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

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

#571

Post by nojvek »

tootie wrote: post #224
lazycouchpotato wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their mobile website is equally bad. A gigantic pop-up takes up half of the screen to tell you to use their app. Third party apps make Reddit so much more usable.

I always use https://i.reddit.com . It's their years-old mobile site and it's super fast and reliable.

It’s really amazing how many major websites don’t give a shit about perf. Their old school mobile interfaces end up giving the best user experience.

Perf is user experience. It’s a feature!

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

#572

Post by Zak »

zeveb wrote: post #80
minimaxir wrote: post #19

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.…

> 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. That's always the thing I liked about Reddit, and something I never found baffling at all . 'Here's our platform; please don't break the law' is a nice, easily understandable, easily followable policy. 'Here's our pla…

I think "platforms shouldn't censor" is arguably one of the core values of the early internet. For the first half of its life to date, reddit seemed to share that value.

Unfortunately, it's hard to take a strong stand on that position in the face of public pressure when the thing people want censored is something as close to child pornography as people can find without stepping over the legal line, or Nazis calling for innocents to be harmed. I think I'm in the majority when I say that those things are bad.

On the other hand, I firmly believe that the existence of uncensored platforms is good. A history of caving to demands to censor bad things says that censorship in on the table and demands to censor anything someone doesn't like might be successful. Already, reddit has ventured beyond banning things that are horrible to banning things that have some mild potential for regulatory issues (trading beer and selling firearms is not affected by FOSTA, so far as I am aware).

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

#573

Post by remir »

posterboy wrote: post #554
remir wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can sense when there's harmony in music, but what about an opinion? To me, the real problem is lack of emotional distance. I was in a thread where a woman declared that all men are inherently abusive/violent toward women. I pointed out to her that this is not only a ridiculous statement, but also quite insulting. How can we make such sweeping generalization? I was down-voted and told that my feeling didn't mat…

> To me, the real problem is lack of emotional distance. I don't understand. True, objectivity is an ideal. But language is inherently subjective. At that your annecdotal evidence, for example. Ironic, isn't it?

It's not ironic. My feeling don't matter in the discussion with the women, she just said my feeling don't matter, probably to invalidate what I said to her.

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

#574

Post by Zak »

Recoveringhobo wrote: post #366
notMick wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that mean though? People who post in one sub aren't allowed to be in any other sub? People in TD can write in others subs too, as can people from late stage capitalism. Wanting to forcibly segregate and silence people with different opinions is I think at the heart of the problem with silicon valley right now. 'remove those who disagree with me' has killed hundreds of millions over the years, and is a commo…

We have this debate over and over again in r/berkeley, a community which I used to be an active part of. Essentially, every time Berkeley makes national news the sub gets brigaded by TD. Some of those trolls stick around and then post tired tirades anytime there is something remotely political on the sub. And some of them even try to pose as Berkeley students. Almost everyone on the sub is tired of the constant briga…

I had similar issues running /r/ronpaul where there was a sustained, concerted effort by opponents to disrupt the conversation. One of said opponents went on to found /r/the_donald.

It's fairly hard to ban people on a site where account creation is as easy as it is on reddit. Moderator tools have improved a little since, but remain inadequate for dealing with sustained brigading.

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

#575

Post by curioussavage »

evilduck wrote: post #113
pjscott wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsubscribe from /r/politics. Unsubscribe from /r/worldnews. Find the handful of subreddits that are bothering you and unsubcribe from them . The discussions I read on Reddit are overall nicer than those on HN, not because the userbase as a whole is better, but because it has sewers where the crap is concentrated -- and you can easily avoid them. That's one of their most important features.

I would extend that further to _unsubscribe from all default subreddits_. Start from a blank slate and search for subreddits that actually interest you and seem reasonable. Yeah, you're also creating an "echo chamber" if you participate in polarizing topics, but hopefully you're aware that you're doing that to yourself.

If you try to create a new account there is a signup flow where you pick subs from categories. Defaults are not a thing anymore.

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

#576

Post by creep »

Bartweiss wrote: post #74
austincheney wrote: post #4

Reddit wouldn't be so toxic if the vote counts were hidden, but echo chamber validation is the ultimate badge of honor there. There is so much in this document that applies to all things Reddit (please note that I wrote it inspired by my time on Reddit) : https://github.com/prettydiff/wisdom/blob/master/Avoiding_Tr...

I'm not sure hiding vote counts is sufficient, since comments are still displayed based on them. The 'Theory of Reddit' sub did some pretty compelling analyses showing that the first 3-5 votes almost completely predict eventual vote direction, and that the top comments in a thread will consistently be the first handful of upvoted comments. Which also explains complaints of the shape "Reddit hates X one day, but loves…

I don't actually comment in reddit threads with more than 15 comments for this reason: there's no point, no one will read it. And if they do, they won't care.

The vote thing is true. If I'm the first to comment I'm usually at the top, or near the top, of the thread.

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

#577

Post by NotAMoose »

smittywerben wrote: post #223
gaius wrote: post #86

And sure enough they didn’t do anything, and sure enough deaths were caused because of the shit going on in their channels. Which incident is this referring to?

Likely this, but perhaps something else... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunil_Tripathi#Misidentificati...

No, Discord wasn't around at the time of the Boston Bombing. I believe (though don't know) that he's referring to some of the white nationalist stuff, like Charlottesville perhaps.

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

#578

Post by moomin »

rjbwork wrote: post #523
aplummer wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1st point: It’s been done for hundreds of millions of people and hundreds of millions of guns, and it’s regulation not removing all guns, which is already done in the US, you can’t get a rocket launcher, so why am assault rifle? No banned guns, just licenses, gun safes, regulation on types, reasonable ownership limits (all farmers I know in Aus have 5+ guns) - that’s all it takes to stop mass shootings. If it’s a hob…

Seems like you can, in fact, buy a rocket launcher. A quick google search showed that there are a number of sites on which to obtain one. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-rocket-launcher-gu...

The argument generalises to Abrams tanks, Minuteman missiles and nuclear bombs.

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

#579

Post by pdonis »

loriverkutya wrote: post #562
pdonis wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ll reply to the troll. By trolling yourself? > How are weapon manufacturers not responsible for the deaths caused by their toys? Guns are not toys. They are potentially lethal devices that should be used responsibly. So are many other things, like cars. We don't ban everyone from using cars because some people can't use them responsibly. Nor do we blame the car manufacturer every time someone has an accident. (If…

> What baffles me is how intelligent people want to live in a society where the only people who have a choice about having a gun are lawbreakers and law enforcement, thereby putting themselves at the mercy of criminals and the response time of the police. It's called the European Union. And we have not been overrun by lawbreakers.

> we have not been overrun by lawbreakers.

Maybe not yet, but haven't EU crime rates for things like homicide and assault been increasing for the last few years?

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

#580

Post by abritinthebay »

jessaustin wrote: post #540
abritinthebay wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s completely compatible with an upvote only system. So I don’t see your objection?

I post here a lot and my posts get downvoted and upvoted a lot. I don't see any "gaming mechanics", whatever that is. If you have a reason to believe that stuff is happening, please share that with the rest of us. Also, you overstate this "compatibility". For humans, loss hurts more than gain feels good. Voting with negative as well as positive reinforcement is simply more effective at changing comment styles.

I think you might be confused as to what I meant by gaming mechanics. I'm not positing a vast network of deliberate bots or bad actors or anything.

I'm talking about gaming in the abstract psychological and problem theory sense.

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