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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

#371

Post by neolefty »

swebs wrote: post #234
slg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of toxic people we are talking about on Reddit are not toxic for their politics. Racism, bigotry, and misogyny are not political topics. It isn't like tax policy or any other topic that can be debated. There is one clear side that is wrong.

>There is one clear side that is wrong. You're doing a really good impression of the average toxic Reddit user.

I think this is the more important part of the quote:

> Racism, bigotry, and misogyny are not political topics.

Is there gray to any of those?

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

#372

Post by bruhbruhbruh »

Macha wrote: post #349
txcwpalpha wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

You're incorrect. You can leave the email field blank.

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

#373

Post by smsm42 »

kevstev wrote: post #185
TremendousJudge wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There should be Moore's/ Poe's law for the correlation of the size and influence of a site to the amount of corporate influence on said site. For parody subreddits, I think there's a rule that at 80k subs, it starts to become the very thing it was parodying in the first place

Its kind of astonishing to me how no one even seems to notice. Its not so popular now, but the /r/murica used to be a joke about overzealous patriotism, then it became something... else. pcmasterrace way back in the day did the same, now its just a pc enthusiast subreddit. I didn't pay as much attention to it, but the the_donald originally was tongue in cheek before it was overtaken by trump zealots and just strangen…

> but the /r/murica used to be a joke about overzealous patriotism, then it became something... else

Maybe people did notice, and just decided to take this subreddit for something else than laughing at over-patriotism. It's a very successful strategy against shaming, if you can pull it off - just not being ashamed and not being afraid to demonstrate it. Reddit provides excellent venue for that, subreddits being good Schelling points.

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

#374

Post by Fnoord »

braindongle wrote: post #360
fhood wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't assume forums are somehow freer of group-think because they are less accessible. Once they get established, the existing user base tends to push out anyone that doesn't agree with their views. Some subreddits are awesome, and some are way less awesome. And much of the best, most informative and technical information out there lives on subreddits. Many people pine for the days when only the most savvy users knew…

IMO, groupthink is worse here than on Reddit, or at least the subs I visit. Divergent thinking is often celebrated. Here it's more about convergence to the most defensibly informed perspective. I may be wrong, and these differences are subtle in any event. Regardless, any discussion of groupthink on HN should include some critical self-reflection. Please downvote me!

Everyone has a different perception on that. Sure, HN is big. Reddit is huge though, with tons upon tons of subreddits. What you perceived based on subreddit X or Y someone else felt different, or they also went to subreddit Z, or solely subreddit Z.

HN serves a rather specific goal, it is basically PG/YC's playground. This community will never be allowed to deviate much from their interests. That's a given you know pretty much when you sign up though.

At the very least Reddit is far more broad. So of course you're going to find a subreddit where you feel you belong. Some just might have to search further. In a way that's an easy statement to make though akin to "If you date enough people, you'll eventually find your soulmate."

Anyway, the comparison is moot due to the size difference. Its more fair to compare subreddits or groups of subreddits (how does that work?) with HN. Such as say startup-related subreddits.

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

#375

Post by asclepi »

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 also appreciate the open nature of Reddit. No account is required if you just want to read, and you don't need to be first "approved" to most subreddits to be able to contribute. No "real-name" policies that often do more harm than good either.

While Facebook by default erects walls around content, Reddit by default promotes the free sharing and equal access to information, which resonates much more with the original promise and mission of the internet.

It's encouraging to see Reddit overtaking Facebook in popularity at a time when the freedoms of the internet are often under attack. Yes, Reddit has its flaws, but in the end, it is one of the best defenses that we have.

