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Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

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Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#341

Post by pmarreck »

bradlys wrote: post #195
Shank wrote: post #94

The biggest value gain from Reddit, to me, is the ability to centralize effectively around different hobbies and activities. In the past, if you wanted to find an online community for a movie or a game, you had to find a forum for that community. Finding forums that are well managed and capture a good segment of the community is hard -- and Reddit just becomes a default place to look now. Let's say a new TV show star…

I think it's okay to some extent but I find that forums definitely are a much better resource and controversial threads or posts in forums don't get buried or hidden by a downvote. Some of the most humorous threads you'll read would have had a -inf rating and thus never seen on reddit. To me, reddit seems a great way for a community to reinforce groupthink. Instances I can think of are forums for motorcycles, cars, p…

> To me, reddit seems a great way for a community to reinforce groupthink.

I think this is due to its utterly basic up/downvoting as well as its completely-unenforced TOS which state you should not downvote simply for disagreeing.

When you downvote, you should have to specify a reason (such as "offtopic") and one of the reasons should not remotely be "I disagree"

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#342

Post by pmarreck »

undersuit wrote: post #162
Chathamization wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's say a new TV show starts airing, and you really like it and want to discuss it more. You can probably bet there's a subreddit for it, and in that community, a ton of people interested in it. Before someone could go to the IMDB forums and discuss it. I think they did the job a lot better - if you found a conversation about a particular episode and wanted to comment on it a few weeks after it was made, you coul…

I didn't know IMDB even had forums. And they're gone.

IMDB forums were fantastic. I still have plenty of posts/comments on there. But if they're now gone, that's sad

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#343

Post by pmarreck »

city41 wrote: post #188
Shank wrote: post #94

The biggest value gain from Reddit, to me, is the ability to centralize effectively around different hobbies and activities. In the past, if you wanted to find an online community for a movie or a game, you had to find a forum for that community. Finding forums that are well managed and capture a good segment of the community is hard -- and Reddit just becomes a default place to look now. Let's say a new TV show star…

It's essentially usenet for current times. Which I've always found interesting, as usenet would give reddit users back the freedoms they often crave: no ads, no censorship, no tracking, etc.

Don't forget "no banning"

There was a mod once that banned everyone across all feminist/gender subreddits who was subscribed to /r/redpill once, based purely on potential toxicity. I was only subscribed to talk some sense into those guys, but instead I got banned from the very subreddits I was being a good contributor to (I was a Psych major and am interested in those things).

So as a result I simply unsubbed across all my Reddit accounts from everything and anything gender-related and everything that was not supportive or sex-positive, because it's an un-critically-thinking cesspool (actually, this criticism can sadly be levied at most of Reddit proper).

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#344

Post by jwalton »

bradlys wrote: post #195
Shank wrote: post #94

The biggest value gain from Reddit, to me, is the ability to centralize effectively around different hobbies and activities. In the past, if you wanted to find an online community for a movie or a game, you had to find a forum for that community. Finding forums that are well managed and capture a good segment of the community is hard -- and Reddit just becomes a default place to look now. Let's say a new TV show star…

I think it's okay to some extent but I find that forums definitely are a much better resource and controversial threads or posts in forums don't get buried or hidden by a downvote. Some of the most humorous threads you'll read would have had a -inf rating and thus never seen on reddit. To me, reddit seems a great way for a community to reinforce groupthink. Instances I can think of are forums for motorcycles, cars, p…

> It's easier when there's a little profile picture next to the name.

I've been thinking about updating my GitHub profile photo, but this is what's stopping me. No one will know who I am anymore. :P

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#346

Post by camelCaseOfBeer »

cortesoft wrote: post #298
bradlys wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's okay to some extent but I find that forums definitely are a much better resource and controversial threads or posts in forums don't get buried or hidden by a downvote. Some of the most humorous threads you'll read would have had a -inf rating and thus never seen on reddit. To me, reddit seems a great way for a community to reinforce groupthink. Instances I can think of are forums for motorcycles, cars, p…

While it is true that sometimes valid, yet unpopular, opinions get downvoted and buried, most of the times the things getting downvoted and buried are simply comments or opinions that are worthless. They are either trolls, racist, or derogatory comments that I WANT to have hidden from my view. I think the upvote/downvote system is what makes reddit so popular, since it acts to filter out the useless comments that oft…

Damn that's a lot of commas. - useless comment

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#347

Post by mmt »

slg wrote: post #279
manfredo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's no debate to be had on affirmative action, and everyone who supports it is racist and wrong? Plenty of people I know consider it racist. The reality is, how people and groups define terms like racism, bigotry, and misogyny is often very politicized.

It is possible to have a civil discussion about things like affirmative action or immigration policy. Many reasonable people can disagree on those issues (racists just happen to have very strong opinions on these issues). You are being naive if you think everything that is labeled as racist on Reddit is part of a normal civil discussion. Subreddits like /r/Coontown and the many-headed hydra that pop up whenever those…

I think you're getting closer to a more useful definition of "toxic" here than your original comment where you asserted "There is one clear side that is wrong".

The problem with this latter/original assertion is that you are at once acknowledging that there are "sides" and, therefore, a debate to be had but at once shutting it down as not worth having. Obviously, with this comment, it's clear you don't actually believe that, though.

> They are looking to spread hate.

Here's where I think you get closest to the root of what I think is the real origin of online toxicity. For lack of a better term, I think it's trolling for emotion.

I'm not convinced that even what you're saying, that they're looking to spread "hate", is strictly true, but I do agree that they're looking to invoke a strong emotional response, whatever that may be.

I'm pretty sure that some trolls don't even believe in the "side" they claim to support. The message doesn't even have to stand up to rational scrutiny, so it need not even have a true side.

> Hate is not a political opinion. Hate is not worth tolerating.

To the extent that such strong emotional response serves to shut down conversation, it's toxic, and I agree it's not worth tolerating.

However, I think it's dangerous to apply such broad labels, especially if it's focused on the opinions (e.g. racism) rather than the behavior (e.g. appeal to emotion).

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#349

Post by Macha »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #238
relic wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do need an email to sign up, although since they allow a user to be 'logged in' as more than one user at a time, they may allow more than one account per email address. And they don't do email confirmation, though. Maybe that's what you're thinking of.

>You do need an email to sign up No you don't. You can leave the email box blank and sign up with no problems.

Not anymore.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#350

Post by mastazi »

bradlys wrote: post #195
Shank wrote: post #94

The biggest value gain from Reddit, to me, is the ability to centralize effectively around different hobbies and activities. In the past, if you wanted to find an online community for a movie or a game, you had to find a forum for that community. Finding forums that are well managed and capture a good segment of the community is hard -- and Reddit just becomes a default place to look now. Let's say a new TV show star…

I think it's okay to some extent but I find that forums definitely are a much better resource and controversial threads or posts in forums don't get buried or hidden by a downvote. Some of the most humorous threads you'll read would have had a -inf rating and thus never seen on reddit. To me, reddit seems a great way for a community to reinforce groupthink. Instances I can think of are forums for motorcycles, cars, p…

> I think it's okay to some extent but I find that forums definitely are a much better resource and controversial threads or posts in forums don't get buried or hidden by a downvote.

In many of my hobbies it's the other way around, controversial topics are censored or locked by overzealous forum admins but are visible on Reddit, which has a more laissez-faire attitude in terms of moderation.

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