You'd expect a company based off the nature of community would engage with their community and their needs. Admittingly, that's not very profitable.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#20

Post by 49531 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

rightos wrote: post #15

Synroc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with r/latestagecapitalism?

Admins do nothing to prevent extreme moderation as occurs on there from deleting any comment with an alternative viewpoint. Yet it appears quite consistently on the front page with only agreement in its comments section.

I'd say extreme moderation is probably the opposite of toxic.