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

#376

Post by neolefty »

bitL wrote: post #266
exelius wrote: post #15

Reddit works because it’s anonymous, information-dense and relatively ad-free. Change any one of those three and the user base will abandon you. It’s been Reddit’s dilemma since the beginning: you can’t monetize a toxic user base that has total freedom. Sure you can try to drive away the toxic users, but it turns out that those toxic users are also pretty influential in non-toxic aspects. I’m still skeptical of Reddi…

> Reddit’s ability to turn a profit Maybe our society should recognize that some platforms should be treated as utilities, impose a small tax ($5? 0.05%?) which individuals can dedicate to a platform of their choice, and keep these vital forums away from crushing forces of market?

Wikipedia does well with a periodic fundraiser. Hi Jimbo!

Could Reddit do similarly? Style itself as mostly a service and not especially profit-driven?

Hi, I'm @spez. By Creddits this week to help Reddit meet its quarterly fundraising goal! We've gamified it a little ...

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

#377

Post by pbhjpbhj »

exelius wrote: post #15

Reddit works because it’s anonymous, information-dense and relatively ad-free. Change any one of those three and the user base will abandon you. It’s been Reddit’s dilemma since the beginning: you can’t monetize a toxic user base that has total freedom. Sure you can try to drive away the toxic users, but it turns out that those toxic users are also pretty influential in non-toxic aspects. I’m still skeptical of Reddi…

>Reddit works because it’s anonymous //

Yet I presume the majority of the drive to make users use the app is in order to deanonymise them and associate their input with a real person?

>I’m still skeptical of Reddit’s ability to turn a profit. //

The reason it fits in with a media conglomerates portfolio must be influencing and profiling, no? Such profits aren't direct, they're through things like tax regimes tailored to the overlords, political systems that serve your needs, etc.. That's the media tycoon game isn't it?

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

#378

Post by Fnoord »

jaypeg25 wrote: post #302
fhood wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't assume forums are somehow freer of group-think because they are less accessible. Once they get established, the existing user base tends to push out anyone that doesn't agree with their views. Some subreddits are awesome, and some are way less awesome. And much of the best, most informative and technical information out there lives on subreddits. Many people pine for the days when only the most savvy users knew…

Getting rid of anonymity would probably help.

Does that solve the problem on Facebook?

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

#379

Post by Macha »

fudged71 wrote: post #311
dageshi wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also a long time reddit user, 10 or so years at this point. It's not obvious to me that reddit is particularly different than it was in the past. There's just more of it now.

If you browse /r/all/top?t=day it is VERY different from a few years ago I remember the first slide to anarchy was vague titles. "This." or "Good boy" etc would never be upvoted. Instead you would have long descriptive titles that summarized the link. Images became far more common to share, with imgur and then reddit providing hosting. Subreddit politics got crazy between moderators of large subreddits and between ad…

Really? f7u12 was really big early on, as was wtf, politics, atheism (back when the sub was way more crapping on religion) and videos:

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.gawkera...

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

#380

Post by hndamien »

braindongle wrote: post #360
fhood wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't assume forums are somehow freer of group-think because they are less accessible. Once they get established, the existing user base tends to push out anyone that doesn't agree with their views. Some subreddits are awesome, and some are way less awesome. And much of the best, most informative and technical information out there lives on subreddits. Many people pine for the days when only the most savvy users knew…

IMO, groupthink is worse here than on Reddit, or at least the subs I visit. Divergent thinking is often celebrated. Here it's more about convergence to the most defensibly informed perspective. I may be wrong, and these differences are subtle in any event. Regardless, any discussion of groupthink on HN should include some critical self-reflection. Please downvote me!

This is exacerbated by the down-voting and flagging asymmetry by established members. I understand how it makes sense to weight those that successfully contribute more to have greater power since they (by some metric) are the community since they were here first and have successfully contributed more. However, it does create the effect that a dissenting viewpoint, if unpopular among those with power, can be effectively squashed. Exhibit A: A very cordial and constructive conversation that was flagged and buried. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17139934

Reddit has a different weighting on this stuff and as a result you get a different culture, and these even differ between sub-reddits, but have the signature of a different weighting system, and a greater ability for sock puppeting. I don't think one is better or worse, just that these trade offs are there and have to happen.

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