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Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

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Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#81

Post by rsheridan6 »

nl wrote: post #78
_delirium wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even HN isn't that much different imo, especially outside its core competence of technical discussion (which is quite good). Discussions about economics, government, education, etc., on reddit and HN are about equally annoying to me (though I occasionally seem to fail to abstain from them at both places), with a lot of mob-mentality, up/down-voting based on agreement/disagreement, and not very well thought out knee-j…

I'm left-of-center (by US standards anyway) I find making sensible, well reasoned and referenced arguments works pretty well. I've never been voted down because people disagreed with me.

Reddit is left of center, so that's not surprising.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#82

Post by radu_floricica »

Just an observation for those here who haven't spent a lot of time on reddit: the main page is _much_ more superficial then what you can get if you make an effort. When you're logged in you can subscribe and unsubscribe from subreddits. Once you get rid of pictures, wtf, politics and a couple more things already look a lot more mature... and then you can start looking for more obscure but rewarding ones.

A good example of what a smallish sub-forum can do, take a look at http://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/. This is a topic I'm interested in, but there are literally thousands of subreddits, smaller or bigger.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#84

Post by skbohra123 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #75
skbohra123 wrote: post #26

Am I the only one here who doesn't know what's 4chan ?

Probably not, but (and not to be snarky or anything... well, maybe just a little), you do know what Google and Wikipedia are.... right? I never understand the point of posts that ask knowledge that can be easily obtained (in both concise and verbose forms; with all the perspective and facts you could want) by just clicking on one of the top 5 results in Google.

Probably the intent of such posts is to find out if I am outdated or what? If more people haven't heard about something discussed here I would be convinced that this isn't something to worry about.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#85

Post by crocowhile »

rdtsc wrote: post #27
tav wrote: post #4

Am I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thi…

> But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place. To put in the cliché Freudian speak -- Reddit is the Id and HN is Superego. Reddit is the place to call people stupid, post silly pictures of cats, but also a place to get together and donate for a cause, talk someone out of a suicide, or just spread around stupid memes for fun. A well placed witty on…

I think you are all being very unfair. I find the same proportions of insightful comments on reddit and HN but I find HN has a form of snobism that I profoundly dislike. Not in all users, but it's obviously there and sucks.

If you avoid the stupidest subreddits (/pics, /funny, etc) it's actually amazing what high level of discussion you can meet. (while having a good laugh too, btw).

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#87

Post by Natsu »

wvenable wrote: post #59
Lewisham wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is not a place to have dialogue. Community-moderated areas just aren't very good at it. Even HN has been accused from suffering groupthink. If you want dialogue, forums, mailing lists or better yet, the real world (if you can find the community you need to discuss things with), is a better place to have it.

Reddit is a very good place to have a discussion with a small group of people -- thanks to the orangered envelope you get whenever someone replies to one of your posts. HN, by comparison, discussions last only as long as the link remains on the homepage. On reddit, I've had conversations go on for weeks.

> HN, by comparison, discussions last only as long as the link remains on the homepage

Maybe if you don't check your threads for replies. Granted, not everyone does that, but I've conversed with more than a few folks long after the original story vanished.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#88

Post by StavrosK »

ronnoch wrote: post #19
jewbacca wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps compared to HN. But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. While a large proportion of the up/down-voting is from petty agreement, there is still a strong enough core of "productive discussion" voting to overcome it. Especially with knee-jerk outrage stories, there's as much skepticism as I've seen in any o…

> But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. Have you been there recently? They're "contrarian" in the sense that they disagree with the non-Reddit mainstream, but they hardly respect contrarianism to their own views. I definitely would not call them "open-minded." (At least, not in the main subreddits. There are s…

I disagree. Sure, it's susceptible to groupthink, but one comment by someone pointing this out is enough to turn the scales. I have never seen a single "don't downvote this guy, he's making a good point" not reverse the downvotes and lead to the person being upvoted (unless he wasn't making a good argument, but I've never seen that).

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#89

Post by StavrosK »

zeraholladay wrote: post #44
jewbacca wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're having two discussions in parallel: on the objective value of Reddit given its circumstances, and on our own personal taste for using it. You're probably much better off in many ways for not visiting. I would like to know how informed abstainers see Reddit. I feel like given some contrived option to identify themselves with the heritage of their birth culture or nationality, or by their careers, or by where the…

I'm not sure what you mean by informed abstainers, but if you mean informed abstainers of Reddit then I can speak for myself. I see Reddit as a self-aggrandizing media outlet. Members generally accept liberal values as status quo. Meaningful discussion imitates base prime time political discourse. Some of my specific gripes are: 1. Racism on Reddit is an acceptable subtext, as long as the subtext is funny. 2. Sexism…

I think it's more that making racist/sexist jokes is acceptable, as long as people aren't offended. Telling racist/sexist jokes is not the same as being racist/sexist.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#90

Post by sounddust »

katovatzschyn wrote: post #20
ronnoch wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. Have you been there recently? They're "contrarian" in the sense that they disagree with the non-Reddit mainstream, but they hardly respect contrarianism to their own views. I definitely would not call them "open-minded." (At least, not in the main subreddits. There are s…

> Have you been there recently? Have you been anywhere else recently? Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded? I am easy to criticize reddit, popular as it is on HN, but it is a surprising community for its large population, and as you say the smaller parts of it can be very good. One can find all the flaws with a thing that one wishes to but, in the end, if none are…

Have you been anywhere else recently? Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded?

No community is perfect, but I'd say that Metafilter is considerably more tolerant and open to a wide range of opinions on a subject. You can't downvote others if you disagree with them, and baseless attacks are simply deleted by moderators; it forces you to build a well-reasoned argument if you want to debate.

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